Russia Puts Its Fingers in Our Election Pie.

With all signs indicating that the House Intelligence Committee investigation into Russian Meddling in the 2016 Election is coming to a close, it might be time to reflect just a bit on the matter.  Now the House Intelligence Committee will not be the final word on the subject; there is another Committee or two in the House that might have something to say about it, there is a Senate Committee looking into the matter, and heaven only knows what Mr. Mueller and his merry band of lawyers are diddling with these days.  But this indication of a coming final report from the House Intelligence Committee may be the first movement, among several more, towards some closure in this episode.  What conclusions might we draw from the facts in this case?

First off, it is pathetically disingenuous for any person associated with the U.S. Government to ceremoniously condemn a foreign nation for openly or covertly supporting a particular candidate in another nation’s election.  We have done it ourselves many times, and we will undoubtedly continue doing it.  The most recent and blatant example is the Obama Administration’s very public efforts to defeat Benjamin Netanyahu as the Prime Minister of Israel.  Obama and Netanyahu’s world views did not jibe and Obama did everything within his power and authority to remove Netanyahu from Israeli leadership in hopes of replacing him with someone he might be better able to work with.  There is nothing unusual or significantly improper about t his.  Obama was the leader of our country and in his quest for serving our nation’s best interests, he did what he could do to influence the leadership of other global nations with whom we do business.  Perhaps the biggest distinction of the Obama meddling was the public nature of it.  The venom between he and Netanyahu was poorly concealed by both parties and the fact that it played out in the media as opposed to behind the scenes did little to serve the interests of either nation.  But the larger point is that there is nothing unusual about one nation’s interest in who leads another nation’s government.  America meddles, right along with all the rest of the global society.  The proper source of attention should be the prevention of the meddling; not the meddling itself.

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Secondly, it is extremely difficult, if not downright impossible, to assess the effectiveness of foreign nation meddling in another nation’s elections.  Heck, it is evident from U.S. polling performance and analysis that even domestic meddling in domestic elections is a very inexact science.  It is foolish to think that the amount of money available to a candidate has no influence on their chances of winning.  However, a significant advantage in campaign funds never has, and never will, be a guarantor of victory.  It is one of many important factors in the election process.  

From all indications, the Russian meddling effort took place through the auspices of an entity called the Internet Research Agency (IRA).  Reports tell us that the IRA spent up to $247,100 on Facebook and Twitter in an effort to influence the way American voters perceived the candidates and their positions.  Reports indicate that Clinton and Trump spent a combined $81 million on Facebook.  It is useful to note that the Clinton Campaign and associated PACs spent $1.2 billion in their quest for the Presidency while the Trump Campaign and associated PACs spent around $617 million to win.  The IRA’s social media efforts were not always targeted in the same direction.  They were, over time, taking different policy positions and promoting/disparaging different candidates.  It is also interesting that a significant portion of the IRA expenditures in this election exercise actually occurred after the election was over.  Points being: the amount spent by Russia is a drop in the bucket when considering the overall amount of money spent by the candidates and the parties themselves in the election efforts.  The influential effectiveness of the IRA efforts is also highly questionable; their conflicting positions and timing had to compromise their intended purposes.  We must also remember that the paltry expenditures of the IRA were spent across as many as 27 different targeted states. 

Finally, we should focus on what our true concerns should be in foreign election meddling.  Russia’s gonna be Russia.  America’s gonna be America.  Everybody else is gonna mimic us.  If we get the chance to screw around with a nation who is hostile to our global interests, we are going to do it.  We are doing it.  As long as a foreign nation does not actually develop a method that is sufficiently sophisticated to reach into our precinct voting machines and materially change vote counts, the meddling will amount to nothing more than a clumsy effort to tilt the scales in a contest where the rules are poorly understood by the meddler.  In politics, the law of unintended consequence is a great mitigator.  The very real threat associated with foreign meddling is in the corruption of a selected individual by a foreign government; a quid pro quo arrangement that can actually alter policies that impact the security of our country.  The successful implant of such a Manchurian Candidate into our national leadership would be the ultimate coup for our global enemies.  There can be little doubt that this effort to orchestrate the election of such a person has been attempted by the Soviets/Russians over time and quite possibly, with some success at lesser levels of U.S. government leadership.  But as long as their sole venue for pursuit of this goal is the attempt to influence the decision making process of the individual U.S. voter and not the material manipulation of U.S. vote counts, the efforts will continue to be futile and marginal at best. 

In lieu of further and significant evidence coming out in this matter, there is little doubt in the mind of any objective person that Russia did make a feeble and pathetic effort to meddle in our 2016 election; but their aim was not to elect Donald Trump because he was their Manchurian Candidate.  Their aim was to sow chaos in our election process, distrust in our form of government, and general conflict among our peoples.  As long as we take reasonable steps to prevent high-tech intrusions into our material vote count processes and do all within our power to insure the integrity of our voting laws and regulations, Russia will continue to meddle but fail to materially impact our elections.  One thing is for certain, however.  The inability of our government to address this issue in a pragmatic, bipartisan, and honest fashion has rendered them as nothing less than useful idiots in Russia’s aims.  The Trump Administration and the Democratic Party have spent much of the first year since the 2016 election chasing the ghost of the Manchurian Candidate.  The House Intelligence Committee has stopped chasing this ghost.  It is time for the rest of the ghost chasers to wake up.