And here's an opposing point of view to the one I just posted.
Miriam
Mayer writes: "Like a maddeningly provocative amateur sportsman, Trump had
once again served a ball that was so wild it was hard to tell if it was a
mistake or a deliberate attempt to destabilize all of the accepted rules of
the game."
Donald Trump travelled to Moscow in 2013 to meet Vladimir Putin hoping to
discuss plans for a Trump Tower near Red Square. (photo: AP/Getty Images)
Trump and Russia: Even Historians See No Precedent
By Jane Mayer, The New Yorker
31 July 16
Three U.S. senators huddled worriedly last night amid the crush of
Democrats in the corridors of the Wells Fargo Center, the site of their
national Convention. Leaning in closely, in hopes that no one would
overhear, one urgently complained to the others that Hillary Clintons
campaign wasnt doing enough to counter the bizarre statements made that
morning by Donald Trump.
In one of his impromptu press conferences, Trump had all but begged Russia,
which U.S. intelligence officials alleged had hacked into the Democratic
National Committees e-mails, to go back for more. Russia, if youre
listening, I hope youre able to find the thirty thousand e-mails that are
missing, the Republican nominee had declared. I think you will probably be
rewarded mightily by our press.
Trump, now the official candidate of the Republican Party, seemed to be
urging Russia, one of Americas most formidable and historically hostile
rivals, to engage in cyber espionage against the Democratic nominee.
Someone needs to call for an investigation! one of the senators in the
corridor exclaimed. Its a violation of the Logan Act! he said, referring
to the law that criminalizes private citizens interfering with U.S. policy.
Realizing that they had been overheard, the senators insisted that their
heated, private strategizing was off the record, and dashed farther down the
windowless channel of packed-in humanity that surrounded the arenas floor.
But the frustration and confusion they exchanged caught, in an instant, the
tenor and talk of the Democratic campaign. Trump had once again disrupted
American politics at the highest level, and even the most practiced and
powerful professionals were beside themselves at the inability of anyone on
their side to adequately react.
Like a maddeningly provocative amateur sportsman, Trump had once again
served a ball that was so wild it was hard to tell if it was a mistake or a
deliberate attempt to destabilize all of the accepted rules of the game. In
the past, Presidential nominees have taken brief vacations during the
opposing partys Convention, deferentially ceding the spotlight. But Trump,
who made in-person appearances nearly every night of his own Convention, had
grabbed the worlds attention during the Democratic Convention, too. His
statement had been so extraordinary that no one knew whether to dismiss it
as a joke (which he later insisted it was) or to take it deadly seriouslyas
one ordinarily would the words of someone with a near-even chance of
becoming the most powerful elected official in the world. Trump and his
campaign officials have laughed off suggestions that they had any
connections to the murky Russian actors behind the hacking of the D.N.C.s
e-mails, but they also failed to condemn the illegal breach.
Working yesterday morning on the other side of town, at the National
Constitution Center, the historian Sean Wilentz was among those who regarded
Trumps conduct as borderline treason. Wilentz, a professor of American
history at Princeton (and a longtime supporter of Hillary Clinton),
described himself as flabbergasted. I cant think of anything that has
happened like this before, he said.
Its rare for historians to identify any act as a first. Ordinarily they are
full of caveats, precedents, and nuances. But in this case, Wilentz said, he
could think of no comparison in American history. If a sitting President,
rather than a candidate, had called for a foreign power to commit an act of
espionage in order to influence the outcome of an election, it would be an
impeachable act, Wilentz said. Watergate was nothing in comparison with
this. This is beyond partisanship. Its stunning, in my view, he added.
If Trumps open plea to Russia shocked Wilentz, he did note that there has
been at least one instance of a Presidential candidate clandestinely trying
to collude with foreign powers to advantage his campaign. In the fall of
1968, Richard Nixon secretly used an emissary to scuttle peace talks aimed
at ending the Vietnam War. At the time, Nixon, the Republican nominee, was
locked in a fierce campaign against Hubert Humphrey, the sitting
Vice-President to Lyndon B. Johnson, who had declined to run for reëlection.
