Passing the Smell Test

This whole “Russia meddled in the election” thing just makes no sense to me. The test that it fails for me is a sensible answer to the question of, “What’s in it for them?” The indictment of 13 Russians by Mueller reduces that issue to absolute absurdity.

According to Mueller’s indictment the purpose of all of this was to “sow dissent” within the United States and to “cause Americans to lose faith in democracy.” And how does that benefit Russia or the Russian government? Even if they are doing what the indictment claims they are doing, what do they gain by it?

Actually, far from gain, it actually endangers Russia and the Russian government. In fact, it endangers the entire world, because the American government does what any government does when faced with unrest at home. It increases foreign adventurism in order to distract it’s citizenry from domestic issues. It threatens war with North Korea, for instance, and it wages war throughout the entire Middle East in the name of “fighting terrorism.”

Keeping this whole “Russia is our enemy” issue active, whether Russia meddled in our election or not, whether Russia is active in our social media or not, is a useful method of distracting the public from the failure of our government to do virtually anything that works to the real and lasting benefit of the American people.

It also serves to distract the public from the influence of American money, not only in our elections, but in every aspect of governance in this nation.

We are horrified that the Russians may have spent a few hundred thousand dollars on social media to influence votes, and allow that to distract us from the fact that for many decades corporations and the wealthy have been spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually to influence not only our elections, but to directly affect the passage or failure of legislation on a routine basis.

It seems likely to me that these 13 Russians were doing what they were doing, not for the purposes assumed and stated by Mueller, but rather for the same reason that thousands of Americans do the same things – generating “click bait” in order to create a multitude of “followers” which they can use to sell themselves for the purpose of a form online marketing consisting of “reviews” of products and services.

“I have 50,000 followers,” they will tell a business, “pay me $15,000 and I will write a favorable review of your product which those 50,000 people will read online.” Not very savory certainly, and possibly illegal, but the use of an election to create the followers was entirely incidental to a money making scheme.