Rudy Giuliani is out selling the new line, and it’s being repeated around the conservative networks like a wild fire…and it’s really disturbing. If we go back to right the early days, post election, the official line is that Russia didn’t meddle in the election, and Trump and team certainly didn’t collude with them to help that happen. NO COLLUSION. When the investigation into Russia’s interference began in earnest, a certain dossier was uncovered, and news of high level campaign staffers and cabinet members having connections and meetings with potential Russian agents, including but not limited to Paul Manafort and even Donald Trump’s own son, Don Jr., the narrative changed a little. Now it was, ok…we might have had some meetings, but nothing ever exchanged hands, nothing shady happened, and Donald Trump was certainly never personally aware of it. Also, still not convinced Russia did anything wrong. NO COLLUSION. Then indictments were made, statements came out, some of Trump’s confidants became willing to testify, and the narrative again made a subtle change. The people indicted were actually not really, truly, honestly THAT big a part in the whole campaign. They were small cogs doing their own thing. NO COLLUSION. In recent days, It’s become increasingly obvious that Trump himself WAS aware of certain events during the time they were happening, and as things are unfolding, the new line has been unveiled. Now the narrative is: If the WAS COLLUSION, then it’s fine. Collusion isn’t TECHNICALLY illegal. Anyone in Trump’s position given the chance would have colluded. Excuse me? Taking potential leverage from a hostile foreign power who could use that as leverage of their own? MMMMno. I don’t think so. I don’t think ANYONE would have colluded. Only insecure manchildren and supervillains, really.
So I’ve been really trying to process how Trump plays to this Russia backlash. Obviously it’s a big deal when even some of his most ardent supporters are really turned off by his rhetoric. And publicly siding with Russia regarding the election meddling was kind of a shocker. GOP stalwarts were essentially calling his behavior treasonous. It was bad. So when he walked back his statements the next day only by suggesting that when he said “would” instead of “wouldn’t” when saying he didn’t know why it would be Russia who interfered, it was a total slip of the tongue…well I expected such a blatant lie not to work as well as it did. I mean it wasn’t just one switch up of “would” and “wouldn’t”. He went on several diatribes on Monday, both in his initial statement, in his Hannity Interview and his Tucker Carlson interview, shoring up the position that he didn’t have faith in his intelligence community, that he thinks Putin is great, and that Putin’s word holds more water. The idea that he could simply claim this was a slip of the tongue issue is a lie, for no other reason than that it literally contradicts 24 hours of statements to the contrary. Yet, GOP congressmen, apologist pundits, and generally everyone who had this moment of clarity regarding who Trump is, immediately seemed to say “That makes sense” and went back to calling the liberals a bunch of liars distorting the truth. And the world around us all collectively sighed…
I feel like the term “witch hunt” has taken on a new sort of resonance since the special investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections began. President Donald Trump uses the word publicly several times a week to refer to Special Counsel Robert Mueller III’s investigation because he has decided that it’s a liberal conspiracy to bring him and his administration down (OR he he’s trying to hide his malfeasance and/or criminal behavior…that’s a possibility as well). But you see, the term “witch hunt” is supposed to imply that you’re searching for something that isn’t there or doesn’t exist, and as a result, innocent people get burned. But it’s important to note that if you’re on a witch hunt and you find ACTUAL witches, e.g. You find exactly the bad things you suspected you might find, then it CAN’T be a witch hunt. In the case of the Russia investigation, besides uncovering Russian spies and several conspirators working with Russia who had key roles in Trump’s campaign, it also uncovered specific examples of Russia explicitly attempting to collude with Donald Trump’s campaign. Whether Trump or his campaign did anything wrong remains up in the air, but Mr. Trump! Your witch hunt has turned up witches! You can’t run from that anymore!
Trump’s little weekend diatribes are beginning to be like a tradition. You can usually count on him to say something completely crazy before the weeks is out, whether he’s laying an extra layer of crazy on top of a crazy week, or on the off chance he managed to have a quiet week, he can sneak it a little crazy to make sure the week feels right. This week wasn’t too terribly off script. Lot’s of stuff about witch hunts, and him patting his back. He really wants us to know that it’s unfair that everyone is focused on his potential treason when he wants to take credit for questionable unemployment statistics. But the weird thing that really caught my eye was when he suggested all the “Young and Beautiful” peoples’ lives being destroyed over the investigation. To which I and any reasonable person would ask…which young and beautiful people are having their lives even affected over this investigation, much less devastated and destroyed? I’ve been racking my brain over this for hours, and I can’t think of who he might be referring to. That is unless he for some reason thinks his is the young and beautiful life being devastated. But that would be crazy, right?
Mind the Exit 