Paul Krugman Just Declared Trump’s Victory Illegitimate
We’ve all been robbed.
Hillary Clinton, a candidate as popular as war-surging 2004 George W. Bush, lost the election to the most despised candidate in the history of ever. Her should-have-been presidency was sunk by less than a percentage point in three key electoral states. Now, according to the CIA, it’s clear that a hostile and bigoted foreign power, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, put their thumb on scales of American public opinion to influence the result in Donald Trump’s favor.
New York Times Economist Paul Krugman took to the pen today to explain, in his terms, why the 2016 election should be remembered as illegitimate. There isn’t evidence to suggest that election poll results were tampered with, Krugman writes, and recounts in three close states will likely prove futile. But that doesn’t remove the specter of stink that followed Putin’s pro-Trump propaganda push.
Moreover, while the CIA held its tongue despite abundant pre-election evidence that Russia’s hand was behind fake pro-Trump and anti-Clinton news, the FBI publicized an investigation into Anthony Weiner’s smut-ridden emails and managed to (falsely) implicate Clinton’s email server in the process.
Krugman elaborates in three concise paragraphs. . .
“Did the combination of Russian and F.B.I. intervention swing the election? Yes. Mrs. Clinton lost three states – Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania – by less than a percentage point, and Florida by only slightly more. If she had won any three of those states, she would be president-elect.”
“The victor was rejected by the public, and won the Electoral College only thanks to foreign intervention and grotesquely inappropriate, partisan behavior on the part of domestic law enforcement.”
“It’s clear that Mr. Trump — whose personal conflicts of interest are unprecedented, and quite possibly unconstitutional — intends to move U.S. policy radically away from the preferences of most Americans, including a pronounced pro-Russian shift in foreign policy.”
Krugman goes a step forward in his column, imploring his readers to stay vigilant as Trump goes about demolishing the nation’s intelligence agencies and news media outlets. We must acknowledge and remember that this election was a fraud, Krugman writes, because the alternative is deference to tyranny.
Respecting the process, passively, doesn’t apply here because the process wasn’t respected in the first place. It wasn’t respected by James Comey of the FBI, it wasn’t respected by Putin, and it certainly wasn’t respected by Trump, who when faced with non-partisan intelligence reacted by barfing out straight lies about voter fraud and a “landslide” victory.
Keep the stew of dissent warm, Krugman advises.
“Personally, I’m still figuring out how to keep my anger simmering — letting it boil over won’t do any good, but it shouldn’t be allowed to cool. This election was an outrage, and we should never forget it.”
A pot of warm, simmering anger might be a life-saver in the long run, for winter is coming on hard and fast.
