Actually, Trump Is Not Hitler and the 2016 Election Was Nothing At All Like Pearl Harbor

FILE – In this Dec. 7, 1941 file photo, the destroyer USS Shaw explodes after being hit by bombs during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Wednesday marks the 70th anniversary of the attack that brought the United States into World War II. (AP File Photo)

To say the media and the Never Trump people who still claim to be Republican or conservative have totally lost their crap over President Trump’s joint press conference with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in Helsinki is an understatement. Not only was a President accused of treason (ask yourself for a moment how this is even possible as the Executive sets foreign policy for the nation, I mean, FDR could have given Eastern Europe to Stalin and that would not be treason), we’ve discovered that in best 1984 fashion we’re being told that we’ve always been at war with Russia and that Trump is actually Hitler. Let’s look at some samples of the genre.

Washington Post. It’s not wrong to compare Trump’s America to the Holocaust. Here’s why. (It looks like the WaPo is hiring headline writers from the naifs at Vox.com.)

Following up on this we have both Nazi and Imperial Japan references:

https://twitter.com/AliVelshi/status/1019053216997179392

And a whole industry has sprung up comparing the 2016 election to Pearl Harbor and 9/11:

WATCH: Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal compares Russian meddling to September 11 terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. https://t.co/sYhdGBsEnm pic.twitter.com/f25SIxcdci

— Amber Athey (@amber_athey) July 18, 2018

But after all the people who died after the end of Net Neutrality and gutting Obamacare, I’m surprised anyone noticed.

But I think the real booby prize goes to those comparing Russian actions in 2016 to Pearl Harbor or 9/11. The masterpiece is this from Politico: Putin’s Attack on the U.S. Is Our Pearl Harbor.

This insulting piece of gibberish is co-authored by a retired Army three-star, Mark Hertling, and an agent of two foreign powers who would benefit from the US acting as though it had been attacked:

She is a registered agent for Georgian President Saakachvili’s government, which she advised from 2009-2013, and for former Moldovan Prime Minister Filat, who has been in prison since 2015.

What is notable about the article is that it actually draws no parallels between the 2016 election meddling and Pearl Harbor or 9/11, for the simple reason that they aren’t the same thing. If one is to take this drivel with any measure of seriousness, the analog of Putin’s activities would look more like the formation of the German-American Bund in 1933.

So far, this attack has been met by relative silence at the top, by at least two consecutive presidents who have failed to find the right formula for dealing with a calculating foe like Putin. This silence propagates fear, division, unrest and diminishing trust—and it is every bit as crippling as Putin could have hoped.

At least these brainiacs noticed that history did not begin in 2017 and that the “attack” occurred under the last guy. Given the other stuff in the article, this is a signal accomplishment.

This scaremongering about Russia is bizarre and unhinged. Russia had direct expenditures of about $500,000 directed at the 2016 election. Mueller’s “$1.25 million per month” number comes from guessing (I say guess because it is a safe bet he doesn’t have the financial statements of the organizations involved) at the salary, indirect, and overhead expenses associated with the ad campaign. In short, it resembled very much what an advertising buy looks like from an agency standpoint.

The bottom line here is that Russia did nothing that we don’t do or haven’t done. And for the same reason. They interfered in our election to simply to weaken and cause a bit of trouble for Hillary Clinton after she was sworn in. The level of effort simply isn’t in line with what it would take to influence a US election. And the US retaliated by a combination of expelling Russian diplomats, closing Russian facilities, and imposing sanctions on selected Russian entities. Nothing Putin did compares with the effort undertaken by Obama who directed at least $350,000 in federal funds to an organization trying to defeat Benjamin Netanyahu and many members of Obama’s OFA organization ended up working in Israel against Netanyahu. And yes, I am drawing a direct moral equivalence between what we did in Israel and what Russia did in the US because meddling is meddling.

Our democracy was not, as some claim, put in jeopardy and the worst you can say about the Russian effort, other than it being juvenile, was that it simply highlighted fissures in our body politic that have existed for decades. Ironically, the only reason anyone cares about what Russia did is because Hillary Clinton lost. In fact, there was a time when the Democrats begged the Russians to intervene in our election. Susan Rice told the NSC to stand down from plans to react to the Russian activity. Obama did nothing until after the election. It is difficult to imagine any of the people with ground glass in their tightly knotted knickers over Russian meddling bothering to care if Hillary had won. And that exposes this whole mess for what it is. It has nothing to do with Russia or Putin who, in 2012, were not our enemies.