But the #1 goal that the intelligence services reasonably identified as the Russian goal was to discredit the political system and undermine the electoral system we had. The goal was a lot of instability and internal fighting in the US. Look around. That's goal 1.

I'm not sure this circle can be squared: opposing Trump on principle while not discrediting the entire system that produced him and weakening the structures that he's in charge of. It requires a kind of discourse which I think 80% of the American populace is simply incapable of, and often think of this inability as a virtue: dealing with ideas instead of personality, with principles instead of power, with logic instead of emotion and rhetoric. It requires a measure of unity and compromise to close ranks and produce stability that's gone by the way in the last decade. Many prefer to be outraged and let their center of reasoning be transposed to their adrenals and sympathetic nervous system. Sic semper erat. But for those, we're not nearly unstable enough. What was Russia's goal 1?

Like I said, it's a bitter pill to swallow, but there it is.

Goal 2 was to defeat HRC. Anybody who worked to defeat HRC was a Russian fellow traveler. That includes (R), but lots of (D) as well. Deny it all you want, but "what I intended to do" is often not the same thing as "what others observed me to do."

This includes those who love scandal and scurrilous news. (See point 1.) Even on fairly liberal radio stations where the editorial board and the reporters are overwhelmingly (D), the HRC scandals were big news.

Goal 3 was to support whoever was against HRC. By early-mid 2016 that person was Trump, and they thought him great. A buffoon, mostly. Ingenious in some ways, but not the ways that matter. Many like to say this was "the" Russian goal. Often because they support implementing the first two Russian goals but don't want to be implementing Russia's goals. It's a paradox, but all good cons, all good subversion, crucially is built on this kind of paradox: You put the person or organization or country in the position where if they do what they so yearn to do they wind up doing exactly what you want them to do, they wind up working for you.

What seems to amuse Putin and irritate him at the same time, though, is that many view a Russian behind every bush and hiding under every bed.


BTW, the Russians have pretty much never seen our politics as flattering. In poll after poll, when asked to choose between values that we find democratic (and sometimes Democratic) and stability, a good majority of Russians, like those in many other nations, choose stability. A certain low-class culture that finds interesting reflection in pop literature is also adamantly anti-American; they're the kind who prefer to fight than reason, smear than critique. Even, perhaps especially, for them, though ...

Freedom of speech vs stability? Stability.

Freedom of religious versus stability? Stability.

Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure versus stability? Stability.