About half the American people think Donald Trump stole the election last year (with help from the Russians), and that he’s not a legitimate President. Vladimir Putin is tickled pink that so many Americans believe this.
Why? Because the Russians believe that the United States is their principal rival on the world scene. They’re envious of our high standard of living; of the respect that America has around the world; and of our military prowess. The attitude of Putin and his minions is that if they can drag the United States down, Russia’s prestige rises.
I believe that their goal, vis-a-vis the United States, is to sow the seeds of discord among Americans, so we can no longer work together as a cooperative, patriotic, freedom-loving people, and that we ultimately self-destruct. And I hate to admit that if we don’t get our act together, we may well be on our way towards that unhappy end.
Speaking of working together, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, got skewered earlier this year when she suggested that there can be two entirely different interpretations of the same event – “alternative facts” she called them. Now that’s not a term I would use. But there can certainly be two very different ways to look at the same set of facts.
For example, this week several Trump campaign people were either indicted or pled guilty to charges arising out of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. If you watched coverage of this by much of the mainstream press (fake news as Trump would call them), you’d think that Trump was going down, that proof of Trump collaboration with the Russians was just around the corner, and that Trump would in all likelihood soon be charged with obstruction of justice, or treason, or cannibalism.
However, if you watched the same set of facts on FOX News, or heard White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ account of events, the indictments were proof that Trump had done nothing wrong, and the whole thing was just a witch hunt.
But the Russians have got to love how we’re all going after each other with everything we’ve got (and a lot we haven’t got.) After all, their goal is to spread discord among us. Pit American against American. And we’re falling for it, hook, line, and sinker.
We now know the Russians bought at least $150,000 worth of propaganda ads on Facebook during last year’s presidential election. And more recently, they’ve been trying to stir up even more controversy and divisiveness over the NFL/taking a knee controversy than already naturally exists. Russian internet trolls, likely connected to the Russian government, have been hash-tagging out “take a knee” in support of the protesting players, and at the same time hash-tagging out “boycott NFL” in support of fans outraged by the players’ behavior. Just yesterday we learned at a Senate hearing that Russian trolls have picked up The Left’s narrative that Trump is not a legitimate president, and are running with it. The Russian trolls’ goal? Stir up as much discontent and divisiveness among Americans as possible. And they’re succeeding.
We’ve got to get a lot smarter about how we’re dealing with the Russians, and about how we’re treating each other as fellow Americans. Putin is the bad guy. He and his intelligence apparatus seek our destruction, or at least our diminishment. We must use everything at our disposal to push back against Russian meddling in American matters here at home, or their dangerous adventurism around the globe.
And we must always remember that the other American political party is NOT the enemy. They may see things differently than we do. They may say things we don’t like, or do things we think are unfair. But we’re all Americans. We’re in this together. And the sooner we remember this, the better off we’ll all be.
