Requiem and Exordium

You saw them. The endless ads on social media prior to the General Election last year. The endless attack ads from sites like redstateusa or takebackourcountry or hillaryforjail that incessantly pounded away with ridiculous allegations that were easily disproved. When you responded with Snopes or FactCheck those who posted just said that those were liberal sites that could not be trusted. Vaunted news sources such at The New York Times and Washington Post and even the right leaning Wall Street Journal were and still are dismissed as “fake news.” The endless sprawl of sources that no one had ever heard of before were received as gospel only because they pandered to those who had

already succumbed to the false narrative. Not only were they received by the public as gospel but they found their way into marginally more reliable resources such as Breitbart and Newsmax and The Blaze and thence into campaign pronouncements by the candidate himself. Candidate Trump seemed to accept any allegation that made its way into print, no matter the veracity, as suitable fodder for his campaign rallies and he used them to stoke the flames.

Perhaps 10 days before the election polls showed Hillary Rodham Clinton leading by as much as 10 points. Donald Trump had been slammed by the Access Hollywood revelations of his audio recordings in which he described groping women in a very crude manner. At the same time Wikileaks began the dribble of emails hacked from the DNC. Just a few each day to keep the pot boiling. Did anyone ask where the leaks were coming from? Why, yes, they did but those questions were met with an uproar from those haters of Hillary Rodham Clinton and she has many. Thirty years of recorded government service makes it almost impossible for anyone who has been in the public eye to be elected these days. But the questions remain. Who is responsible for dribbling these nuggets out to Wikileaks to be distributed?

Just a few weeks before the election FBI director James Comey, who had recently cleared Hillary Rodham Clinton of wrongdoing in her email fiasco, said he was reopening the case due to recently discovered emails that may or may not bear on that investigation. About 10 days before the election he stated that no, they did not but by then the damage was done. Even proven revelations that Russia was interfering in our electoral process were ignored.

I bring this up at this time, far too late for any correction, because I finally got around to watching Frontline's two episode expose entitled “Putin's Revenge.”   Link to Frontline  Step by step it revealed
how attempts at lying and misinformation during the Ukrainian violence and the interjection of Russian forces into Syria clouded judgment on how to respond and, finally, nothing was done. Then as the campaigns heated up in 2015 Putin, who despises Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Russian intelligence services began to inject mechanisms that would stoke the flames of conspiracies and hatred into social media. Have you wondered whatever happened to all those crazy postings that disappeared after the election? Well, now you know.

Something like 80,000 votes spread over 3 states tipped the electoral college. Hillary Rodham Clinton went on to outpoll Donald Trump by some 3,000,000 votes. Mostly from the west coast.

Til now I have refrained from speaking on the validity of the election but the Frontline series is so damning using facts that are verifiable and confirmed by our leading intelligence agencies' directors that the knowledge must become widespread in order to avoid the influence of nefarious actors in our elections. It is critical that we trust our electoral process and believe that our decisions are based on truthful evidence.

Of course, these allegations are cheapened by the attempted humor of those who benefited, some of them exclaiming “I didn't see no Russians where I voted” as if that was a statement with any meaning other than to thumb their noses at the opposition.

And now we have a few Congressional committees looking into the allegations of impropriety with the majority party doing its best to put a clowns face on those who bring the charges. The investigation that finally matters is the one conducted by Director Mueller who, from all appearances, is digging deep.

Here is My Take. I don't think that Donald Trump met with the Russians and hatched out a plan to subvert the election. However, I do think that it is possible that some in his campaign did. I don't think that the Trump campaign went out and dug up dirt wherever they could get it because it is obvious that their tactic was just to lie about it. What I believe is that the Russians did use Russian resources to contaminate social media and I believe that they were the suppliers of “leaks” to Wikileaks and were exceptionally creative with the timing of the leaks. What I believe is most damning is that Donald Trump and his campaign were aware of the spurious nature of this information and used it anyway. A clear indication of what his administration would be like. It has become the least trusted and most dramatically incompetent administration seen in the modern age, maybe in our history.

Yes, Donald Trump won the election. The ballots were not fudged nor boxes stuffed. Yes, enough of our fellow citizens bought the lies and misdirection to elect him, heaven help us. Now we have to hope against hope that there are still enough honest and patriotic men and women in Congress to save us. Yes, that body that only a couple of years ago had the lowest polling numbers in government is now our bastion of hope.

Don't take my word for it. Read some trustworthy news source but, at the very least, watch the Frontline report I mentioned.