Russia Undermined Hillary Clinton, Not American Democracy
Truth, not a Clinton victory, is a necessary precondition for a free election.
Wikileaks began releasing information damaging to then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee on July 22nd, 2016. In a matter of days, many in the mainstream media and political establishment began a concerted effort to shift focus off of the contents of the emails and onto their source. Namely, a (probably) shirtless Vladimir Putin and Russia.
As Paul Waldman put it in The Washington Post: “[T]he political reporters covering it have gotten distracted by the content of the emails…”
Waldman, who spent five years working at David Brock’s Democratic establishment agitprop dispenser, Media Matters for America, claimed his colleagues were missing the forest for the trees. The alleged Russian source of the leaked information was the real story and everyone was ignoring it. This was and still is laughable. Not only were the contents of the leaks troublesome to millions of American voters and, thus, highly newsworthy (read: not a distraction), but a Google search of “DNC hack” keyed to the time period from the first Wikileaks release to the day before the general election shows the Russian connection dominated coverage of the subject.
Those hits go on for days and days. You’ll find all the left-leaning media heavyweights there—The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc.
You have to scroll through to the sixth page of results to find a story that examines the content of a hack, it was published by the BBC and it’s not even about the DNC hack (instead focusing on leaks from John Podesta’s emails).
The mainstream pundit class wasn’t alone, though. They got a boost from a who’s who of Democratic leadership (amongst others).
Nancy Pelosi equated the hack to Watergate while urging Republicans to defend democracy by refusing to exploit the information revealed. Bless her optimistic heart. Dianne Feinstein and Adam Schiff were sounding Russian alarms. Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid and Debbie Wasserman Schultz all got in on the action. Donna Brazile fell into the habit of meeting any bothersome question with sputterings about Russia.
The strategy of deflection—and, in the case of Brazile, outright lies—continued throughout the general election and picked up steam after Wikileaks dumped the hacked emails from Podesta.
It may have been transparent damage control, but the approach made perfect sense. Even if the deflectors weren’t directly identified as engaging in questionably ethical behavior by the leaks, they all had enthusiastically backed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries and then again in the general election. Everyone, including the media outlets, had made their chosen candidate perfectly clear and the content of the emails was an enormous problem for her.
Because it was all true.
The DNC, led by Wasserman Schultz, who held a senior position on Hillary’s 2008 campaign staff, really had been discussing ways to hurt Bernie Sanders’ campaign. The display of Clinton favoritism came while she and the DNC were telling the American public they were neutral in compliance with DNC bylaws. That’s why DWS was forced to resign and why Clinton’s campaign scooped her up the very same day.
Brazile, who succeeded Debbie as the DNC chairwoman, really did pass debate and town hall questions along to the Clinton campaign. That’s why Donna bregudingly admitted as much (eventually) and CNN cut ties with her (immediately).
The Clinton campaign really did collude with mainstream journalists like Maggie Haberman, John Harwood and Mark Leibovich to score favorable coverage. Hillary really did tell Wall Street bankers that “you need both a public and a private position.” Clintonites really did lobby for increased access on behalf of big-money donors as part of a larger pattern of money flowing into the Clinton Foundation from parties who stood to gain from influence wielded by Clinton’s State Department.
No one has ever put forth a serious argument contradicting the veracity of any of this or the other damaging revelations.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped the deflection from morphing into something more dangerous since candidate Donald Trump became President Donald Trump.
The Democratic elite and their media cohorts have added evidence of fake news spread by a Russian-led troll army to the hacking allegations, resulting in a claim that Putin and Russia undermined American democracy. The charge comes complete with scary editing and an ominous soundtrack.
Let’s be clear about this—it is almost certainly true that Pooty Poot and his henchmen were behind both the hacking and the spread of disinformation. It’s also almost certainly true that those same bad actors would like to undermine American democracy.
Putin is no champion of fair play and Russia clearly doesn’t have the United States’ best interests in mind. Even during the best of times, the two countries have circled each other warily while using covert operations to protect themselves and, ever since the invasion of Crimea, these have not been the best of times for Russian-American relations.
It should also go without saying that any facilitation of either the hacking or the targeted troll campaign by the Trumpkins is a serious matter that should be investigated aggressively. If compelling evidence of such collusion arises, anyone and everyone involved should be punished accordingly. There are very good reasons behind the laws in place to protect against campaigns cooperating with foreign actors, hostile or not.
But…
You still need evidence that any of this would’ve changed the results of the election to successfully argue our democracy has been sabotaged.
And that evidence simply does not exist.
The Russian troll army spread anti-Clinton disinformation almost exclusively through hyper-partisan sources and used patently absurd articles. Just look at the nonsense that dominates Buzzfeed’s analysis of the most shared fake news stories:
No regular inhabitant of a right-wing echo chamber was ever going to vote for Hillary goddamn Clinton. That’s a fantasy. No voter was going to slog through all the legitimately troublesome news about Hillary, remain undecided and then finally break against her because she or he didn’t verify whether Pope Francis endorsed the orange combover or whether John Podesta trafficked in pedophilia out of a pizza parlor. That’s another fantasy.
Nobody has ever presented evidence of the proliferation of fake news influencing swing voters, moderates or undecideds and for good reason. There is no evidence. The narrative makes zero sense.
We’re talking about the most ludicrous stories spread on the fringiest sites populated by the most partisan voters. Does anyone really believe a bunch of Alex Jones acolytes were gonna rally for Clinton until they saw that she was disqualified from holding federal office?
Not. A. Chance.
Which means we’re back where we started, with the email hacks.
Again, there is no compelling sign the Russian connection mattered to enough voters, then or now.
Any voter who cared about the source of the anti-Clinton hacks knew the Russians were the most likely culprit and Trump still won. We’ve weathered a full year of Russophobia coming from the highest echelons of our media and political leaders yet poll after poll shows American simply aren’t that concerned.
Trump voters are even less likely to show concern over Russian meddling. According to Public Policy Polling, 77 percent of Trump voters would want him to remain in office even if proof of Russian collusion materializes.
Meanwhile, Hillary has seen no post-election bounce and a recent Bloomberg poll shows her approval rating to be even lower than Trump’s.
You can argue this makes voters dumb or blinded by ideology or treacherous or whatever you like. You cannot say a voter who still prefers Donnie in the face of all this or one who was bothered more by the Wikileaks’ revelations about Clinton and her record than by Trump getting assistance from Russia undermines democracy.
Such subjectivity and freedom of choice is at the very heart of democracy.
We all get access to information and make up our own minds. As long as the votes are legitimate and people aren’t misled against their wishes, that’s a wrap. Someone wins and someone loses.
Everything else is just noise to cover up poor judgment and ease humiliation.
