What metaphor could possibly capture the reporting that emerged over the weekend, followed by opinion columns, some by conservative writers, to the effect that Donald Trump, the current occupant of the White House and Individual-1, is somehow serving Russian interests?
I suppose watershed approximates the situation as well as any: the reporting, the headlines, the questions, and the opinions are all converging toward the worst-case scenario: that the president of the United States poses our most direct national security threat.
Here's the great Carl Bernstein reporting what he purports to know will come out in the Mueller report. It's stunning.
I'll link some of the important news and opinion pieces at the end of this thought piece. Here I want to argue that most of us are way underestimating how Donald Trump may be executing Russian policy objectives.
We're all clear on the obvious. Russia loves it that Trump is undermining our alliances, especially with NATO and the EU. Just last week, while we were all hooting and hollering about the stupid wall, Trump symbolically demoted the EU's diplomatic status. That story got little traction in the US because the government shutdown is so destructive, but you'd best believe it made headlines elsewhere.
Also obvious are other foreign policy aims. In a programmatic speech in Cairo Secretary of State Mike Pompeo directly contradicted himself, saying the US only weakens itself when it abandons its allies and withdraws from conflicts -- while announcing that the US is abandoning its allies and withdrawing from the conflict in Syria. The whole world noticed. Trump's fondness for authoritarians, his embrace of the murderous Saudi regime, his entanglements with Iran, and his Korean blunders all enhance Russian objectives.
But what about Trump's domestic policies? Have we considered the ways in which Trump's domestic agenda is designed to weaken the United States?
Let's take just a few examples.
Trump's tax code revision fueled a burst of employment along with a predictable jump in stock prices, all good things. But we're now seeing the consequences. The federal budget deficit, already an albatross, is soaring, hollowing out our resources for dealing with any financial crisis, much confronting foreign threats. And how will the United States build up its infrastructure and education to compete with less friendly competitors? The tax code is a time bomb ticking underneath the train of democracy.
All of Trump's cabinet picks who hold responsibility for domestic affairs are perfectly suited to gut the very departments they lead: education, energy, environment, health, you name it. One might interpret this as an overextension of right-wing ideology. Or one might see it as an intentional effort to inflict grave harm upon the structure of American society.
Trump's politics of grievance through tweeting, constant campaigning, and the like all exacerbate American divisions, especially upon racial lines. Russia actively targeted US racial politics in 2016, and we might say they have continued to do so through Trump and the Republican Party in 2018 and into 2019.
Finally, let's consider the government shutdown. Just this week federal employees missed their first paycheck, creating personal hardship for hundreds of thousands of households. This includes federal employees responsible for our national security. Over 5000 FBI agents, analysts, and the like have been furloughed, to take one example, and the FBI Agents Association has declared the shutdown a threat to national security. The harm will continue beyond the conclusion of the shutdown, as key employees in departments like Justice and Homeland Security may seek other, more reliable employment.
As we come to grips with what we know, we need to take a full accounting of the full return on investment Vladimir Putin is receiving from Donald Trump -- and the possibility that a lot more is at stake than we've accounted for.
Major News Stories and Opinion Pieces Over the Past Few Days
- The biggie: FBI was looking into whether Trump was working for Russia, as has Mueller (NYTimes)
- The second biggie: Trump hiding the content of his conversations with Putin from administration officials (WaPo)
- First smoking gun story: Manafort shared internal polling data with Russian associate during election (WaPo)
- Conservative Tom Nichols on the possibility that Trump is compromised
- Conservative Max Boot (who may no longer consider himself a conservative) on why Trump may be a Russian asset
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