Most of what I hear about Robert Mueller’s investigation pertains to the past, as if Russia’s intentions to destroy our democracy ended in 2016. Russia’s future intentions to attack our country aren’t even on our radar. Perhaps we are so constantly inundated with events bordering on farce that we have trouble focusing long enough to get a good look at anything at all, and that even appears to be a strategy being implemented by our Tweeter In Chief.
Russian meddling, subversion, hacking, attacking – all of that pertains to our future. This is no prophecy; it is easy to see. Russian hacking of the 2020 election, if we allow it, is as historically certain as the 2020 election itself.
I have asked my conservative friends, “Why is that OK? And, by siding with Putin against American intelligence experts and signaling that he will do nothing to defend against it, why is it OK that Trump is helping Russia to continue to attack us in the future?”
I got an answer, and I swear it went almost exactly like this: Obama also spoke with Putin about all manner of world business, so Obama also colluded with Putin and Russia, so my friend doesn’t see any problem when Trump does it.
As jaw-droppingly ridiculous as that argument is, my conservative friend bought it somehow. I have no doubts that destroying the democracies of the west and sabotaging our electoral process is business as usual to Russia, but from an American perspective it is a fundamental threat to our freedoms and way of life. If we lose our vote and our representation, we lose everything unless we happen to be one of the connected oligarchs, and I believe one must ignore nearly every page of history to deny that. It is as if he is comparing collusion to murder with collusion to organize a seminar.
My conservative friend is not stupid. Millions of people think as he does – they are not all stupid. Why are they buying such a stupid argument (every argument making us oblivious to imminent attack is probably stupid) about something so dangerously important? The answer is surprisingly simple: Mention Obama or Clinton, or better yet both, and the primal brain of the conservative hearer will follow, allowing almost any absurd suggestion to be accepted as correct. I mean this literally.
I imagine that knowledge of such power by Trump – that he can say and do whatever he wants, and to get away with it all he must do is say “Obama” or “Crooked Hillary” – is almost an orgiastic experience for him. I imagine that the very day Donald Trump had the epiphany that by saying “Obama” or “Hillary” … he could act out every juvenile fantasy he has from now on … I would bet money he immediately ordered his swimming pool be filled with hookers and orange jello shots to roll around in.
I am beginning to believe I could take a fleet of trucks down to the deep, red south and start stealing stuff from them, and all I would need to do would be to mention how Obama also stole stuff. It doesn’t have to be true – that’s the magic; all I would have to do is talk about Obama, or Clinton, or, if I want the big screen TV, both.
The power of propaganda in our history is maybe the most wildly under emphasized realities shaping our world. My conservative friends are proof positive that propaganda works. Doesn’t it strike you as coincidental that almost everybody saying the Russian attack is no big deal are the very targets of the Russian propaganda? It isn’t just ironic, it is gravely dangerous. I can almost feel the damned and terrified ghosts who supported Hitler in his rise to power cheering me on as I write this, I nearly hear them crying out, “Remember Goebbels!”
Obama and Clinton are names from the past - they are no longer in power. If they both disappear tomorrow, nothing I have said about the Russian threat will have changed. Conservatives, many of whom lived through the Cold War and should know better, are being mesmerized by a shell game; they are watching puffs of vapor and smoke out the back door while tyrants are marching in through the front gates.
Today, at this very moment, Russia is planning to attack our democracy. Again today, at this very moment, Donald Trump is helping them to do it. To not defend against an attack we certainly know will occur is, for all intents and purposes, identical to helping the attack to happen. It is even collusion. They aren’t attacking with guns, and maybe that is why it is so difficult to hear. I urge and call upon each of us as responsible citizens to fully absorb the reality now confronting us and to react like serious people who love their country.