The #MAGA crowd has a nickname for what they see as the\nirrational hatred liberals have for their Lord and Savior, Donald J. Trump.\nThey call it \u201cTrump Derangement Syndrome.\u201d In their eyes, the left is\ninexplicably apoplectic because their Great Leader is somehow making America\ngreat again by giving away trillions to billionaires, bankrupting the treasury,\nand by not making Mexico pay for a wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
#MAGA-heads can rationalize this because they see\neverything the emotionally incontinent toddler-in-chief does as an act of\npolitical genius and can\u2019t imagine that anyone would think otherwise, even\nthough any rational person would almost always think the opposite of whatever\nTrump rage-tweets at three in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While \u201cTrump Derangement Syndrome\u201d is a figment of the\n#MAGA-heads\u2019 imaginations, there is a real, or at least more real, affliction\nrunning rampant among the left wing, and I call it \u201cRussia Derangement\nSyndrome.\u201d There are, in fact, two very difference strains of the illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first afflicts those who unquestioningly swallowed the\nfairy tale of Hillary Clinton\u2019s \u201cinevitable-ness,\u201d both establishment Democrats\nand those that thought her gender alone made her ascension into a reason for\ncelebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For these people, the \u201cRussia-gate\u201d scandal provides a\nconvenient excuse for why \u201cThe Inevitable One\u201d lost the presidency to a\nreality-show clown. Never mind the fact that there is no evidence that Russian\ninterference played a decisive role in the 2016 election, there is also the\nreality that the election was close enough for the Russians to possibly have\nplayed role, that The Inevitable One didn\u2019t utterly curb-stomp the most easily\nbeatable Republican candidate since Barry Goldwater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Russia scandal gives the establishment wing of the\nDemocratic Party a convenient excuse not to examine Hillary Clinton\u2019s many\nshortcomings as candidate or their own ideological bankruptcy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the other wing of left-wing American politics, the Bernie-crat progressives, often suffers from its own version of \u201cRussia Derangement Syndrome.\u201d Progressive personalities like Jimmy Dore and Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk can be counted upon to do an audible eye-roll at the slightest mention of Russiagate or Russian collusion with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those afflicted with the progressive strain of this\nsyndrome seem to reflexively reject any suggestion that the Russia scandal is\nserious as the Democrats making excuses or the establishment justifying a more\nhawkish foreign policy stance toward Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be fair, both concerns are justified to a degree. I\u2019ve\nalready covered the establishment strain of the syndrome, and those afflicted\nwith it, like Rachel Maddow, have engaged in overheated rhetoric that is\nunfortunately reminiscent of the Cold War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem is that victims of both strains see the issue\nwithout shades of gray. The Russia scandal is either an assault on the very\nfoundations of our democracy, or it\u2019s just smoke-and-mirrors meant to distract\nus from the real issues or to justify a more hawkish stance toward Russian (and\npresumably greater defense spending).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem with coming down on either side too hard is\nthat both sides have very valid arguments. There\u2019s no doubt that Hillary\nClinton loyalists and establishment Democrats love to flog every alarmist story\nabout Russian election meddling because it distracts from their abysmal failure\nin 2016 and the reality that their anointed candidate was not an effective\ncampaigner, and she is the face of the Democratic Party\u2019s past, not its future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the establishment media has been too quick to brand the Russian meddling as an \u201cattack on our democracy\u201d and an \u201cact of war.\u201d If meddling in elections is an \u201cact of war,\u201d then the United States committed acts of war against Iran in 1953 and Chile in 1973, just to name the countries that spring most readily to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, even if the Russian government\u2019s efforts to\neither influence or subvert our 2016 election don\u2019t rise to level of\ninternational aggression, any attempt by a foreign country to interfere with an\nAmerican presidential election is cause for alarm and hopefully would stir to\ncountry to the appropriate action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAppropriate action,\u201d is this case, does not include hysterical cries about \u201cacts of war.\u201d It should include understanding how it was done and how our presidential elections are vulnerable. I\u2019ll give you a hint on the last one. It\u2019s called the Electoral College. As I have explained elsewhere, this rickety kluge makes our democracy unacceptably vulnerable to potential chicanery<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Personally, I\u2019m skeptical that the investigations into\nRussian election meddling will reach the Oval Office. If the Russians were or are\nrunning an intelligence operation against our election system, and it was\nsupposed to be covert operation, Donald Trump is last person I would want to\nhave any information, given how leaky his mouth tends to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, that doesn\u2019t let Cheeto Mussolini off the hook.\nRichard Nixon did not personally break into the DNC headquarters at the\nWatergate. It was the blatant obstruction of justice that did in Tricky Dick,\nand Trump\u2019s many obstructions make Nixon look like a total slacker in that\ndepartment. I doubt that Trump is really worried about the Russian investigation\nas it relates to the election, but if the investigation reaches his finances,\nit could expose how much of his supposed fortune is a castle built upon the\nsands of money laundering for the Russian oligarchs who\u2019ve financed some of his\nproperties. Seeing his fraudulent claims to being a great businessman exposed\nas a lie would be humiliating for Trump, and the 45th president has a low pain\nthreshold when it comes to humiliation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The #MAGA crowd has a nickname for what they see as the irrational hatred liberals have for their Lord and Savior, Donald J. Trump. They call it \u201cTrump Derangement Syndrome.\u201d In their eyes, the left is inexplicably apoplectic because their Great Leader is somehow making America great again by giving away trillions to billionaires, bankrupting … <\/p>\n