The Russia-Trump 2016 election collusion could not have played out any better for the Trump people, and Republicans.
Remember Trump practically breaking down at campaign rallies late in the 2016 cycle, telling supporters that the election was “rigged.” The impression given was that he was getting his excuse for losing out ahead of what we all saw coming. But, ah, not the case.
Because behind the scenes, what we didn’t know, but the Trump folks did, was that the FBI, intelligence folks and President Obama, and thus we have to assume, Hillary Clinton, already knew that the Russians were working to fix things.
We know this because we now know that Obama dithered over going public with what had been discovered, and were threatened by Mitch McConnell that he would “weaponize” politically any attempts to go public with the Russia collusion.
So, the Obama/Clinton forces had to sit back and act like nothing was going on, while Trump talked and tweeted incessantly about the election being “rigged,” when he knew damn good and well that it was being “rigged” in his favor.
This was genius, because it got Democratic supporters in a lather about how Trump and his loyalists just needed to accept the results on Election Night, which they assumed were going to be in their favor, because all indicators were in that direction.
Then Election Night happens, and the public still doesn’t know what the insiders knew. It felt like something was off, especially considering the big popular-vote win for Clinton, and the narrow margins for Trump that had been expected to go to the Dems.
But, what could you say, right? Because if you were a Democrat, you’d been preaching for weeks about accepting the results.
When the reports got out there that Russia may have been involved, Trump was easily able to turn this into sour grapes. They just can’t accept that I beat them, he’s said, ad nauseam. Russia is just an excuse for them losing.
Then we get the news that Obama, the FBI and the intelligence community knew all along that Russia was working to fix the election.
Wow! And they did nothing about it? Trump turns this into, they didn’t take Russia seriously, they thought they had the election in the bag, and now they’re trying to use this to steal the election from me.
You could phrase that, steal it back, because it was stolen in the first place, but hey, they stole it fair and square.
Thinking back, what if the decision had been made to go public with the kitchen sink of what was known about Russia’s efforts in 2016? So, McConnell does his “weaponize” thing. Does that get any people to the polls to vote for Trump that weren’t otherwise going to vote for Trump?
It sure doesn’t turn any hard-core Hillary voters away. Maybe it gets enough of the Bernie Bros and Jill Stein protest voters to hold their noses to pull the lever for her.
But, it was political calculus, and the decision was made to err on the side of caution, looking at the polls, assuming Clinton could win even with Russia interfering, that the whole thing would blow over.
We, of course, know what happened instead. Now Vladimir Putin holds all the cards. Trump is compromised, we all know it, even most Republicans, but our constitutional system works on checks and balances, and Republicans aren’t interested in serving as a check or a balance, because they’re actually getting most of what they want.
For example, that big tax break, that put more money in the pockets of the 1 percent, aka their benefactors. ObamaCare is gutted, more money in the pockets of their friends in the health-insurance industry that puts a 30 percent surcharge on the delivery of healthcare. Environmental gains made under Obama, also gutted, to the benefit of the old-energy robber barons.
And then, I mean, come on, the Supreme Court is about to look like a faculty meeting at the Regent University Law School. And it’s going to be that way for the next 40 years!
OK, so what Russia is getting out of this – destabilizing NATO, splitting the U.S. from its allies in Western Europe, turning its two neighbor countries in the direction of becoming inimical parties – is a bit of a steep price to have to pay.
All in all, though, you’re a Republican, you’re a Trump person, you’re a 1 percenter, this couldn’t have played out any better.
Column by Chris Graham
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