If you haven’t noticed, Russia hasn’t been in the news that much over the last week. Are they in hiding while doing more damage? North Korea and the trade talks with China are dominating the airways. And it’s been over a year since Bob Mueller started digging into the dirty relationship between the Russians and the Trump team, but the issue of Russian collusion with Trump and his boys appears to be on the back burner. There’s even talk about Saudi Arabia and the Emirates trying to manipulate the election. But maybe that’s just a feint by Mueller to throw the hound dogs off scent. Things also seem to have settled down with the Russians in Syria, and not much is going on in the Ukraine. The Russians haven’t even poisoned anyone in England recently.
Another way Mueller and his team appear headed in a different direction is by going after Michael Cohen and the money paid to Stormy Daniels and other women. Trump appears to have been caught in another lie about payments to Cohen and then Daniels, but the lies seem to bounce off his Kevlar vest like low caliber bullets. On the other hand, one cannot depend on Mueller’s moves any more than the Russians or Trump as he might come up with a sudden unexpected indictment. The difference between them is that Mueller says nothing about what he’s doing while Trump and his cohorts say way too much.
Always protesting of course. Trump and Guilliani denying collusion as do the Russians. Maybe the Russians see the game as a form of Russian roulette. They do cyber-attacks and bot wars the same way. Load up the cylinders and spin the barrels. Make sure no one can trace the origin so everything is deniable. Stupid Americans. Stupid Westerners. All so gullible. Refuse to see what’s in front of their faces. Using the Internet to confuse them is fun because you know half of the country will refuse to acknowledge anything and half will rant and rage about the way democracy is being destroyed. It’s not really being destroyed. Just being distorted a little. Democracy is too busy destroying itself.
The sad thing is that the Russians never had to get involved in the first place. Trump was a winner from the moment Hillary became his opponent. He gave her all the rope she needed to hang herself. At times it almost looked as if Hillary was trying to lose. A basket of deplorables- nice concept she came up with. Where did she get that from? Certainly not to promote her campaign. And those talks to Goldman Sachs and the other New York Banks. Hillary kept handing Trump gifts he had not expected. For a supposedly smart politician, she was definitely acting dumb. Why was Russian interference needed when Hillary was doing a job on herself by herself. Of course, she had a little help from Wiki leaks and probably the Russians and Comey.
There were three groups playing at American presidential politics in 2016, none of which had a clue what was happening or what to do. There was the Hillary campaign, the Trump campaign, and the Russian campaign. The most amazing thing was that somehow Americans didn’t get to elect Putin as the American president, though not being a citizen made him ineligible. There was so much antipathy on both the Clinton side and the Trump side directed to the other candidate, it would not have been surprising if most of the voters would have preferred Putin to the candidate they opposed.
Resurrecting Democracy
www.robertlevinebooks.com
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020