The country was riven by conflict over the unpopular and failing Vietnam
War. After dithering for much of the campaign season, Humphrey finally
distanced himself from Johnson and promised to unilaterally end the war if
elected. His poll numbers began to soar, to Nixons dismay. Peace talks in
Paris, which had seemed interminably bogged down, began to take on new
vigor. An end to the long and bloody war finally seemed in sight. But,
instead, unknown to American voters at the time, Nixon opened a private
channel to the South Vietnamese officials, convincing them to hold off on
accepting peace by promising that he would get them a better agreement if he
became President.
Johnson learned of this treachery through eavesdropping conducted by U.S.
intelligence agencies. But he was unwilling to speak out against Nixons
actions for fear of compromising the countrys intelligence capabilities.
Instead, he stayed silent as Nixon was elected.
One difference, though, was that that was done through subterfuge, Wilentz
noted. If the reports on Trump are accurate, he is openly calling on a
foreign government to commit a crime, to affect a Presidential election. As
far as I know, we have never seen anything like this before.
The historian Beverly Gage, who teaches twentieth-century American history
at Yale, also regards Trumps behavior as unique. She noted that there have
been other incidents of politicians accusing opponents of treasonous foreign
alliances, but they relied on dark conspiratorial theories, not the
candidates public statements at a press conference.
In the nineteen-fifties, she said, Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican
from Wisconsin, claimed that both President Franklin D. Roosevelt and
President Harry Truman had been involved in collusion with the Communist
Party and the Soviet Union for two decades. However, McCarthy wasnt himself
a Presidential candidate. During the 1964 election, the Republican nominee,
Barry Goldwater, embraced the John Birch Society, a far-right fringe group
whose founder, Robert Welch, had accused President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a
Republican, of being a dedicated, conscious agent of the Soviet
government.
Of course, in both of these cases, this was a far cry from encouraging a
foreign government to spy on the United States, Gage acknowledged. For
that, despite all of the scandals and mudslinging of past U.S. elections, I
cannot think of any clear precedent.
By picking Philadelphia as the setting for their national political
Convention, the Democrats were inviting historic comparisons. They probably
hoped that the history they would make was their nomination of the first
woman who could conceivably win the Presidency. But it was another historic
first that dominated much of the talk during the third day of the Democratic
National Convention. As has been a pattern during this strange election
year, long-anticipated highlights were again upstaged by historical new
lows, and what remained to be seen was how much the country grasped the
enormity of the disruption under way, and how much it cared.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Donald Trump travelled to Moscow in 2013 to meet Vladimir Putin hoping to
discuss plans for a Trump Tower near Red Square. (photo: AP/Getty Images)
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-russia-even-historians-see
-no-precedenthttp://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-russia-even-h
istorians-see-no-precedent
Trump and Russia: Even Historians See No Precedent
By Jane Mayer, The New Yorker
31 July 16
hree U.S. senators huddled worriedly last night amid the crush of Democrats
in the corridors of the Wells Fargo Center, the site of their national
Convention. Leaning in closely, in hopes that no one would overhear, one
urgently complained to the others that Hillary Clintons campaign wasnt
doing enough to counter the bizarre statements made that morning by Donald
Trump.
In one of his impromptu press conferences, Trump had all but begged Russia,
which U.S. intelligence officials alleged had hacked into the Democratic
National Committees e-mails, to go back for more. Russia, if youre
listening, I hope youre able to find the thirty thousand e-mails that are
missing, the Republican nominee had declared. I think you will probably be
rewarded mightily by our press.
Trump, now the official candidate of the Republican Party, seemed to be
urging Russia, one of Americas most formidable and historically hostile
rivals, to engage in cyber espionage against the Democratic nominee.
Someone needs to call for an investigation! one of the senators in the
corridor exclaimed. Its a violation of the Logan Act! he said, referring
to the law that criminalizes private citizens interfering with U.S. policy.
Realizing that they had been overheard, the senators insisted that their
heated, private strategizing was off the record, and dashed farther down the
windowless channel of packed-in humanity that surrounded the arenas floor.
But the frustration and confusion they exchanged caught, in an instant, the
tenor and talk of the Democratic campaign. Trump had once again disrupted
American politics at the highest level, and even the most practiced and
powerful professionals were beside themselves at the inability of anyone on
their side to adequately react.
