Russian Hacking and Other Insecurities
It really is beside the point whether the Russian hacking actually helped Trump win the election. I don’t think that the intelligence communities ever claimed that they had such evidence. The CIA, FBI and the other intelligence agencies repeatedly claimed that the evidence only showed that the Russians were responsible for hacking our computer networks and that this effort was intended to benefit Trump. Trump repeatedly denied that the Russians could be responsible; over and over again, doing as much as possible to cast doubt upon and discredit the various intelligence agencies at every chance he could. Now it appears that Trump might concede a little bit by acknowledging that maybe there was some hacking by the Russians but careful to qualify that this hacking didn’t help him win the election.
While it is difficult to quantify, it is not difficult to understand how the result of the collected hacked information appearing on WikiLeaks, each week a new set of hacked data presented during the campaign, kept negative attention focused on Clinton’s e-mail server scandal and alleged Clinton Foundation issues. It is difficult to argue that this did not have an effect on the election. But, even so, the not so easily quantifiable presumption that there may have been an effect on the election is distinct and separate from the election result itself which, obviously, is something we can easily quantify. So, absent other evidence, it could never really be argued that the election result is not valid based upon this presumption alone without a great amount of difficulty.
Regardless, Trump continues to put his self-interests above his country. If the President-Elect is unable to comprehend the duty he has to protect the security of his country even above his own interests, how can he be expected to protect its people and the democratic values our country holds dear? Is this really the type of characteristic we want in a President?
The fact that we have a President-Elect who is so insecure about his own election result that he would think the evidence that implicates that the Russians hacked our systems necessarily implies that his election result is invalid may be another indication of just how lacking in character and unqualified a President-Elect we have. Most normal statesmen (and/or stateswomen) would be more worried about protecting our country rather than protecting some less meaningful election result. The last President that might have been accused of having this much insecurity is Nixon.
Interestingly and similarly, that President also went to great lengths in his efforts to protect his 1972 election result even going as far as becoming involved in a conspiracy to cover-up a crime. It’s amazing how more things change the more they remain the same. So, if anyone had any doubts before, it’s pretty clear to me now where this Presidency is headed.
The Polarity Resistance 