But this framing of the question is more interesting to me:
Two years ago, the Alliance for Securing Democracy concluded that “The Kremlin operation to undermine democracy weaponized our openness as a nation, attempting to turn our greatest strength into a weakness, and exploited several operational and institutional vulnerabilities in American government and society.
The funny thing is, the most damage to America has been inflicted not because our society is open but because so much of what Russia and their handmaidens in our government did has been covered up and kept secret for as long as possible to protect the Americans who wittingly or unwittingly magnified the small Russian effort.
Consider this news that the 2016 election intelligence was politicized (tip to Instapundit):
The CIA Inspector General has taken more than a year to clear the release of a House Intelligence Committee report which contradicts the key conclusion of the intelligence community assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to the former chief of staff of the National Security Council.
The January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), prepared at the behest of President Barack Obama, claimed that Russia interfered in the presidential election in order to help candidate Donald Trump. The House Intelligence Committee’s public report (pdf) on Russia had already challenged the analytic tradecraft behind this central claim and suggested that the process of arriving at the assessment was not free of political interference.
I wonder when that HIC report held up by the CIA IG will see the light of day? I thought the conclusion was BS, possible only to see while squinting in a dark room, on the flimsy basis that if Russia was hurting Clinton then Russia must have wanted Trump elected. That is not a conclusion that can be arrived at without actual evidence.
Russia wanted a wounded Clinton, I think. And like almost the entire world (including Trump in my opinion), Russia expected Clinton would win.
And this claim about a muzzled report shows how things that are bad for Democrats are hidden until Democrats are in charge and can hide the things forever.
Imagine the things we would not know if Hillary had won in 2016. Or if Trump had resigned under pressure in 2017. Or if Congress was completely in Democratic hands in 2018? Or if the 2019 impeachment had actually led to the conviction of Trump? How many things that have come out since 2016 would have died in darkness instead?
So yeah, you're darned right I'll vote for Trump in 2020. There are a lot of things I don't want to vanish as if nothing that is a real threat to rule of law has happened the last four years. And if Democrats win in November 2020 it will be "move on, nothing to see here folks!"
And I'm honestly not sure that even 8 years is enough time to expose everything that needs exposing to the light of day and see the people who did this damage to America brought to justice.
So the damage was done not because Russia exploited our open society but because parts of our government have rejected that openness to conceal what they did. Democracy may not die here, but it was hurt. With a self-inflicted wound.
