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Home > 'RussiaGate' Alone Isn't Going to Put Progressives Back in Power
'RussiaGate' Alone Isn't Going to Put Progressives Back in Power
By John Feffer [1] / Foreign Policy in Focus [2]
July 10, 2017, 10:14 AM GMT
Donald Trump's approval ratings remain dismal [3], yet the Democrats are 0
for 4 in congressional elections in 2017.
Not only do a majority of Americans believe [4] that the president has tried
to obstruct investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections
but, by a 2 to 1 margin [5], Americans believe former FBI chief James
Comey's account of his firing over Trump's version. And yet, 64 percent of
Americans [6] think that the RussiaGate investigations are hurting the
country, and a majority wants Congress to focus on other issues, like the
economy.
These polls tell you what you already know: The country is deeply divided,
the Democrats haven't been able to come up with a convincing way of bridging
the divide, and the RussiaGate investigations are no substitute for a
political platform.
It's a long way until the mid-term elections in November 2018 and the
RussiaGate investigation is still in its infancy, but already the Democratic
Party is in the midst of a second round of soul-searching about its
strategy.
The first round took place after Donald Trump swept to a narrow Electoral
College victory last November and largely hinged on whether the Sanders
focus on economic inequality would have done better at the polls against
Trump than Hillary Clinton's more cautious centrism. This second round
continues the debate on this question, but also throws in the wild cards of
Russia and Trump's potential wrongdoing.
Shortly after Democrat Jon Ossoff lost a close race in Georgia this month,
Democrats began to speak up about the electoral implications of RussiaGate.
Reports The Hill [7]:
In the wake of a string of special-election defeats, an increasing number of
Democrats are calling for an adjustment in party messaging, one that swings
the focus from Russia to the economy. The outcome of the 2018 elections,
they say, hinges on how well the Democrats manage that shift.
"We can't just talk about Russia because people back in Ohio aren't really
talking that much about Russia, about Putin, about Michael Flynn," Rep. Tim
Ryan (D-Ohio) told MSNBC Thursday. "They're trying to figure out how they're
going to make the mortgage payment, how they're going to pay for their kids
to go to college, what their energy bill looks like."
At one level, this same debate recurs every election cycle - do people care
more about foreign policy questions or pocketbook issues? The answer is
almost always: the economy. At another level, the debate is about whether
Trump's unpopularity can be used against him. It's another enduring debate:
take advantage of the incumbent's negatives or field a positive alternative?
As the 2004 and 2012 election results suggest, the opposition has to offer
something intrinsically appealing or risk defeat.
The four recent by-elections don't provide much to go on in terms of any
serious reevaluation of strategy. They all took place in Republican-friendly
areas that have yet to feel any real impact from Trump administration
policies. Ossoff, in particular, did much better than his district's
partisan preferences should have dictated (6 percent better [8], according
to the Cook Political Report). Nor did Ossoff spend a lot of time focused on
Russia. He was no Sanderista, but he didn't make Donald Trump and his
transgressions a central part of his campaign. It's hard to come to any
definitive conclusions from this race or the other three.
Still, the by-elections have stimulated an important discussion. Where one
comes down on the Russia vs. jobs question depends in large part on on how
one assesses the reasons for Trump's victory and whether RussiaGate can or
should function as a club to beat back the Republicans in future elections.
This debate is not just about electoral strategy. It's also about how the
United States should address the current global crisis of liberalism.
Interpreting Trump's Victory
There are two ways of understanding how Donald Trump won the 2016
presidential election: the triple backlash versus the triple hack.
According to the triple backlash argument [9], Trump benefited from a
worldwide rejection of liberalism: economically, politically, and
culturally. Large sections of the United States that didn't benefit from
economic globalization watched the disappearance of well-paying jobs from
the Rust Belt, rural areas and small towns, and certain big cities.
These residents of America B [10] blamed politicians from both parties for
pushing economic reforms that shifted wealth upward and out of their
communities. And they also blamed a range of "others" for what was wrong
with the country: immigrants, people of color, social liberals. This
economic-political-cultural backlash prepared the ground for a political
outsider with an anti-immigrant agenda and a promise to revive America's
sunset industries.
The triple hack argument is much more focused. Trump "hacked" the system in
three important ways, exploiting vulnerabilities to gain his narrow win.
The first hack was of the Electoral College. Trump didn't care about the
popular vote. He knew that he could write off large swathes of the American
electorate and concentrate his forces in a few swing states. So, for
instance, the campaign pulled resources [11] out of Virginia, an otherwise
important state for Republicans to win, to focus on the Midwest.
