The-Ave.US

Republicans are claiming vindication, but is it really? That doesn’t stand up to objective analysis.

First, Barr’s letter. Trust, but verify. We shouldn’t attack his conclusions without cause, but we haven’t seen Mueller’s words yet, only Barr’s characterization of them, and Barr is not an impartial observer. He’s a Trump ally who was picked for the AG job to make Trump look good or at least contain the adverse effects of Mueller’s investigation. So let’s accept his letter at face value for now, but we still need to compare it with the original report to see if Barr is being straight with us.

After seeing Barr’s letter, but before seeing Mueller’s report, here’s what we have before us:

We know for sure that Russia interfered in the election, that Russian operatives made multiple offers to help the Trump campaign, that no one involved with the Trump campaign ever reported this, that Trump’s son met with a Russian contact to discuss obtaining the stolen emails that cost Hillary Clinton the election, that Trump surrounded himself with criminals, that a criminal ran his campaign, and that Mueller explicitly refused to exonerate Trump of criminal obstruction.

This is what Republicans are calling “a victory.” By doing so, they’re proving they have no moral compass, no sense of right and wrong, no patriotism, and will stoop to anything to achieve their dubious policy goals. Lack of evidence they didn’t take the next step — active collusion — does not, as Mueller put it, exonerate them.

Trump is a malevolent force in American politics. The GOP has followed him into the sewer of racist politics. Our nation’s founders gave us several remedies to abusive power. The foremost of these is elections; they put the primary responsibility for curing a diseased government on voters. Us.

We nearly kept Trump away from the presidency. He lost the popular vote by a wide margin. While there’s no evidence of direct tampering with either the popular or electoral vote by the Russians or anyone else, it’s unlikely Trump would have become president without Russian help. And, of course, the Russians helped Trump win to serve their own interests, not ours.

As individuals, there’s little you or I can do to keep Russia from choosing our leadership again. We can only hope that voting machines and vote counting are secured sufficiently, and that our authorities are on top of Russia’s game and neutralize their disruptive schemes. But that won’t be enough.

The Democratic Party must find ways to overcome Republican vote suppression, field a nominee who voters feel comfortable voting for, and offer policy proposals that are both realistic and address ordinary people’s real needs.

Polls have consistently shown that Trump does not represent a majority of voters. He retains his base by being against everyone not like them, and they are nowhere near a majority of us. In reality, he’s the leader of a small mob.

But defeating Trump will require more than being against him and what he stands for; it will require giving the decent and good people of our country something to vote for. If Democrats fail to do this, it’s possible that Trump will be the default option for a crucial bloc of swing voters, especially if the economy is doing well. Incumbent presidents usually get re-elected unless the economy is bad.