The American establishment, particularly the media, has pushed the idea that Russia was responsible for the election of Donald Trump. Clearly the Russians hacked the DNC, but whether this had any effect on the election is unclear. Interestingly, no one has claimed that the hackers falsified any of the emails. They published what they found; they did not make up derogatory emails. It is les clear whether the Russians were involved in fake news. The fake news seems to have come from all over, from all types of people all over the world.
It looks like Trump won the Republican nomination on his own without help from the Russians or any other outside influence. The Russians did not defeat Jeb Bush or John Kasich, darlings of the establishment. It’s hard for the Democrats and the establishment to prove that he did not win the general election because of the same things that won him the primary.
The Russian connection to the hacking has made the Democrats and the establishment hate the Russians. This is a relatively new animosity, since Obama spent much of his administration trying to make nice with the Russians. Because of the election, Democrats now think Russia is the world’s boogeyman, and are trying to foment conflict with Russia. Democrats have become the new warmongers.
Because the Trump administration has not gone along with the Democrats’ warmongering, the Democrats, the establishment, and the media have tried to portray Trump’s openness to Russia as treasonous. The intelligence community has supported the establishment by leaking anything connecting Trump to Russia, regardless of classification or Fourth Amendment privacy concerns about wiretapping Americans. The intelligence community has always had strong links to the establishment, and at the moment it looks like the intelligence types are more loyal to the establishment than to the President.
When I was in the Foreign Service I wanted to be part of the establishment. I probably did not make it in part because of my Southern roots. (And maybe I wasn’t smart and smooth enough.) At one time Southerners like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Woodrow Wilson were the core of the establishment. But the establishment has moved north to New York and west to San Francisco. Hillary, the former first lady of Arkansas, expressed the establishment view when she spoke of the “basket of deplorables,” which probably includes me.
The establishment wants to blame the Russians for Hillary’s defeat, when in fact it was their contempt for at least half of America that was the real cause. The Democrats have become a party that hates the great men who created it, that has turned its back on American history in order to appeal to new generations of descendants of slaves and immigrants who have no attachment to the history that made America the leader of the free world for a few decades.