The second hack was the news media. The Trump campaign exploited the
mainstream media's fascination with the outrageous by constantly feeding it
new outrages. It also generated a spate of "fake news" about Hillary Clinton
that it distributed on the margins, in places like Breitbart News and
through social media like Facebook and Trump's own Twitter account. Here,
Russian journalists and trolls played a role, though probably not a pivotal
one.
Finally, the campaign hacked Facebook in two critical ways. It poured money
into an advertising campaign tailored to the preferences of over 200 million
Americans contained in three separate databases to which the campaign
maintained access [12]. And it created a "dark posts" campaign to dissuade
three groups of potential Democratic voters - Sanders supporters, young
women, and African Americans in urban areas - from going to the polls.
On top of the official voter suppression efforts [13] run by the Republican
Party - reducing early voting, implementing onerous voter ID laws - this
"keep out the vote" campaign was remarkably effective. In Detroit, a
Democratic stronghold, Clinton received 70,000 fewer votes [14] than Obama
got in his last outing. She lost the state of Michigan by fewer than 11,000
votes.
If you believe in the triple backlash argument, you're more inclined to push
for a political program that focuses on economic inequality and job
creation, particularly in depressed parts of the country. If you lean more
toward the triple hack argument, you're more likely to focus on counter-hack
tactics - a better media strategy, a better way of getting out the vote, a
better way of using oppositional research to undermine the opponent (even to
the point of impeachment).
Because the debate over the triple backlash opens up rifts within the party,
the Democrats will likely focus on technical "fixes" to recapture Congress
in 2018 and regain the 80,000 votes that Clinton lost by in Wisconsin,
Michigan, and Pennsylvania in order to win the presidency in 2020. Such an
approach would be wise tactically. But it would be disastrous in the long
term.
Responding to RussiaGate
The investigation into Russian meddling in the American election has
inevitably acquired a partisan taint. The Democrats have used it to question
the legitimacy of the election and of the Trump administration more
generally. Trump and the Republicans have accused their detractors of
conducting a witch-hunt.
It may come out in the investigation that the Trump campaign colluded with
the Russian government. It may also come out that Trump, as president,
obstructed justice by firing Comey and covering up elements of
collaboration. RussiaGate might bring down Donald Trump and some of his
advisers. Or it might turn out to be a series of murky, unprovable
assertions.
Regardless of the Trump team's actual involvement in the scandal, Russia
tampered with the U.S. political system. Russian hackers acquired
information from both major parties but decided only to weaponize the
material from the Democrats to compromise its chances in the election.
Hackers tried to break into [15] 21 state electoral systems, stole nearly
90,000 voter records, and even altered voter information in at least one
case. And a Russian disinformation campaign [16] spread rumors, fake
stories, and outrageous claims through a variety of media.
There is no concrete evidence that any of this interference tipped the
election in favor of Trump. But it is a strange irony that American interest
in RussiaGate is declining just as Congress and the media are providing
revelations on a weekly basis.
For those who still don't acknowledge Vladimir Putin's fingerprints on this
electoral intrusion, consider that the United States has not been the only
country targeted in this fashion. The same pattern was evident in France
[17], where Russian hackers and disinformation specialists attempted to
discredit Emmanuel Macron in an effort to boost the chances of pro-Kremlin
candidate Marine Le Pen. The Washington Post reports [18]:
In Lithuania, 100 citizen cyber-sleuths dubbed "elves" link up digitally to
identify and beat back the people employed on social media to spread Russian
disinformation. They call the daily skirmishes "Elves vs. Trolls."
In Brussels, the European Union's East Stratcom Task Force has 14 staffers
and hundreds of volunteer academics, researchers and journalists who have
researched and published 2,000 examples of false or twisted -stories in 18
languages in a weekly digest that began two years ago.
There is a peculiar tendency by some on the left to dismiss Russian
activities because some of the media coverage [19] has been inaccurate or
over-hyped or because of a supposed effort to "demonize" [20] Vladimir Putin
as part of a campaign to revive Cold War tensions between Washington and
Moscow.
Sure, some coverage has relied unwisely on single sources, but there's
plenty of evidence of Russian malfeasance that can't be so easily dismissed,
from Ukraine [21] to Europe [22] to the United States [23].
Moreover, Russian interference in the political process in the West has
nothing to do with old Cold War dynamics. Vladimir Putin wants to build an
alliance of far-right forces - from white power activists [24] in the United
States and the National Front in France to Viktor Orban in Hungary and
Euroskeptics throughout the continent - with the Kremlin as the beacon of a
new post-Western right-wing nationalist order.
This is no secret plan. Putin has been very open about his worldview [25].
Russia poses a challenge that goes far beyond the U.S. electoral system.
