Why Trump Is in the White House: Obama Was Just Too Nice a Guy

Given the consequences, Obama’s response to Russian interference was one of the biggest failures in American political history.

Friday’s Washington Post story (6/23) detailing the Obama administration’s response to Russian interference in the 2016 election covered some new ground. But much had already been revealed back in December and January. At that time, however, many people were in shock and barely able to understand or accept the implications of what had just happened. And since then so much has happened that we have been too preoccupied to meaningfully assess the adequacy of the previous administration’s efforts to neutralize Russia’s involvement in the presidential race.

Six months ago when the New York Times and The Post broke important stories on Russian election meddling there was a great commotion over how to stop this new and illegitimate-seeming president. Ruminating over the failings of the previous administration or second guessing a fait accompli was secondary to the fast-breaking facts on the ground: the travel ban, the Trump Dossier, Flynn — there’s really quite a list.

Even now it seems a bit mean and almost pointless to pass judgment on Obama’s weak counter-measures. But at the same time, we need to understand and formalize the failure of his response. We must accept that this failing has forever changed history — and not for the better.

Obama was a kind-hearted president, but he lacked the tenacity and inner steel to oppose Congress and even his own NSC on so many issues. Early on he was seen as a caver. He often took a bad deal instead of no deal. In general, he was too conciliatory. But we were still happy that we had Obama and not McCain or Romney.

He wanted to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but couldn’t. He wanted to penalize Israel for its aggressions but wouldn’t. And so on.

He seemed to believe in fair play — which was a big mistake when dealing with a Republican Congress.

So in the Summer of 2016 when reports of Russian interference in the presidential election process emerged and when this interference was directly attributable to Putin himself, instead of pressing the panic button and yelling fire — a public duty — he became overly concerned with appearances. It might have looked as though the president was trying to influence the election.

And when in September top administration officials met with the gang of eight on Capitol Hill to explain the situation and propose a unified response to Russian aggression, Republican leaders balked. They said no. They were told that the CIA had concluded that Putin intended Trump to be president — a high-level CIA official most likely was present. Republican leadership threatened the administration with the accusation of playing partisan politics — that is, of using CIA intelligence that Russia was attempting to pervert the election to ensure a Hillary Clinton presidency. It was one more case of the tail wagging the dog.

The situation can be formalized as follows: there was an attack on the election process and a political party, but there was fear of sounding the alarm because those the attack benefited might become upset.

It’s not only a case of the tail wagging the dog, it’s also a case of permitting moral hazard. A certain party has an interest in sabotage of X and so either facilitates the sabotage or turns a blind eye in order to profit.

Obama had the goods on Trump. Russia was directly supporting his candidacy and aiding him in numerous ways. This was big news; Democrats in Congress who knew of these facts should have begun investigations right then and there.

But instead they let the “fear of politicizing” the election process weigh out over moral duty. That’s the tail wagging part (a smaller thing outweighing a bigger thing — and fear of politicizing was a smaller thing than the duty to inform the people).

However, against all of this was the unwavering belief that Hillary Clinton would — Russia or no Russia — win the election. And this after a scathing report from the FBI on Clinton’s chaotic record-keeping. Despite the condemnation of the FBI Clinton still was seen as unstoppable. But then came the unforeseen DNC and Podesta email releases, and their revelations on how the DNC was essentially a rigged outfit — and Clinton the beneficiary. But after these unexpected events happened, why should the administration now expect more unexpecteds?

But lightning does strike twice and thanks to the incompetence of Huma Abedin State Department emails were found on her pederastic husband’s computer. Not even God saw that coming.

After a 1.2 billion dollar investment in Clinton’s campaign, it is hard to imagine why no one expected the unexpected.

Because it was not just Russia that lost Clinton the election; it was her record keeping, James Comey, Huma Abedin, and a certain lack of appeal among those with dirt under their fingernails.

The point being that in no way could HRC be considered a sure thing. But that is exactly what we’ve heard from Comey and Obama administration officials. Russia was not that important because Clinton couldn’t lose to a sexually abusive, lying billionaire. Not in America.

But the unexpected did happen. And it kept happening over and over.

In that light, we have to ask why it seemed pre-ordained — given that everything that could go wrong went wrong — that Clinton become the next president. Why let that conviction usurp the duty to alert the country to the very urgent fact of Russia’s partisan involvement in our election?

The answer is simple: fear.

Since modeling and “war-gaming” this scenario almost certainly has been done by the responsible parties in 2016, we might just extrapolate how the administration’s thinking went, based on known facts.

It’s September 2016. The fear mentioned above is that Republicans will reply to any general alarm on Russian interference with accusations of partisanship and election interference by the president.

Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are the loudest opponents of any bi-partisan plan to publicly oppose Russian interference. Evidence shows that the Russians want Trump to be the next president. The reason is that Clinton has been a fierce critic of Russia, and Russia fears more crippling sanctions from her future administration.

