I really don't buy the "Russians flipped the election to Trump" story. For one thing, actually showing that Russian actions genuinely influenced the voting decisions of enough people would be hugely difficult; people have enough trouble explaining what made their minds up at the best of time, and a presidential election is an especially cluttered field. It's not enough to show that X many people saw Russian propaganda or leaked DNC emails; you have to show that they weren't already voting Trump (and I bet there's a strong correlation between pro-Trump opinions and visiting sites showing fake news articles), and also that people weren't influenced the other way by stories about Russian interference that were already around before the election.
And even if you could show that, it would still be only one of a great many influences whose presence or absence would have swayed the vote by more than the eventual margin of victory. A lot of organizations spent a great deal of money (billions of dollars all told) trying to influence the election, and you can't simply ignore them all.
So Muller's inquiry is not going to result in some magic overturning of the election and it won't show that the vote itself was illegitimate. It almost certainly will show that members of Trump's team - and perhaps even Trump himself - have done things that are underhanded and possibly even illegal. Some of them may get themselves into trouble by lying about things they have good reason to be ashamed of - and for good or ill, lying to the FBI is illegal if the FBI wants to prosecute. I predict that Trump's team will come out of all this looking pretty shabby.
But the truth is, practically nobody expected Trump to win. Not the press, not the Russians, not even Trump. An election with Trump in it should never have been close enough for the Russians to touch. So there was no deal to be made there; neither side would have expected the Russians to be able to deliver and neither side would have expected Trump to be able to provide anything in return. And as I've said before, nothing the Russians seem to have done required any kind of collusion (nor was Trump in any particular position to help them do what they did). What the Russians would have wanted to do was lessen the margin of victory, stir up right-wingers against Hillary Clinton, and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the vote.
It is this last point that is the real problem of Russian interference. Nothing happened this time, because the Russians already had all the disruption they could ever have wanted with the election of an incompetent blowhard like Trump. They don't need him under their thumb when he's already making stupid decisions. But imagine if the Russians had corrupted vote tallies and electoral rolls around the country, and then leaked this information to the losing side. A close election always brings grumbling (look at Bush in 2000) even when everything is above board. What would happen if there was clear evidence of errors and widespread reports of registration problems?
Meanwhile, Trump refuses to countenance anything that might even hint that his election wasn't a record win; and the Democrats are cheerfully using the allegations and the investigation to needle him. Understandable on both sides, but the result is that nothing is being done. A smart, forward-looking president might be quietly working behind the scenes to harden the electoral system against further attacks, but all Trump appears to have done is start up and then kill off his travesty of an electoral fraud commission . Ordinarily I would express the hope that something else was in train, but Trump doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt on that. You might hope that Republicans are aware that the boot could be on the other foot next time, but they seem more interested in defending their gerrymanders and voter suppression techniques.
Protecting our electoral systems against determined and well-resourced attackers is a tough problem. It is vital that we succeed and it needs serious attention and resources - if OPM can't currently defend itself, what hope do the myriad state electoral offices have? Unfortunately, the political environment is currently working directly against that.
Let's hope the wakeup call (and there will be one) is not too damaging.
And even if you could show that, it would still be only one of a great many influences whose presence or absence would have swayed the vote by more than the eventual margin of victory. A lot of organizations spent a great deal of money (billions of dollars all told) trying to influence the election, and you can't simply ignore them all.
So Muller's inquiry is not going to result in some magic overturning of the election and it won't show that the vote itself was illegitimate. It almost certainly will show that members of Trump's team - and perhaps even Trump himself - have done things that are underhanded and possibly even illegal. Some of them may get themselves into trouble by lying about things they have good reason to be ashamed of - and for good or ill, lying to the FBI is illegal if the FBI wants to prosecute. I predict that Trump's team will come out of all this looking pretty shabby.
But the truth is, practically nobody expected Trump to win. Not the press, not the Russians, not even Trump. An election with Trump in it should never have been close enough for the Russians to touch. So there was no deal to be made there; neither side would have expected the Russians to be able to deliver and neither side would have expected Trump to be able to provide anything in return. And as I've said before, nothing the Russians seem to have done required any kind of collusion (nor was Trump in any particular position to help them do what they did). What the Russians would have wanted to do was lessen the margin of victory, stir up right-wingers against Hillary Clinton, and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the vote.
It is this last point that is the real problem of Russian interference. Nothing happened this time, because the Russians already had all the disruption they could ever have wanted with the election of an incompetent blowhard like Trump. They don't need him under their thumb when he's already making stupid decisions. But imagine if the Russians had corrupted vote tallies and electoral rolls around the country, and then leaked this information to the losing side. A close election always brings grumbling (look at Bush in 2000) even when everything is above board. What would happen if there was clear evidence of errors and widespread reports of registration problems?
Meanwhile, Trump refuses to countenance anything that might even hint that his election wasn't a record win; and the Democrats are cheerfully using the allegations and the investigation to needle him. Understandable on both sides, but the result is that nothing is being done. A smart, forward-looking president might be quietly working behind the scenes to harden the electoral system against further attacks, but all Trump appears to have done is start up and then kill off his travesty of an electoral fraud commission . Ordinarily I would express the hope that something else was in train, but Trump doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt on that. You might hope that Republicans are aware that the boot could be on the other foot next time, but they seem more interested in defending their gerrymanders and voter suppression techniques.
Protecting our electoral systems against determined and well-resourced attackers is a tough problem. It is vital that we succeed and it needs serious attention and resources - if OPM can't currently defend itself, what hope do the myriad state electoral offices have? Unfortunately, the political environment is currently working directly against that.
Let's hope the wakeup call (and there will be one) is not too damaging.
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