The adjective most frequently attached to Friday’s news of the indictment of 12 Russian spies for hacking Democratic Party files and emails to meddle in America’s 2016 presidential election was “bombshell.” And in many ways it was a bombshell: Seemingly airtight proof of the most elaborate — and, many would argue, the most successful — plot in the 242-year history of the United States by a foreign power to influence American domestic politics.
That said, the “bombshell” was less like a stealth bomber hovering the tree line to drop its payload in the dead of night, and more like the 1937 crash of the Hindenburg, a massive explosion of democracy that a big crowd sat and watched happen, helplessly, in slow motion, leaving folks in the crowd to cry “Oh, the humanity!” into the void.
After all, the first reports that the U.S. intelligence community believed organized Russian spying was the source of stolen Democratic Party documents and emails surfaced nearly two years ago. And yet — just as news in June 1972 that burglars with ties to Richard Nixon’s campaign had conducted their low-tech raid on Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate didn’t affect Nixon’s fall landslide — Donald Trump paid no penalty from American voters for those early hints of Russian interference. That happened for a lot of reasons — Trump allies like https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/02/20/mcconnell-owes-the-country-a-fuller-explanation-on-russian-meddling/?utm_term=.a7ef98d3e875 (Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fought to keep a lid on the intel), then-President Barack Obama was too timid in publicizing it, and much of an angry, polarized electorate probably was too mad to care.
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The impetus for change is going to have to come from the rest of us.
It starts with electing a brand new Congress in November — one that is willing to use all the investigatory powers at its disposal both to uncover the full extent of Russian hacking of election systems in 2016, and develop legislation to ensure that this never happens again. One of the more obvious solutions would be the elimination of paperless ballot boxes — which is the goal of a bill that’s already been introduced by six U.S. senators. Likewise, election results should be more routinely audited, or recounted, using those paper ballots to make Americans feel better about the final outcome.
It’s disconcerting to watch the American president making nice with Putin in Helsinki, knowing what we now know about Russia’s efforts to muck up our democracy. But what’s even more upsetting is the lingering notion that Trump shouldn’t have gained the 45th presidency in the first place.
