Foreign Interference in Our Elections

There’s been a lot of discussion about Russia, Iran and China getting involved in our election. The problem is that no one seems ready to delineate the three. In fact, among them there are huge differences and goals.

We already have overwhelming evidence of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election with everyone but Trump seeming to understand what happened. But can we say the same for Iran or China? And does Iran feel the same way about Trump as Russia or China?

Not bloody likely. Russia has already exhibited their preference for Trump in any election that we hold, and why not? Trump has groveled before Putin on every occasion where they have crossed paths. He has accepted anything Putin has said as absolute truth and has never tried to stop Russia from any aggression, no matter how illegal or outlandish. He has, in fact welcomed them into our affairs as he has done with China. So it seems pretty evident that Russia, as they did in 2016, will continue to support Trump in his search for a second term.

Iran on the other hand, had a very nice nuclear treaty, that was working for all nations involved, snatched from them by one of Trump’s more ignorant moves. Iran may want to have its own nuclear weapons because everyone likes to have a saber to rattle, but the possession of a nuclear bomb has its own set of problems, many of which a nation in Iran’s place could easily do without. They can be pretty sure that having been Obama’s VP at the time the treaty was negotiated; Biden would probably look favorably on a renewal of the treaty. And with a Democratic congress they very well might get the congressional imprimatur that would make such a treaty safe from any future presidential interference. So the best thing that Iran could see in the next election would be for the Washington monument to fall on Donald Trump.

Then there’s China. They obviously bear no love for Trump, but are immensely aware that his incompetence and stupidity are a huge burden for America to overcome in any kind of international competition. So knowing he’s a world-class fuckup, they love the idea of Trump leading our foreign policy, but they hate having to negotiate with such an undisciplined child in their business dealings with the US. So what will it be? Will they go with Trump, understanding that he will give them a decided advantage in any economic compet

ition or will his truculence in dealing with them, especially over their expansionist plans in the South China Sea, cause them to decide that they have a better shot with Biden.

*****

There’s an election coming up. All signs, including the president’s own tweets and speeches indicate that he is going to get crushed in November. The Republican Party has done everything to keep their 35% fan base but have done nothing to expand that number into the majority that can actually think.

It looks like a slam-dunk for the Democrats if they can just keep from screwing it up. And now they have finally found a way.

This week they started a congressional hearing into the conduct of Attorney General William Barr with the goal of impeachment. Why? What the hell does anyone but the GOP have to gain from such a half-assed idea?

And not only have they done the wrong thing but they are doing a miserable job of trying to pull it off.

I didn’t see the whole first day’s hearing, I would be surprised if anyone did and that’s another reason not to have them, but what I did see left me with the impression that Bill Barr beat Jerry Nadler’s brains out, dragged his bleeding body across the hearing room and then threw it into the trash.

Nadler is a whiner and a squirmer and Barr’s distain for him was so obvious it became an effective weapon. Of the Dems, only Eric Swalwell, David Cicilline and Hakeem Jefferies were effective questioners, mainly because they are strong, intelligent speakers. Nowhere was it evident that the Democrats knew how to attack Barr or had any idea of what they needed to know to accomplish anything. They bounced from one subject to another, seemingly on a public fact finding mission that continually led to disaster. Most of these guys are lawyers and the first thing you are taught in law school is “never ask a question to which you do not already know the answer.” These guys didn’t know shit! They were so bad they made Debbie Lesko of Arizona, who normally fades into the woodwork, look like a warrior queen.

Jim Jordan, the degenerate criminal who should be in jail for contributing to the molestation of Ohio State athletes by their trainer instead of in congress, looked like General George S. Patton, as he stomped all over Nadler.

What the hell is wrong with Nancy Pelosi that she allowed this fiasco to happen? It’s three months to the election. You already have the House; you are trouncing Trump and doing very well in the Senate. Don’t fuck it up! Don’t show the world that you are too weak to run a government. The GOP has already demonstrated that they are too crooked and too stupid to run a government. Let them have the space. The only real strength being demonstrated right now is emanating from the Lincoln Project, a bunch of disaffiliated Republicans who are smart enough to hate Trump and what he’s doing to the country and crafty enough to know how to go after him.  They can win it for Biden if the Democrats just stop getting in their way.

Whoever okayed this fiasco, even it it’s Pelosi, should be fired. It’s the most Brain Dead move since the selection of Sarah Palin for VP.

*****

In the last blog, I suggested half tongue-in-cheek that Biden should start putting together a new government now. The half of my tongue that isn’t in my cheek knows that the Democrats should already be at work formatting new legislation that will show the nation what they intend to do once they have the power. But in order to do this in a way that will help them win the election, they have to make sure the new legislation is formulated by the moderate wing of the party. That is not to say that the Progressive wing should be shunted aside in any way because it’s the Progressives that will lead the Democrats into the future. It is, however to say that whereas the Progressives win the war, the moderates win the peace and that’s what we will need after this election.

This nation and the world survived WWII and recovered beautifully because moderate voices set up an international structure that survived until now. There were twenty years between the end of WWI and the beginning of WWII; monumental conflagrations that engulfed the whole world and resulted in millions killed and the socio-economic structure of the world destroyed. It has now been almost 80 years since the end of WWII and because of the way we went about the peace at that time, the world has held together pretty well. Not perfect, but pretty well. Of course it looks like another four years of Donald Trump would effectively end that.

The Democrats absolutely need the Progressives to show them what the problems are and to suggest solutions to those problems, but just as absolutely they need the moderates to implement those solutions and move into the more subtle aspects of running a nation.

If these two segments of the Democratic Party can work together for the greater good and if we can add a new GOP led by the kind of intelligent conservatives that now inhabit or think like the Lincoln Project, there is a functional chance that this nation can get itself back in shape in the near future.