Like a maddeningly provocative amateur sportsman, Trump had once again
served a ball that was so wild it was hard to tell if it was a mistake or a
deliberate attempt to destabilize all of the accepted rules of the game. In
the past, Presidential nominees have taken brief vacations during the
opposing partys Convention, deferentially ceding the spotlight. But Trump,
who made in-person appearances nearly every night of his own Convention, had
grabbed the worlds attention during the Democratic Convention, too. His
statement had been so extraordinary that no one knew whether to dismiss it
as a joke (which he later insisted it was) or to take it deadly seriouslyas
one ordinarily would the words of someone with a near-even chance of
becoming the most powerful elected official in the world. Trump and his
campaign officials have laughed off suggestions that they had any
connections to the murky Russian actors behind the hacking of the D.N.C.s
e-mails, but they also failed to condemn the illegal breach.
Working yesterday morning on the other side of town, at the National
Constitution Center, the historian Sean Wilentz was among those who regarded
Trumps conduct as borderline treason. Wilentz, a professor of American
history at Princeton (and a longtime supporter of Hillary Clinton),
described himself as flabbergasted. I cant think of anything that has
happened like this before, he said.
Its rare for historians to identify any act as a first. Ordinarily they are
full of caveats, precedents, and nuances. But in this case, Wilentz said, he
could think of no comparison in American history. If a sitting President,
rather than a candidate, had called for a foreign power to commit an act of
espionage in order to influence the outcome of an election, it would be an
impeachable act, Wilentz said. Watergate was nothing in comparison with
this. This is beyond partisanship. Its stunning, in my view, he added.
If Trumps open plea to Russia shocked Wilentz, he did note that there has
been at least one instance of a Presidential candidate clandestinely trying
to collude with foreign powers to advantage his campaign. In the fall of
1968, Richard Nixon secretly used an emissary to scuttle peace talks aimed
at ending the Vietnam War. At the time, Nixon, the Republican nominee, was
locked in a fierce campaign against Hubert Humphrey, the sitting
Vice-President to Lyndon B. Johnson, who had declined to run for reëlection.
The country was riven by conflict over the unpopular and failing Vietnam
War. After dithering for much of the campaign season, Humphrey finally
distanced himself from Johnson and promised to unilaterally end the war if
elected. His poll numbers began to soar, to Nixons dismay. Peace talks in
Paris, which had seemed interminably bogged down, began to take on new
vigor. An end to the long and bloody war finally seemed in sight. But,
instead, unknown to American voters at the time, Nixon opened a private
channel to the South Vietnamese officials, convincing them to hold off on
accepting peace by promising that he would get them a better agreement if he
became President.
Johnson learned of this treachery through eavesdropping conducted by U.S.
intelligence agencies. But he was unwilling to speak out against Nixons
actions for fear of compromising the countrys intelligence capabilities.
Instead, he stayed silent as Nixon was elected.
One difference, though, was that that was done through subterfuge, Wilentz
noted. If the reports on Trump are accurate, he is openly calling on a
foreign government to commit a crime, to affect a Presidential election. As
far as I know, we have never seen anything like this before.
The historian Beverly Gage, who teaches twentieth-century American history
at Yale, also regards Trumps behavior as unique. She noted that there have
been other incidents of politicians accusing opponents of treasonous foreign
alliances, but they relied on dark conspiratorial theories, not the
candidates public statements at a press conference.
In the nineteen-fifties, she said, Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican
from Wisconsin, claimed that both President Franklin D. Roosevelt and
President Harry Truman had been involved in collusion with the Communist
Party and the Soviet Union for two decades. However, McCarthy wasnt himself
a Presidential candidate. During the 1964 election, the Republican nominee,
Barry Goldwater, embraced the John Birch Society, a far-right fringe group
whose founder, Robert Welch, had accused President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a
Republican, of being a dedicated, conscious agent of the Soviet
government.
Of course, in both of these cases, this was a far cry from encouraging a
foreign government to spy on the United States, Gage acknowledged. For
that, despite all of the scandals and mudslinging of past U.S. elections, I
cannot think of any clear precedent.
By picking Philadelphia as the setting for their national political
Convention, the Democrats were inviting historic comparisons. They probably
hoped that the history they would make was their nomination of the first
woman who could conceivably win the Presidency. But it was another historic
first that dominated much of the talk during the third day of the Democratic
National Convention. As has been a pattern during this strange election
year, long-anticipated highlights were again upstaged by historical new
lows, and what remained to be seen was how much the country grasped the
enormity of the disruption under way, and how much it cared.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
