Traitor? Yes. The last time I wrote, we were all listening to adamant denials of any meetings with any Russians, period. Yesterday we listened to Kushner try to explain why he left four separate Russian meetings off his security clearance forms. Back to the election numbers...
Here is the most important set of numbers:
As you can see, a hair under 39,000 votes flips three states and makes Hillary president. Considering the epic scale of Russian electoral interference using trolls, bots, and tons of fake news stories plantied in these three states, I would argue that Trump is a traitor, as well as a "so-called 'president'" -- illegitimate.
Here's a picture of the election map scaled for size of population, rather than the geographic size of the state:
This map helps us cover our wounds with a little slave.
If we survive the next two years without World War III, the election of 2018 is our best shot at getting Traitor Trump impeached. If Democrats take back the highly-gerrymandered House, they can open up several investigations into the finances of Trump's many money-laundering shell companies. I have to hope they can run against Trump and win, especially with a new focus on populist economics.
He's already starting to sweat, with muddled messages on pardons, Russian sanctions, openly threatening the Special Counsel Bob Mueller. We're so far through the looking glass that people are already predicting he'll fire him -- just like Nixon! -- and wondering what will happen next.
Speaking of what's happening next, today there's supposed to be a vote in the United States Senate on repealing Obama's ACA health care. Guess what? No one knows what bill they're voting on! Yes, you read that right: they are voting to potentially remake 1/5 or 1/6 of the US economy (health care) and no one knows what it will be.
This is where we are now -- we just casually accept things like this as normal. Republicans have proven that they are incapable of being a serious governing party. All they can do is run opposition on the basis of lies (death panels!) and fear (Obama wants your guns, ISIS is coming for you!) and hate (God, abortion, gays!).
I've reflected at some length on what things would have been like had Hillary won. First, congressional Republicans would have done absolutely nothing to pass any legislation. Second, they would have opened up as many investigations as they could, and maybe even impeached her, on made-up or trumped-up charges. Third, the election of 2018 would probably be another bloodbath for Democrats. Now instead we're looking at a wave election in 2018 and possible impeachment for Republicans instead. I predict she wouldn't have been reelected in 2020. So instead of Republicans having all three branches of government with strong majorities in 2020, let's hope that Democrats do. This is how I keep my sanity :)
