By Beau Elliot
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.
Well, it was a pretty amusing movie some years ago, which might have been before Benjamin Franklin invented electricity.
And yes, I know, Franklin didn’t invent electricity, he just seemed to. The Universe invented electricity in one of those rare moments of forgetfulness. It invented rare gases in the same way. If you don’t trust me on this, you can trust Donald Trump.
Speaking of seeming to be something.
But the Russians are coming (1966, Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, Alan Arkin, directed by Norman Jewison), only this time in the form of ye old Trump and Russians hackers galore. (He is kind of old; if he wins, he would be the oldest U.S. president ever on his inauguartion. Hillary Clinton would be the second oldest.)
Or the just Russian hackers are coming. Take your pick. We have no idea how old they are, but I’m going with younger people.
So you had Russian hackers, likely from two Russian intelligence agencies, backstropping their way into the DNC computers, in which they likely found some internal gripes, a whole lot of gossip, and various reactions to “Unreal.” Also some Jabberwocky about Sen. Bernie Sanders.
And then, the Russians released a bunch of the data the day before the Democratic Convention.
Aha. Grassy-knoll time. Obviously, a Russian conspiracy to hurt Hillary Clinton and boost Trump.
Well, there is this bit: Trump, instead of condemning the hacking, invited the Russians to hack some more into the Democrats. Yes, he invited a foreign power to hack his political opponent’s campaign. If I did that, I’d be accused of treason.
But, you know, the Trumpahontas is what he is, impervious to all laws and good behavior. Because he’s rich.
Which is why he refuses to release his tax returns. Oh, some would say he won’t release those returns because they might detail his involvement with the Russian oligarchs.
James Fallows of The Atlantic, for instance, writes that a “veteran figure in the defense world and political affairs” wrote him to say “(a) Trump has been kept afloat for about 15 years by Russian oligarchs; and (b) Russia has a powerful incentive to see a U.S. president who will end economic sanctions.”
You say, that’s just grassy-knoll talk.
Grassy-knoll talk? OK. But remember the person we’re talking about. This is the Trumpster, the guy who dissed the mother and father, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, of a U.S. soldier who was killed in Iraq in the line of duty. Trump criticized them because they, and their fallen son, were Muslims.
So why not have President Vladimir Putin running things and good buddy President Trump lounging in his dacha in Florida?
With so many Americans fed up with modern American life, why not have modern Russian life, which often seems like Soviet life. Of course, that’s what happens when you have a former KGB guy in charge.
So American life under Putin would involve much better rye bread, which is positive, but we’d keep running out of it. The vodka would be much better, but we’d keep running out of it. The cars would be a lot worse, and more polluting, but luckily, we’d keep running out of them.
Later, as we say, when we think there will be later.