Life After Trump -- Getting Back To Square One

Making The 'Take It Easy' Case

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With the release of Kathleen Hall Jamieson's new book, "Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect A President -- What We Don't, Can't, And Do Know" (see this review in the New Yorker), the puzzle of Russian influence in our 2016 presidential election is now beginning to make sense.

As a non-partisan observer (someone I've seen dozens of times over the years on various TV shows), Jamieson is probably the closest we'll ever come to having a truly objective judge mediate political disputes.  So, does she shed light on the Russia 2016 affair?  Yes, and here is the gist:

   * As expected, it wasn't that Russian hackers changed votes after the fact; rather, in the run-up to the election, using fake accounts on social media that spewed false information, they encouraged voters to choose different candidates, or to stay home***.
   * Likewise, as expected, it wasn't that Russia necessarily colluded with the Trump campaign, though this may have occurred--we shall see; rather, it was that hackers stole the information (e-mails, campaign strategy documents) that allowed their operatives (WikiLeaks, Russian intelligence) to target negative news cycles (the October 7th Access Hollywood Tape) and identify vulnerable states (Democrats-leaning-toward-3rd-Party voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin).
   * Some Russian 'fake news' talking points made their way into 2016's candidate debates, dramatically increasing the likelihood that debate viewers thought Clinton duplicitous, according to polls.
   * Perhaps Jamieson's biggest revelation is that even the infamous James Comey letter, that many feel decided the election, was based on Russian disinformation (as was Comey's original July press conference clearing Clinton while labeling her "extremely careless") .

My point in writing about Jamieson's book is that the legitimacy of the Trump presidency may soon be at stake.  This won't happen before the November '18 elections, and it may require that the Mueller Investigation be concluded.  But at some point it seems quite likely that we'll be confronted with the question: How Do We Get Back To Square One.

For example, what do we do about the two Supreme Court justices nominated by a president who is, or soon may be seen as illegitimate?  What about all the other judges named by Trump over the past two years?  What about all the policy decisions that have changed the course of history?  Never before in our nation's politics have we had to deal with major and obvious illegitimacy.

There would seem to be two paths we could take:
1. Attempt to convince the public that some kind of remedy is warranted.
2. Seem accepting of the past, and don't rock the boat.

Almost certainly, a combination of these two options will actually occur.  I'd advocate a 'take it easy' approach that doesn't shy away from advocacy, but that waits for events to transpire.  For example, pause most calls for impeaching the president until after the '18 election, when opposition to Trump will most likely have been made manifest.  Likewise, wait for the Mueller Investigation.  Doing otherwise can lay the groundwork for action, but can also make such arguments seem uncouth and even laughable.

In any event, we're entering uncharted waters.

*** For example, Facebook could place ads that emphasized celebrity dissatisfaction with Hillary, and that seemed to be locally sourced (rather than Russian) on a few thousand screens of black men in Milwaukee.  Besides being sleazy, and usually employing outright lies, this kind of foreign interference in our elections is illegal.