From the moment Trump took office he seemed surprised to be there. During the campaign, he had made vague campaign promises about destroying ISIS in 30 days, repealing and replacing Obamacare, bringing back jobs in a horrible economy, and building a great big wall to keep out the Mexicans who are killing us and taking our jobs. Now that he is in office, he has to live up to those promises or take another route; tell you whose fault it is that he cannot (because it is definitely not his).
I contend that he was never supposed to be there. It was not what he or Putin wanted. Do I believe that Putin and the Russians messed with the election? Yes. Do I believe that Trump had something to do with it? Yes and no.
Given Trumps strengths, his best position is to be the guy standing at the podium telling you what is wrong. He is a mouthpiece. I suspect that Putin wanted to mes with America and the election and the best way to do that would be to have someone to harangue Hillary Clinton for the duration of the campaign. Still, I think he wanted her to win and expected she would so that she would be under the microscope for the next four or more years, as Trump is now.
Putin has far more to gain if Hillary wins than having Trump in office, especially with a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. If Hillary had won, right about now, she would be sitting in front of Congress defending every action she has ever taken. Bill Clinton would be accused of something new. There would be talk of independent counsels and impeachment and blocking Supreme Court nominees and more. There is talk about those things now, the only difference is those accusations are being leveled by Democrats.
Trump would have benefited far more if she had won also. Imagine Trump in Trump tower tweeting about how horrible a job she is doing and IF he was president, everything would be great right about now and everyone would have a pony. He would be launching a new TV station designed specifically to target the left without actually saying it and essentially becoming FOX 2.0. He would be free to move about the country, play golf, make deals and suck up all the goodness that comes from saying you could do a better job without ever getting the chance to do it. No one would be asking for his tax returns or phone records. Trump thrives in the "IF". Trump was expecting to lose.
There is more value in insinuation and innuendo than there is in proof these days. Before the election even happened, he was talking about rigging. Imagine if he had lost. Every five minutes he would be in tweeting about how "Crooked Hillary" had worked to steal the election. Look at the troll reaction when Bernie Sanders lost the primary to Hillary. Retribution was immediate and constant. In many circles it goes on to this day with people taking any chance to bash Hillary for "stealing the primary".
We are finding out more and more every day about links to Russia but the trail seems to go cold after the election and we are given to wonder how the social media campaign would have changed if she had won. Was there a larger campaign in place to further tear at her administration? It would have been a lot easier because no one would be looking at that actual perpetrators as much. Attempts by President Hillary Clinton to point at the Trump campaign and the Russians would have been dismissed as her trying to cover her tracks and deflect from her "failing presidency". Trump would have made deal after deal and more and more money.
People keep using the analogy of a dog chasing a car and not knowing what to do when he catches it. It is apt but I think it goes deeper than that. Much like that dog, the thrill for the Right and for Trump is in the chase. It is the exercise that comes from running. It is the intimidation that others see from a ferocious dog chasing anything.
Putin has no intention of blackmailing President Trump. He can't, really. There would be too many people looking and watching a president. He wanted to blackmail and own Trump the private citizen. Trump the private citizen is where the money and the power are. He wanted someone powerful in the U.S. not to have power, but to erode and undermine that power over time using a television station, a social media network, and a voice from within the U.S.
The problem was that Putin was too good at it and though the idea was to get as close as possible without actually winning. He was looking at the same polls we were. He was listening to the same people we were; people who insisted they were independent and undecided, but not. Instead he ended up winning and now, shutting down all of those avenues that were constructed to bash Hillary for four years, are leaving a trail. And speaking of trails, Hillary is probably out hiking right now as the Trump administration collapses.
No comments:
Post a Comment