Kompromat: The real failing pile of garbage
This morning a piece in the Washington Post on Putin and the dark art of “kompromat” prompted a few thoughts about yesterday’s presser with Donald Trump.
Trump (already) infamously referred to Buzzfeed as a “failing pile of garbage”, and as fond as I am of my Buzzfeed pals, it’s hard not to empathize with Trump’s anger at their publication of a “dossier” that they themselves were unable to verify, and that they themselves admitted contained “errors” and allegations that were “unverified” and possibly even “unverifiable,” which were “prepared for political opponents of Trump” and about which there was “serious reason to doubt.” This is the Harry Reid school of ethics that should have left town with Harry Reid. Journalists are supposed to be in the business of reporting facts, not reporting every bit of garbage that comes over the transom, no matter how titillating.
But. (Yes, there’s a “but” here.) Too much of this election was about the garbage over the transom. I’m not talking about the Podesta emails, or the DNC hack. That was wrong, but no one has suggested that anyone fabricated the emails. I am talking about the resurrection of the Vince Foster conspiracy theories (did the Clintons have him killed?); other alleged murders team Clinton supposedly perpetrated; the still floating Obama-is-a-Muslim trope; the child abuse in a pizza parlor calumny; and other bits of crazytown tin-foil hat stuff. We’ve always enjoyed a bit of nuttiness in our lives (black helicopters, UN troops, fluoride in the water, Commies in the closet), but it has begun to enter the main stream in ways that are undermining rational thinking.
This is not Donald Trump’s sin alone. Otherwise sane-looking people told me repeatedly that Trump was an agent recruited by Bill Clinton to run for president and destroy the GOP. That they genuinely believed Donald Trump is a Russian agent of influence. And then there’s all that crap in the “dossier”.
Cui bono? Trump is certainly right in thinking the liberal establishment is building a case against his legitimacy based on his alleged antics. But do they really benefit in having a president-elect taking questions about sexscapades? And Clinton was certainly right in thinking that many on the right (though not the mythical “right-wing conspiracy” she actually believes exists) gloried in her discomfort over fact and fraud alike. But at the end of the day, the partisan gain is a sideshow. Neither Vince Foster rumors nor actual emails lost Hillary the election. She lost it fair and square on her own by being a dreadful candidate who never should have run. Nor did they win it for Trump.
Which brings us back to that WaPo piece I reference at the top: Kompromat. Those who gain the most from this are people and countries that seek to undermine our system, erode belief in our institutions, seed questions about the quality of our democracy and distract from that which is real: Murder. Occupation. Dictatorship. Corruption. Doping. Yes, Vladimir Putin, I’m talking about you and the failing pile of garbage that you have made Russia. (And also about every other dictator that wants to see the US on its heels…)
There is no winning for either the GOP or the Dems at this game. He who lives by the sword of unsubstantiated allegations (Hillary the child-abuser) will die by it (Trump the pervert). It demeans each of them, and us all, and helps no one but our enemies. There are objective standards of truth. It would be nice if someone — Donald? Hillary? — would stand up and say so.
First published at AEIdeas.org on January 12, 2017.