The first objection by Republicans would be that the evidence is weak. They would argue that none of it shows that the Russians favor Trump. But the evidence shows only the Democrats and Clinton have been negatively affected by Russian actions. Also, intelligence reveals an unusual amount of communication between Trump agents and Russian state and non-state actors.

The Republicans of course know a good thing when they see it. And the rancor over the last eight years is so deep that many would prefer to see Lenin in the White House over Hillary Clinton. After eight years of Obama — in Republicanese that translates as eight years in hell — another eight years of another Clinton — well, Mitch, why don’t we just slit our throats right now and get it over with? Republicans would have sold their souls to stop Clinton — those who hadn’t already.

It is clear by now — September, 2016 — to Obama that Republican leadership is aware that it stands to gain from the ongoing Russian intervention into US politics and that it has taken a position of pure self-interest over the interests of the country and the democratic process.

Obama and his staff are doing some calculations somewhere in the West Wing:

— If we send out an announcement — a public address, a red alert — that our electoral system is under attack by Russian operatives, if we reveal certain facts — can we say we know for a fact it’s Putin? — and if we show that evidence points to a Russian attempt to get Trump elected — what’s the possible blowback? What will that cost us?

Someone points out:

— Republicans will say the evidence is phony — and they will say that — and that it’s all a scheme to get Clinton elected.

— But couldn’t we say that we don’t need to do all of that to get Clinton elected? She’s going to win regardless.

— Good point. But the polls are narrowing. And this might be seen as an attempt to create a sure thing.

— But at the same time we have evidence. The CIA. They’re independent, not really a part of the executive branch.

— But how much evidence can we show?

— That depends on how big this is — how destructive this attack is potentially. If it really is likely to change the outcome, we have to do all we can, lay all cards down.

— That’s hard to know in advance — if it will change the outcome.

— But doesn’t it have to be addressed regardless? On the level of national security?

— It is being addressed. We’re investigating. The president is warning Putin. We’re planning some kind of retaliation.

— The question is: Something big is happening with the election — how much should the voters know? What are our responsibilities?

— Do they need to know Russia is taking measures to advantage Trump? Is that something they should know?

— Well, what have we got so far? — DNC, Podesta hack and dump and the bots. Is that enough? Should we be worried?

— Combined with the FBI’s Clinton investigation. And voter rolls hacked.

— Right. So the president says, “Fellow Americans, our election system is under attack. Russia has done x,y,z to aid Trump.” What then?

— Chaos?

— Maybe. Do the voters have a right to know? Is this a need to know situation? It’s not like warheads are headed our way, run for cover. What’s the social peril here? What can the voters do? All they can do is turn around and vote for Clinton as a vote against Russia.

— Or they could think we’re up to something.

— But that doesn’t make sense with Clinton ahead.

— But with the polls narrowing.

— Right. But it’s too weird. Obama and the CIA fabricating accusations.

— Do voters have a right to know or not?

— I don’t know. They are being influenced by a foreign power — some of them are. The DNC emails — and who knows what they’re doing with the hacked voter data. Even if it’s one tenth of one per cent.

— So they have a right to know.

— I think so.

— And the Republicans — McConnell, Ryan?

— They won’t like it.

— What can they do?

— They can say that we’re cooking this whole think up to stop Trump.

— We’ve got evidence.

— It’s not all in one piece. It’s a lot of little things. It’s not like an exhibit — here’s the gun and here’s the fingerprints.

— Putin gave directions.

— But we can’t say that. Too classified.

— What’s more important — winning the election of blowing an operative’s cover? What’s bigger?

— If we knew the exact impact all of this will have.

— Impossible.

— Okay, so the Republicans cry foul. They say this is a dirty trick and we don’t have evidence. We can show them in classified meetings. Intelligence people are all Republican and they gave us this stuff. They said this is what it means. I believe them. Republicans will too.

— But they’ll say they don’t.

— So you think it could backfire on us. We cry foul. They cry foul. And they make the better case. But I don’t see how their case is better. We’ve got the CIA. We’ve got Clapper and NSA. It doesn’t get much more credible than that.

— People will believe what they want to believe.

— So it makes no difference. So then why not tell all?

— Because we don’t know how deep the Russian actions are yet. They might have a nuclear option just in case of this kind of response.

— But then all the more reason.

And so on. Advisers are paid to think and to over-think things. But there was an intuitive level to this whole business that got lost in all the war-gaming: the compelling duty to sound the alarm and announce the threat. If this were the governorship of Delaware that would be different. But choice of presidents is the most important decision made in this country. A presidency can change the course of history and set conditions for how the next decade or two plays out. Take Bush 2 and Afghanistan and Iraq. The cost of those campaigns to America is almost incalculable and the results are worse than the problems those invasions were meant to cure, and we’re still paying the price.

Choosing a president is an enormously important decision. Anything that affects the election process must be corrected. It is a national emergency.

The American people had a right to know as much as possible. To keep actionable information from the electorate is far too paternalistic. It presumes a lack of deliberative capacity in the electorate; but then why should it be allowed to vote at all?

Obama’s mistake was in not trusting the American people to make the right decision, and in caving in to Republican threats.