Just how does a demagogue get to stay President of the United States, unreprimanded, while a Marine Vietnam War Hero, still fighting for his country after 50 years, is exhaustively disparaged for doing his patriotic duty to protect the homeland?
We're talking "The Great American Experiment" in democracy -- an experiment that's once again in danger of suffering its final meltdown.
How is it possible that a large swath of Americans are not only okay with a brazen President Donald Trump and the trashing of former special counsel Robert Mueller, but can't hear Mueller's dire warning that "demands the attention of every American"?
Mueller is absolutely right. Not only has Russia hacked its way into American Democracy. It's doing a bang up job of bamboozling the citizenry.
Callous cynics, enflamed by a desperate, compromised President, who are foolishly maligning Mueller's testimony before the House Judiciary and Intelligence commitees two weeks ago, only bolster the unsettling conclusion of the former special counsel's damning and foreboding report.
Russia, in concert with Trump and loyal congressional Republican insiders have hijacked and contorted our sense of reality and moral discernment to such a radical "sweeping and systematic" degree -- that the average impressionable Joe fails to recognize the alarming truth that's staring him in the face.
These are the documented facts:
Russia created fake Facebook accounts with inflammatory posts favoring Trump that reached an estimated 120 million Americans and hacked into Democratic Party leader's emails, releasing hundreds of them through WikiLeaks, with Trump's enthusiastic endorsement.
Trump incorporated Russia's election help while hoping to make millions of dollars off a Trump Tower Moscow deal. Then, he lied to federal investigators about his Russian business venture and multiple times tried to obstruct their investigation into Russiagate.
Within a day of Mueller's testimony, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report revealing Russia had targeted the election systems in all 50 States in 2016.
But, Trump fans, fence sitters, and even some progressives didn't like the message -- or, more specifically, the manner in which the message was delivered -- so they've shot the messenger.
Three years of Russian meddling has only emboldened Trump's distracting incites and fueled the truth-muddling criticisms in the media, on Facebook and Twitter.
For Russia, Trump and his unscrupulous, arguably treasonous enablers, their dirty work is paying off big time. Mission accomplished.
Perhaps, Mueller's most revealing testimony wasn't so much in any of his one word replies of "yes" or "true." Nor was it when he agreed with Intelligence House Chair Adam Schiff that for a public office candidate to accept aid from a foreign nation was unethical and "problematic to say the least."
Maybe, Mueller's most telling testimony was in those same painstaking optics the talking heads relentlessly bashed.
Yes, Mueller is human, afterall. Not Superman. But if he were Superman, Russiagate would be his kryptonite.
So what if Mueller didn't meet the visual expectations of today's Reality TV standards, favoring baseless incites and corrupting vitriol ushered in by the disingenuous and destructive Oval Office occupier?
Would Americans have rathered Mueller mocked Trump and childishly called him names? That wasn't Mueller's job, nor is it his style, thankfully. Integrity, more than ever, does matter.
So, balancing the need to inform and warn of imminent danger with a measured sense of restraint to protect myriad key ongoing investigations into President Trump and his accomplices, Mueller confirmed the truth of what's in his 440-page report.
And that's all Americans should need in order to take the Russian threat seriously.
These are the documented facts:
Russia created fake Facebook accounts with inflammatory posts favoring Trump that reached an estimated 120 million Americans and hacked into Democratic Party leader's emails, releasing hundreds of them through WikiLeaks, with Trump's enthusiastic endorsement.
Trump incorporated Russia's election help while hoping to make millions of dollars off a Trump Tower Moscow deal. Then, he lied to federal investigators about his Russian business venture and multiple times tried to obstruct their investigation into Russiagate.
Within a day of Mueller's testimony, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report revealing Russia had targeted the election systems in all 50 States in 2016.
But, Trump fans, fence sitters, and even some progressives didn't like the message -- or, more specifically, the manner in which the message was delivered -- so they've shot the messenger.
Three years of Russian meddling has only emboldened Trump's distracting incites and fueled the truth-muddling criticisms in the media, on Facebook and Twitter.
For Russia, Trump and his unscrupulous, arguably treasonous enablers, their dirty work is paying off big time. Mission accomplished.
Perhaps, Mueller's most revealing testimony wasn't so much in any of his one word replies of "yes" or "true." Nor was it when he agreed with Intelligence House Chair Adam Schiff that for a public office candidate to accept aid from a foreign nation was unethical and "problematic to say the least."
Maybe, Mueller's most telling testimony was in those same painstaking optics the talking heads relentlessly bashed.
Yes, Mueller is human, afterall. Not Superman. But if he were Superman, Russiagate would be his kryptonite.
So what if Mueller didn't meet the visual expectations of today's Reality TV standards, favoring baseless incites and corrupting vitriol ushered in by the disingenuous and destructive Oval Office occupier?
Would Americans have rathered Mueller mocked Trump and childishly called him names? That wasn't Mueller's job, nor is it his style, thankfully. Integrity, more than ever, does matter.
So, balancing the need to inform and warn of imminent danger with a measured sense of restraint to protect myriad key ongoing investigations into President Trump and his accomplices, Mueller confirmed the truth of what's in his 440-page report.
And that's all Americans should need in order to take the Russian threat seriously.
(Kevin McKinney is a freelance writer and former daily newspaper journalist living at the Jersey Shore. His writing has appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Hill, Counterpunch, and various McClatchy newspapers. He tweets @WriteFight99.)
We seem remarkably unaware, after all the warning signs, of Russia's compromising of American democracy
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