From Russia, With Trump?

Now, if you've gotten to know me at all from the past 9 year or so journey of my blog, you know that I adore reason. I don't buy into idle gossip and conspiracy theory, and for what it's worth, I kind of distrust people who do. But the release by WikiLeaks of DNC information secured by Russian hackers is just a little bit much for me, coming as it does on the eve of the Democratic Convention. So, there's coincidence, and then there is what looks like enemy action. Guccifer lying about whether he hacked Clinton's server was part of the pattern. The knowledge that Russian hackers hit the DNC is another. There's your three.

This is the kind of thinking that comes courtesy of the Cold War, naturally.  I think Generation Xers get this a bit better than Millennials do because the Cold War was at least a part of our formative years, but unlike with Boomers, it didn't predominate our ideas about foreign policy. It's just that when the Clinton campaign--and others--imply that what is coming out now is a conspiracy by Russia to interfere with US democracy, I don't really bat an eyelash.

Wouldn't they?  Because Trump is actually pretty "buy and saleable", despite his claim that he isn't and that he's really self-funding and independent. Oh really? Because the financial indebtedness with Deutsche Bank is nothing compared to the rumors of what Trump's Russian connections are.  And his known admiration for Putin, and other dictators, don't make it seem out of the realm of possibility that he wants to act as the US's strongman. His statements regarding NATO and the EU are also kind of damning--is he really this big a dope regarding how post WW-2 treaties worked, or is he just being idiotic on purpose for reasons? Either one is treacherous.  But look at who the Trump campaign has drawn close.

It starts looking a little bit a lot like someone wants to cast doubt on the Hillary Clinton candidacy by queering the narrative of her treatment by the DNC, creating the impression that they conspired to do Senator Sanders in, politically speaking, not because they especially love Sanders, but because they want to delegitimize Trump's opponent.

And it's rubbish.

Now, I might have some stern words for DNC folks regarding their operation security regarding what info you put in emails--children, always treat electronic mail as if it had an attachment called "my_genitals.gif" forwarded with it, and that any such missive might be blind-copied or forwarded to a destination called "your momma". If you don't know where your information will end up, just call a person, throw them a paper mash note, or face to face with them, especially if what you are about to write sounds really shitty out of context, because this is exactly how your email is going to get read.

But what ends up happening here is that Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz ends up resigning as RNC chair. Because she was a little bit too obviously a Clinton partisan--although if anyone didn't know this before the leak, how deep was the hole and did you have enough water down there? She gets picked up by the Clinton campaign because no duh. But on the eve of the Democratic convention, it certainly gives space to a narrative about disarray (even if the email content was politics as usual) and gives steam to the brassworks punk Bernie or Busters, who are seemingly capable of operating even when their inspiration has endorsed his rival already! And has given support despite all this mishegas!

And it's no reflection on Sanders that Russia is trying it, because they telegraphed this through RT if you ever watched it. They are getting old-school about how they feel about America on that vehicle. On the Max Keiser show, I just saw them talking about people renouncing US citizenship. Like, defecting? SRSLY? Parading defectors as the US losing because some motherfuckers don't like paying taxes is not a winning narrative--and I'm also looking at you all, folks who now think Malik Obama makes all kinds of sense.  It's that damn easy, isn't it?

Now, I rejected the blog title "Debbie Does Dulles" because I don't think on our end the business of just trying to do democracy in the face of Russian interference is necessarily world-class statescraft. But I would like to remind that if we caught the buggers at it, this is actually as pro-Clinton a statement about foreign policy as actually could be made. She scares the shit out of the Russians so much they used  hackers to drag her.

No really! I'm with her! Give me that kind of mojo to conjure with. She isn't thinking about ditching NATO or putting down the EU--she wants to build up our allies in a way that understands history and prevents war. She gets it and if you noticed the little business with her speaking fees, she has considered trouble the overhead she has for trying to do America's business with assholes on her back, and Trump is too raw and too leveraged and would too easily get a hand up his puppet ass.

Putin can suck it. Hillary Clinton must win.