There has been a lot of talk about the hacking allegedly done by Russian operatives during the 2016 presidential campaign. People seem to be missing that Trump’s response to this story is more important than the story itself. There is no question that hacking occurred. Much of the information remains classified making it somewhat unclear exactly how much tampering there was, but we do know for a fact the DNC and Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta were hacked. As Clinton herself pointed out before the election, 17 US intelligence agencies have independently examined evidence and concluded Russia is behind these hacks. Recently the CIA has gone farther in concluding that Russia was actively attempting to help Trump win. Today the Washington Post reported that the FBI Director and the Director of National Intelligence agree with this finding by the CIA. Several congressmen with security clearances, both Republican and Democrat, have backed this assessment also. It seems every human being with the security clearance to see this evidence has come to the same conclusion except one. Donald Trump has flatly refuted even the possibility of Russian tampering, and that response is the biggest and brightest of the many red flags we’ve seen.
Trump could’ve had many response to this. He could have admitted that intelligence points towards Russian involvement but remind us neither he nor his campaign aided in Russian efforts. He could have said that foreign powers attacking private US citizens to sway US policy is unacceptable and we will do all in our power to prevent such events in the future. He could’ve said that it’s impossible to tell how much the Russian’s influenced our election, but you can’t unring a bell so we must now stand together, move forward, and tighten up our cyber security. He said none of that. Instead he is attempting to cover up for Putin. He offered off-hand denials which can be explained in one of only two manners. He is either A) corrupt to his core B) dangerously delusional. Neither of these options are good and both have heavy implications moving forward.
Scenario A) Trump has seen the classified evidence, knows it means Russia tampered with our election, and is choosing to publicly deny it to preserve his relationship with the Kremlin. I feel like the pitfalls of this reality are pretty clear. Having a president who cares only about himself but whose decisions affect over 300 million people will leave just about all of us in jeopardy. Even if Trump doesn’t go out of his way to screw us over as a millionaire businessman his personal interests are fundamentally different from the other 99% of the people he is supposed to be advocating for. The best case scenario is that he advances policies that help only the 1%. The middle case scenario is something akin to him starting trade war with China because he wants to build a hotel in Taipei sending our nation into an economic tailspin, the brunt of which won’t even touch his real estate empire. The worst case scenario is that he colludes with domestic powers and foreign governments behind our backs to ruin the integrity of our elections leading us into a terrifying dictatorship. “That sounds extreme,” you say. Is it? If he’s willing to cover up crimes that got him in power (whether he was involved with them personally or not) then what would ever make us think he wouldn’t ignore crimes to keep him in power? What makes you think he wouldn’t actively facilitate those same crimes once he has the power to do so? He’s not even attempting to act like it bothers him. If obtaining power through corruption doesn’t bother you then you will become more corrupt. The more power you get the more you’ll be able to get away with so the more you will abuse it.
Scenario B) Donald Trump genuinely believe that Russia was not involved in hacking Podesta’s e-mails. This scenario is slightly trickery as we obviously not seen the evidence. However seeing the sheer breadth of independent sources who have seen this evidence and all reached the same conclusion, I feel confident that the data is conclusive. There is also a very good chance Trump hasn’t even seen the intelligence briefings about Russia. He doesn’t listen to his daily intelligence brief and he has openly said he doesn’t need them. This is a man with no experience in government or military affairs who assume he just innately knows everything. This is made even scarier by the fact that he spent years promoting a conspiracy theory that Barrack Obama was not born in the United States. This is representative of his amazing impeccable judgement that is so great he doesn’t need to look at data or learn facts? His National Security Advisor is a known conspiracy theorist. They are pretty much the only people who will have access to the most important classified findings of our government’s intelligence agencies and they have no regard for facts. Best case outcome is they get it mostly right and go on a few bizarre conspiracy theorist tangents. Middle case we act erratically on unsupported theories and permanently mar our working relationships with any number of nations, and possibly even endanger active US military personal and innocent civilians in other nations. Worst case scenario is someone drops a nuclear warhead. “That seems extreme,” you say? It isn’t. It’s honestly pretty much a miracle that no one has dropped a third nuclear warhead. It has taken decades of constant and intense negotiation to keep the world safe, as well as a respect for the devastating consequences of nuclear impact. Even with all that effort we were a trigger’s hair away from it happening during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The ONLY reason we avoided nuclear war was the calm, measured, response from our government. That is not a response we’ll get from Trump. Add to that the general bizarreness of conspiracy theories and there’s honestly no predicting where Trump’s whims might take him.
There is of course a third case scenario: Donald Trump is right and literally every other US official is wrong. The men and women with decades of experience and no personal axe to grind somehow all screwed up simultaneously. Whereas the man who hypothetically benefitted from these actions is the only one who can see things clearly. This is absurd and clearly not the reality. Donald Trump is fundamentally dishonest. He had to pay millions of dollars for defrauding people with a fake university. He has been tied up in countless discrimination lawsuits. He relentlessly denies making comments there is footage of him making. Whether he refuses to deal with reality because he is corrupt or delusional, it’s honestly not even relevant any more. We have to be prepared for the fact we can no longer trust the judgement of our commander in chief. Every word he says, tweet he sends, decision he makes will boil down to a worldview tainted by his own ego and self-interests. He is invested not in any ideology or group. Any he aids he aids strictly out of his own self interest at the time, and he will dump that ideology the minute it is no longer helpful to his personal narrative. We all have to be acutely aware of this moving forward. We need to question everything. We need to draw everything back to hard, indisputable evidence. We can’t accept inference or opinion. His judgement is too questionable to trust. No matter what comes, in all situations ask yourself what is the evidence. So in a situation like this where the evidence is classified, where he can’t show you something, do not trust him. He will take advantage.
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