RussiaGate isn't just a threat to the Democratic Party. It's a threat to
democratic politics - everywhere. And it requires not just a bipartisan
response. It requires a transatlantic response.
Responding to the Crisis of Liberalism
Donald Trump has an answer for the crisis of liberalism and the triple
backlash that produced his electoral victory.
He's challenged the existing global economy by pulling the United States out
of the Trans Pacific Partnership and has promised to tear up - or
significantly renegotiate - a number of other trade deals. He's challenged
the liberal administrative state by attempting to gut social welfare and the
government regulatory apparatus across the board. He's challenged liberal
norms of inclusion with his travel ban, an anti-immigrant crusade, and other
policies that will adversely affect women, people of color, and the LGBT
community.
Vladimir Putin also has an answer for the crisis of liberalism that brought
Russia to its knees in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse. He
believes - at least instrumentally - in the three Cs: Christianity,
conservativism, and Caucasians. He wants to create a reactionary, religious,
and racist axis that unifies the Global North. But this is not about
international cooperation. Putin thinks only in terms of Russian interests,
which actually boil down to the economic interests of the oligarchs aligned
with his regime.
Employing "elves" to battle Russian trolls isn't enough. Creating
commissions to track and neutralize cyberattacks is not enough. Piling
revelation upon revelation about RussiaGate is not enough. These tactics are
necessary but not sufficient.
Instead of talking back to the TV, we should change the channel.
Progressives need to come up with our own answer to the crisis of
liberalism. We can borrow from progressive economic ideas of the past
(government work programs, for example, to create jobs). We can borrow from
populist political tactics (which worked so well for Bernie Sanders, for
example). We can even borrow from liberalism itself (the notion of an open,
inclusive society). But we must also come up with bold new programs around
renewable energy, the revival of community, and international cooperation.
Russia versus jobs is in some ways a false dichotomy. Progressives have to
devise a comprehensive alternative that responds to both the challenge of
Russia and the failures of liberalism. If we don't, we'll not only lose the
mid-terms and the next presidential election in the United States. We'll
lose the planet.
John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus [26] at the Institute
for Policy Studies. His dystopian novel, Splinterlands [27], a Dispatch
Books original (with Haymarket Books), will be published on December 6th. He
is a TomDispatch regular [28].
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Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/russiagate-progressive-power
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/john-feffer
[2] http://www.fpif.org
[3]
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/06/26/poll-trump-approval-plummets-hea
lth-care/22981092/
[4]
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/15/poll-61-a
mericans-think-trump-has-tried-obstruct-russia-investigation/102884748/
[5]
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/poll-more-americans-believe-comey
-over-trump-n776006
[6] http://www.newsweek.com/congress-trump-russia-poll-628682
[7]
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/339248-dems-push-leaders-to-talk-less-a
bout-russia
[8]
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-georgia-election-os
soff-loss-handel-20170621-story.html
[9] http://fpif.org/trump-transformation-politics/
[10]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176157/tomgram%3A_john_feffer%2C_donald_trum
p_and_america_b/
[11]
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/13/politics/donald-trump-campaign-virginia/index.
html
[12]
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/06/08/how-trump-used-facebook-to-win/
[13]
https://thinkprogress.org/2016-a-case-study-in-voter-suppression-258b5f90ddc
d
[14]
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/opinion/what-i-got-wrong-about-the-electi
on.html
[15]
http://time.com/4828306/russian-hacking-election-widespread-private-data/
[16]
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/apr/04/four-things-know
-about-russias-2016-misinformation/
[17]
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/04/russia-election-eu
rope-us/524208/
[18]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/europe-has-been-working-to-expos
e-russian-meddling-for-years/2017/06/25/e42dcece-4a09-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b
_story.html
[19]
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/27/cnn-journalists-resign-latest-example-of
-media-recklessness-on-the-russia-threat/
[20]
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/26/democrats-face-failing-russia-gate-sch
eme/
[21] https://www.wired.com/story/russian-hackers-attack-ukraine/
[22]
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/09/russia-engineered-elect
ion-hacks-europe/96216556/
[23]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/obama-p
utin-election-hacking/?hpid=hp_hp-banner-high_russiaobama-banner-7a%3Ahomepa
ge%2Fstory&utm_term=.a17351957f9b
[24]
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[25]
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/
[26] http://fpif.org/
[27] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608467244/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
[28]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176157/tomgram%3A_john_feffer,_donald_trump_
and_america_b/
[29] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=Typo on ;'RussiaGate' Alone
Isn't Going to Put Progressives Back in
Power&body=URL:http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/russiagate-progress
ive-power
[30] http://www.alternet.org/
[31] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
