"A Soft Coup, or Preserving Our Democracy?" by Giraldi

 

"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

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 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  

 

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/a-soft-coup-or-preserving-our-democracy/?mc_cid=2f82659492&mc_eid=101f318c4e

Comments

[Edward Amame]

Sam Peralta

McClatchy is the only news org that got it right in the runup to GWB's Iraq war.

[Eric Newhill]

TTG,
It appears that Trump communications probably were scooped up http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/22/trump-team-communications-captured-by-intelligence-community-surveillance-nunes-says.html

Then we get the BS about masking, which I am quite sure doesn't really prevent joining to a name a la Flynn as opposed to US Person 1.

Comey says no reason to question Assange's statement that Russia was not the source. So FBI and IC not coordinating?

"IC key judgments" - Same IC that had Saddam getting all that yellow cake for nukes? Same IC that looked Americans right in the eye and said it doesn't collect data on US citizens, and then had to admit it does?

Forgive me if I don't just reflexively accept the IC assessment, "high confidence" or otherwise. Sorry, you guys have blown your trust worthiness too many times.

[David Habakkuk]

Pat,

The world has changed. When my SWMBO and I were starting out in life, much of the time you began at the bottom. (And, however uncomfortable it could feel when one was at the bottom, it could do one a lot of good.)

Both my SWMBO and her oldest friend – whose mother got her family out from Vienna shortly before the outbreak of the war, and was a wise and witty lady, who massacred the English language until the day she died – started out as secretaries in BBC drama. They came a long way since, but both know the world depicted in the series backwards.

I have not watched it, but my SWMBO has, and really liked it. An actress called Jessica Haynes, who apparently has done a lot of work for my wife’s oldest friend – she thought absolutely brilliant.

What seems unclear is why the BBC – who is now run by precisely the kind of lunatics depicted in the series – allowed it.

But perhaps that might indicate that there are some grounds for optimism.

[Jack]

David & EO

I'd like to echo the question that Sam Peralta raised. What has happened in Britain that media has become Ingsoc? Britain always had the institutional ethos of transparency.

I'm reminded of this story in the Telegraph from our recent election season.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/23/hillary-clinton-so-far-ahead-in-polls-that-doesnt-even-think-abo/

[English Outsider]

Lee A. Arnold - yours was one of the most difficult posts I've read on this site. Not in itself but because it stirred dormant historical memories that still for many older Englishmen exert a pull irrespective of rationality or of our own experience.

Empire. The unending line of low grey ships barely visible in the sleet. The unbroken square in some near hopeless action under foreign skies. And the constant flow of dedicated colonial administrators bringing prosperity and order to regions that were like, under the brutal impact of first contact with the Western commercial and cultural powerhouse, to otherwise fall into ruin.

But that vision was long ago exploded and in modern times is only summoned up by the chancers and the cronies who wish to con us yet again into some ersatz colonial adventure. And that last and most unexceptionable aspect of the vision is dead; however genuine the intentions of those dedicated colonial administrators, in serving empire they served neither their own people nor the peoples they were ruling. All we can say of that is that it happened so, and there was much good in it. It is impossible to assert that any good came out of it.

This is not the place to expand upon that thesis although it will seem to many of us self-evident. We might observe, however, that Switzerland was pretty backward and underdeveloped in the nineteenth century but seems to have done OK since, at least until recently, without the benefit of imperial intervention. It would take Babak Makkinejad to compare the fate of non-Western countries that didn't have that benefit with the fate of similar countries that did; but to an outside observer they all seem to end up in much the same sort of mess. We might also observe that Switzerland didn't go in for empire itself, but that doesn't seem to have disadvantaged the Swiss much. Even had we and the other former colonial powers taken up the White Man's Burden with impeccably disinterested motives it can't honestly be said to have done the white man or the burden much good. Profitable for the various sets of cronies of course, as always, but they tend to fall on their feet whatever happens.

And now, this late in the day and after all this experience, we hear siren voices attempting to convert the transparently false doctrine of R2P into the more seductive doctrine of Responsibility to Assist - these uninstructed savages do savage things and we can make the world better by coaxing them into better ways. Leaving aside the question of motes and beams I am firmly convinced that no nation can help another nation by attempting to impose its own culture or its own values on that other nation. It is a pretence for the pursuit of Realpolitik, whatever that Realpolitik hopes to achieve, and is seen as such, accurately, by those unfortunate countries that are the target of such assistance.

As you are perhaps saying, we should attempt to clean up the mess we have created. History, both ancient and modern, warns us against trying to do more.

[English Outsider]

Thanks. Complex indeed. I share your mixed feelings about Waugh. A highly gifted fake. And he should have shared those bananas with the children.

So how does this background you have been kind enough to set out translate into the sad stuff I hear on my radio or see on the BBC internet site? When, for example, major fighting was occurring in the Donbass did they simply not know about it, or would there have been some editorial decision to fail to report it? Same quite often in Syria. Same when Putin or Lavrov makes a major statement. Slanted news is at least news, but a complete blank is another matter. How does that happen?

[falcone]

The bigger question, of course, would be if he ordered such information be delivered to him, why didn't he use any of it?

[Edward Amame]

David Habakkuk

Oh please. The tell was "Far better an alignment with Christian Russians."