”This is nothing new. There’s little evidence it had much affect; we just need to be aware what it looks like. 
Russia has been trying to affect elections everywhere and have been doing it for a long time…”
Equally countered with, “Officer, can’t you let me go? I didn’t get any money when I robbed that convenience store. I have been trying to successfully rob them for a long time. Since I’m not all that successful…”
And an equally fictional, and quite impossible, “Putin and his cronies tried to get Hillary elected? Oh, so what? They’ve been doing this for a long time with little effect…” As we all know, the right wing would have been so forgiving if the situation had been flipped. After all, we should just get over it, they would say to their fellow partisans. Hillary’s president now…
And, if you believe that, you’re deranged, clueless, stupid or… lying almost as much as Donald Trump.
Almost. Hey! He’s still breathing! If he’s breathing he’s lying: even to himself.
Trump, many Republicans, and most of what we used to refer to as “news,” have spent close to 2 months doing the deny, deny, deny watusi. But now denying is getting incredibly hard. Hell, there’s even some of us who dared to bring up what can assumed to be Trump’s admissions of guilt at least starting with, “Russia, ‘if’ you’re listening…” and compare them to his denials now. (Never you mind Trump Tower was like a home away from home for Russian mobsters.)
So the let’s not cover it, ignore it, call it “McCarthy-ism,” “a witch hunt,” “they’ll find there’s nothing there…” not working? Damn. OK, now let’s crank up the excuse machine. Anything to serve their wallets and/or the gods of partisanship.
The sad thing is I fear nothing here will make a dif. I’m hoping I’m wrong, though evidence of election fraud keeps getting pushed aside. There’s a long history of Republicans not being held accountable since Nixon took an “I’m not a crook” nose dive for his party. An example of virtue compared with what followed and, to be honest, we have LBJ, Clinton and Obama to blame for this trend. They decided not to pursue obvious corruption and election fraud. Republicans have come to expect not to be held accountable. Sometimes there seems a rush to “move forward,” as per our last president’s suggestion.
Yet…
When a president answers a question posed in the present tense (“is”) truthfully, he gets impeached (though not tossed out) for “perjury” because he didn’t answer it “truthfully…” as if the question actually had been posed in the past tense. When a president doesn’t immediately give the opposing party what they acted as if was the only valid birth certificate; what they called “the long form,” there’s a vast attempt to hold him accountable. When a Secretary of State has a private server: like so many, and sends out e-mails that are: ex post facto, littered with small “c’s”, there’s an attempt to hold her accountable for her staff not seeing that wasn’t there when they read them.
There’s an over abundance of efforts to hold one side “accountable” over somewhat real to imaginary offenses.
We need to stop this one party trend cold. And so much, not just Russia, with this administration is viable fuel to pile on to the fire. Democrats need to become the same kind of “arsonists” Republicans have been ever since they got pissed off over Nixon.
If not: American progressives, Dems and anyone to the left of the fascists now in power… meet dinosaurs.
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Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 40 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses, that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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