The Chumpification of America

Following the indictments of a dozen Russian military operatives for hacking into the Democratic National Committee’s computers, at The Hill Jonathan Turley succinctly summarizes the state of the Mueller investigation to date:

After 14 months of investigation (and for the second time in a formal indictment), the Justice Department has stated that it is not alleging any knowing collusion between Trump campaign officials or associates and the Russians. Back in February, Mueller handed down his major indictment of 13 Russians for actively interfering with the 2016 election by spreading false information. Both Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein expressly noted that the evidence involved “unwitting” communications with Russians adopting false identities. This indictment shows that same pattern of clearly concealed identities in seeking to hack and distribute email information from the Democratic campaign and its associates.

I remain content to let the Mueller team do its job. Is this latest set of indictments the beginning of the end, the end of the beginning, or just another revelation with many more to come? We don’t know.

But I think it’s time now for me to make a prediction. Everyone is going to disappointed with the results of this investigation. Democrats will be disappointed that Donald Trump won’t be perp-walked to the gallows for collusion. He probably won’t be impeached and in all likelihood will be re-elected. Republicans will be disappointed that he won’t be fully and completely exonerated by the investigation. He and his campaign will look like chumps, eager for any incriminating information they could use on Hillary Clinton and her campaign as well as, needless to say, a quick buck.

And IMO that’s the main message of the events of the last 14 months. We all look like chumps. The DNC looks like a bunch of chumps for recklessness in the handling of their secrets, for foisting the least popular Democratic presidential nominee in American history on their heedless party, for turning the Democratic Party into the junior partner of the Clinton campaign, and for their breathless claims of “collusion”. The Republicans look like a bunch of chumps as they come to take on more and more of Trump’s characteristics including speaking too much, too soon, and well, stretching the truth. The Department of Justice and, particularly, the FBI look like a bunch of chumps for running off at the mouth and for obviously failing to recognize that their prejudices had led them astray. Americans look like chumps for buying the boilerplate accusations and defenses of their political leadership. Even the Russians look like chumps for behaving like comic book villains.