Let me get it out right up front. The title of this post says it all. America was attacked in 2016 by a foreign power with malicious intent. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
As on 911, they used our own technology against us. Instead of airliners slamming into buildings, they used the Internet to hack into key computer systems.
There were plenty of warnings, but our leadership — while not willfully blind to the threat this time — failed to prevent or counter them. And then there were those who DID choose to be willfully blind, saying that they would consider a public response to be a political act.
The 911 attackers intended to send a message to the world about how vulnerable America was, and create division. The attackers of 2016 did the same, and were counting on the divison a radicalized Republican party has been promoting for decades, especially the last 8 years. It is a party willing to do anything for political advantage.
The 2016 attackers had a candidate who is a world class disruptor to amplify their efforts. They were counting on a ‘free’ press that has been failing in its constitutional role for decades, that has a vendetta against one candidate, and a right-wing propaganda machine with no scruples.
The actions by a rogue FBI were just a bonus, made all the more inexcusable because of the information they chose to sit on while pushing allegations with no basis in fact.
911 happened in just a few horrible hours. It generated scenes of destruction that filled the news for days and weeks and years. It was in-your-face obvious, too big to ignore. It triggered national unity — behind a president and party completely unfit. It became an excuse for the worst actions on the part of the U.S. — something the 911 attackers were counting on.
The Election of 2016 attack unfolded over months. It left no burning buildings, no bodies, but it was a constant drip drip drip of corrosion attacking all the weak points of our country: a party with no principles except lust for power; a media driven by sensation and not facts; a country polarized along lines of race, religion, and paranoia. (But not paranoid about the real threats.)
We are left with a country where the flaws in our election process are on full display. We are left in a post-fact world where truth is based on how many people believe something. We are left with a radical party about to take power behind the least fit candidate in American history, a self-confessed sexual predator, narcissist, con-man, egomanic authoritarian. We are about to see all of the norms demolished as they consolidate their grip on the country. We are about to see every bad idea conservative fanatics have been dying to inflict on the country put into practice.
The most damaging effect of the attack is this: roughly half of the country and the political establishment are vested in seeing it succeed. This is something the 911 attackers didn’t have.
The damage to the Democratic Party may well be fatal. This has been building for years. Democrats lack the simple focus conservatives have: protecting their power and wealth. President Obama may be one of the best presidents we have ever had, but he leaves office with a country poised to reject everything he represented. This failure to reinforce or even clearly state what Democrats stand for creates a vacuum too easily filled by Republican demagoguery. Republicans have their own media and think tanks constantly pushing their agenda. They have billionaires promoting likely candidates. Democrats have….
Democratic unwillingness to address the radical nature of the conservative movement in this country has proven a fatal weakness. The desire to move on, not look back, not ensure that bad actions have consequences… have consequences of their own.
This president has been a good one, probably the most progressive politician we've seen in that office since LBJ was kicking ass in 1965. But he has made mistakes, and every single serious mistake he's made has been because he assumed good faith on the part of his political opposition, misjudged the depth and virulence of his political opposition, or both. It's 2016. Why would he still believe Mitch McConnell would act with dispassionate patriotism instead of partisan obstruction on anything? Why would he believe it of anyone in the congressional Republican leadership? Hell, he even admitted as much in an interview on NPR last July. I respect the president's confidence in the better angels of our nature, but those angels have been deathly quiet since 2009.
Vladimir Putin has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams because the real threat to America is right here at home. It always has been.
For a supposedly reality-based party, Democrats need to face up to to just what we’re up against. The attack of 2016 could not have succeeded if the Democratic Party had been doing its job — BEING a party. BEING partisan.
We have been attacked. We need to realize it, and fight back.