Whether By Collusion Or Coincidence, Putin's Proxy is Our President

Whether it is by collusion or coincidence, both Russia’s attempt to disrupt our Presidential election and turn American’s against one another and Trump’s campaign strategy were one and the same. 

Russia’s hacking of DNC emails and giving those emails to Wikileaks to strategically release the contents over time, were intended to harm the Clinton campaign and to assist the Trump candidacy. In addition, Russian created “fake news” coupled with Trump lies and his disparaging of women, the pitting of racial groups and immigrants against white Americans, again, had the intent and impact of dividing the American electorate. 

Trump’s catering to ‘white supremacists and the David Dukes of the world, further made his attempt to divide American’s obvious.  The release of emails and fake news was reinforced by Trump’s “crooked Hillary” mantra and, as has been shown, “if you tell the public a lie often enough, over time, the public will come to believe the lie to be the truth.”

This coordinated appearing effort between Russia and Trump is, in fact, collusion. In addition, the numerous involvements of various Trump political operatives with Russian operatives cannot be ignored or dismissed.  All the while, the American electorate was completely in the dark about what was taking place.  The American public was being manipulated in a way that was intended to destroy our electoral process.  On the basis of these realities alone, the Presidential Election of 2016 should be considered null and void. Trump’s candidacy and ‘victory’ was compromised in that process and we should have another election between Clinton and Trump to decide who should be our President.

The damning aspect of this history is that, at present, there is no way to prevent its replication in our next election. Our whole system of democratically electing our political leaders has been compromised.  The Russians, in fact, have declared a cyber war on the United States and we must take steps to neutralize their incursion into our political life. In a real sense, this declared war by Putin, short of a nuclear engagement, is potentially more devastating than an armed conflict.  If we cannot believe in our political system of choosing our political leadership and in the addressing of our political issues, Putin has accomplished his goal, and we are a rudderless ship on a stormy sea of potential political disasters.

In todays world of ‘tribal politics’ it will be difficult, if not impossible for the G.O.P. conservatives to confront this situation with integrity and enthusiasm. Their historic hypocrisy on issues of such importance....gun control, abortion rights, voting rights, global warming and alternative life styles suggests their commitment to political power trumps Trump’s illegitimacy and the Russian threat to destabilize our political system. Only time will tell whether or not the G.O.P. steps up and turns its back on self-serving political expediency. Only time will tell if the G.O.P. begins to work together with Democrats to rectify our current political crisis of being politically destabilized by Russian cyber warfare, and having Putin’s Proxy as our President.