The Russians are assholes and Americans are sadly eager to cooperate:
Between the FBI’s deception of the surveillance court and Mueller’s weaponization of FARA laws, the federal government’s most powerful institutions turned against an elected president to discredit him, as a “check on his power,” to use Weissmann’s phrase. The dynamic of a rage-filled lying president and a dogged national-security bureaucracy set on taking him down has advanced Russia’s strategic goal of tearing our republic apart. Both sides should acknowledge their guilt as we move past a president who was both framed and guilty.[*]
The Russians played an epic supporting role in this tragedy.
We've long known the Russians are assholes. It isn't new. When the Chinese finally put Russia's nuts in a vise over Russia's 19th century conquests of Chinese territory, it will be both horrifying and glorious.
But it is our fault that we magnify Russia's assholery to levels the Russians can only marvel at enjoying. Nobody comes out looking good over the last 4-1/2 years, including Trump's 2018 Helsinki performance. That momentarily surpassed my anger reflex over the sudden faux 2016 Democratic outrage over Russia. We'll see if that outrage can survive the defeat of Trump or whether a smiling Original Reset 2.0 at the expense of allies will beckon.
But the behavior of our permanent bureaucracy by taking sides--hard--in the partisan fight has brought shame to our government. The use of the dormant Foreign Agents Registration Act to target Trump people was shameful. The Democrats acted shamefully, but they are partisans driven mad by Trump. The same with the media.
But the bureaucracy is supposed to act for the country regardless of who they think should have won. That ideal is bent routinely, but with Trump too many did not even try to pretend to be civil servants rather than partisans with job security. And they got away with it. I could not ever imagine acting that way when I was a nonpartisan staff of the state legislature.
In the end, our own institutions discredited American democracy and governance far more successfully than any Russian disinformation campaign could have. As I wise man once said, we have met the enemy. And they is us.
*"Guilty" of being the Trump we've long known and not of any crimes, of course. So that word usage is unfortunate. And Trump had reason to have even more rage than he unfortunately started with. But do read it all.
I have a long history of not liking Trump. As I've said, I long thought of him as a liberal Democrat. But the absolute insanity and criminality of the 24/7 turn-it-to-11 Resistance that amplified Russia's effort to damage America also pushed Trump to the right; and in the face of the relentless insane opposition raised my opinion of Trump a great deal over the odious alternative. The relentless Resistance pushed me to defend Trump out of a sense of fairness even aside from pure policy considerations (which is a mostly positive but mixed bag as far as I'm concerned--and definitely superior to what Clinton would have provided).
