It occurs to me that three things occurred in the presidential campaign, the absence of any one of which would have resulted in Hillary Clinton’s election:

• FBI Director James Comey’s announcements, with the misleading implication that more Hillary emails were (or were not) an issue.

• The Russian release of hacked emails from the Clinton campaign and dissemination of false and derogatory information about Hillary.

• A poor Clinton campaign, which mistakenly concentrated on dissing Donald Trump rather than making the case for Hillary.

Dirty politics, certainly, but really quite in line with the history of elections in our country. Remember how George H.W. Bush trashed Michael Dukakis? How John Kerry’s Vietnam War heroics were distorted? And, going back further, recall how the John Adams campaign smeared Thomas Jefferson for having a concubine of color (which turned out to be true), and Tammany Hall in the late 19th century, etc.

It is certainly unacceptable that the Russian government inserted itself into the election. But think about it. With our present laws allowing unlimited spending on elections, what is to prevent a private party from doing what the Russians did – or even hiring Russian hackers to get it done?

As far as I know, there is nothing illegal about posting fake news or information on the internet.

What is surprising to me is that the Russians were unable to cover up what they did. It is worth noting that the practice of dirty politics in modern times, as far as we have found out about it, has been by Republicans, going back to Nixon. Maybe this is to be expected by a party that represents the interests of a minority and therefore needs some fancy footwork to get the majority to come on board.

Donald Lowry

Falmouth

Copy the Story Link