I am going to present this post as I have presented other posts about the links between Trump and Russia: this more than just politics, more than just disgracing or derailing a Trump Presidency, or who becomes President. Russian interference in our elections is a serious security issue. Regardless of whether or not Trump is ultimately a useful idiot or outright puppet.
If you take the reports that Russia has incriminating material on Trump as reasonably credible, I would ask you to look at things from Putin’s perspective.
Let’s say you wanted to undermine US foreign policy, you wanted to do so through undermining their government, and ensuring it is too dysfunctional to executive any effective policies against Russia: such as military or diplomatic maneuvering.
Let’s say you were quite successful at this endeavor. So successful, in fact, that you got a guy elected that wholly contradicts the will of the American people.
How then, could you make that success even bigger?
I suspect this could be a plausible move by Putin: Close to Inauguration Day, either the day of or day before — close enough that there would be no stopping Obama stepping down and being able to use his executive powers — Putin releases all the incriminating material they have on Trump.
Evidence that he either engages in some seriously depraved stuff, or outright treason or espionage against the United States for personal gain and fortune, would do well to serve its purpose of tarnishing Trump’s reputation — many times more than he has proven himself capable of by himself.
As valuable as he might be as a puppet in the White House, his rise to President-elect status has already done the majority of damage necessary to undermine US international policy for quite awhile. The country is seriously divided, most attentions our focused to issues close to home, the press is easily-distracted.
The electoral process in this country has been shattered. The people do not trust the government, our elections, or our intelligence and security officials.
Ensuring that Trump takes the Oval Office, with all of his dirty laundry out in the air, would ensure things are even more chaotic. Either Trump takes the office with charges of espionage and/or treason hanging over his entire organization, or they are prevented from taking power, or quickly removed. Any and all of these situations would be messy, and likely cause a lot of civil unrest, moreso than we have already been potentially facing ever since Trump was announced the winner of the Electoral College.
Of course, considering the devotion of Trump’s supporters despite all the other scandals that have plagued his ascendance, Putin might even half expect that we as a country — or at least, the Republicans in Congress — would still allow Trump to be President, even as compromised and exposed as a manipulated figure as he is.
In other words, if Putin really does have incriminating stuff on Trump, all the incentives would be to leak it in roughly a week from now.
Of course, some people here might not consider that such a bad thing. If its damning enough that it might even prevent Trump from taking the office, the desire might be to cheer on such a situation. But once again, we would be falling into much the same trap as Trump voters have fallen into, by allowing outside interference to compromise our democracy and the peaceful transition of power, over the express will and actions of the American people. I think the best thing is to identify when we are being manipulated, and resist the temptation to follow its destructive course.
As a Millenial, I am too young to fully appreciate what it must have been like during the Cold War, to live with the constant assumption that the Soviet Union was out to destroy the United States. But I am also not one ignorant enough to think that Russia, or perhaps simply Putin, has any interests in their mind, other than crippling what we as a country can do to respond to their activities in the world.
Let’s hope, as bad as things already are, that they do not get far, far worse.
Wednesday, Jan 11, 2017 · 5:58:54 PM +00:00
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pierre9045
One more facet I have thought about but forgot to mention — that I think might more directly address why Putin would do this, rather than, say keeping Trump as his “ace in the sleeve,” as commenters are pointing out:
The global landscape of foreign policy has significantly been crafted by the power balance between the United States and Russia. Many countries face how they deal with the US, Russia, and even other foreign powers, based on their perspective of which country has more leverage in the international scene.
By outing Trump, That power balance would tip significantly in Russia’s favor.
Russia would effectively be able to prove that they have successfully defeated and embarrassed the US, and are far more powerful in the short-run, than a US that will now be mired in a political quagmire, as it sorts out what to do with Trump. I think the global impacts of such a statement would prove far more significant than simply having a Russian-puppet Trump in power, for however long he is able to maintain a hold of it.