"Coup or legitimate political pushback depends on which side of the fence one is standing on. There are two competing narratives to choose from and there is inevitably considerable gray area in between depending on what turns out to be true. One narrative, coming from the Trump camp, is that President Obama used the nation’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies plus judicious leaks of classified information and innuendo to the media to sabotage Trump during and after the campaign. This was largely done by spreading malicious claims about the campaign’s associates, linking them to criminal activity and even suggesting that they had been subverted to support Russian interests. As of this date, none of the “Manchurian candidate” allegations have been supported by evidence because they are not true. The intention of the Obama/Clinton campaign is to explain the election loss in terms acceptable to the Democratic Party, to hamstring and delegitimize the new administration coming in, and to bring about the resignation or impeachment of Donald Trump. It is in all intents and purposes a coup, though without military intervention, as it seeks to overturn a completely legal and constitutional election.
The contrary viewpoint is that team Trump’s ties to Russia constitute an existential national security threat, that the Russians did steal information relevant to the campaign, did directly involve themselves in the election to discredit U.S. democracy and elect Trump, and will now benefit from the process, thereby doing grave damage to our country and its interests. Adversarial activity undertaken since the election is necessary, designed to make sure the new president does not alter or eliminate the documentary record in intelligence files regarding what took place and to limit Trump’s ability to make serious errors in any recalibration with Moscow. In short, Trump is a dangerous man who might be in bed with an enemy power and has to be watched closely and restrained. Doing so is necessary to preserve our democratic system." Giraldi
----------------
This article is a balanced view of the political disaster emerging in the US. As such it may suffer from the basic flaw often contained in "balanced" views. The two partisan views are mutually exclusive. Either the Obama Administration sought information useful to HC's campaign or they did not. Either civilian career employees conspired to destroy Trump's candidacy or they did not. Either the IC chiefs conspired to get GCHQ to produce "evidence" against Trump or they did not.
Trump is certainly a less than optimal president. Impetuous, ignorant of other than his narrow business interests, grossly vain, ridiculous haircut, gold plated apartment in a building named for him. Yes! He is bloody awful in many ways, but he IS president of the United States and if he is removed from office by what will be seen by the "Deplorables" as an agitprop driven conspiracy of the bi-coastal elites, the long term political stability of the United States will be damaged. The question Mika raised by saying on national TV that it is the job of the MSM to dictate the content of the collective national mind will be answered in the negative by many.
And then there was the performance of the Germans at the White House presser. The presumption and arrogance displayed by German journalists in daring to lecture the President of the United States was breath-taking. I am not a big fan of NATO, and have not been since the fall of the Soviet Union. I certainly have been opposed to the eastward expansion of NATO to Russia's doorstep. This expansion seems to me to be driven by a mindless jingoism that seeks an enemy. Angela Merkel does not seem to share my opinion. She stated clearly in her prepared remarks that NATO is very important to Germany, but at the same time she told us all that Germany, a rich country, will not be able to reach a 2% of GDP level of expenditure on its own defense until 2025. Say what?
I suppose the left and the foreign policy Borg imagines that President Pence will be manageable. Perhaps he will be. Or perhaps he won't be. Both statements cannot be true. pl
