HoltesThoughts: Overview of the Russian Challenge

The Issue is with the GOP

The Russians have become a source of money and propaganda for GOP efforts to disrupt democracy, protect hierarchy and divert people to nationalism.

From the Administration eliminating the Election Assistance Commission to pedaling an investigation into nonexistent in person election fraud, Donald Trump was demonstrating his support for racism and James T. Crow in an open fashion. Trump is embarrassing the Republican party by dumping Lee Atwater's Politically Correct coded language for open support for KKK and Nazis. For more on the Russian Investigtion see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbQYLnXPwcs; http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-russia-timeline/
For more on the Russian propaganda Effort:

The Broader Issue

Trump seems to think that treason is just "opposition research" and raising money like any other [corrupt] politician would do. Now we see that he sees Nazis and KKK people as "good people." The Russian Interference Affair is just the tip of an iceberg of ruthless demagoguery by a wanna-be dictator.

Vote Suppression,

hacking,

massive official fraud

Wire Fraud, Graft, Emoluments,

Treason and Subversion by supporting KKK and Nazis

Treason and Subversion by allying with a Foreign Dictator

... may make it possible for him to end Democracy as we think we know it. His manifold frauds threaten the survival of our republic's Democratic features. If he is allowed to consolidate power with the help of databases of personal information and unlimited money for buying politicians, Officials, Judges, Police Officers and thus we are in danger of becoming a one party "managed democracy." We already have people who think they can buy our elections with impunity. If Trump gets his way there won't be any. If the Russians weren't involved it would be hard to get anyone paying attention. The corruption is in State Governments, legislature, the cabinet and the Supreme Court.

Survival of our Republic

Thus the broader issue is the survivor of our Federated Public. Trump is imitating historical dictators, including Vladimir Putin.

GOP Trying to Fix elections

Election Rigging was going on before the Russians Got involved. The 2000 election debacle was due to deliberate efforts do degrade the integrity of our elective vote counting. In 2004, election rigging was said to have played a role, along with blatant "wag the dog" efforts. And I still remember how Anonymous stopped a vote flipping scheme in 2012. That was before Anonymous was divided between alt right and progressives. But this Russian thing has taken the level of corruption and fraud to a new level.

Trump's policies send a green light to election fraud. They are right. It does.

Atlantic

Normalizing Hacking and Stealing Elections

There is a lot to say here. For more information on How the Right hacked our election, visit that page. The whole story has been growing over a period of years. But the Russian involvement has taken the corruption to a whole new level!

The Issues with Official Fraud Keep Growing

None of this would be possible without a corrupt political party, corrupt State Government and a corrupt SCOTUS.

Citizens United, A corrupt Decision blind to Corrupt Access and Influence
related: Corrupt Court
SCOTUS repeal of the Voting Rights Act

*for some reason I didn't blog on this directly. It was obviously corrupt.

Bush V Gore

*also didn't blog directly on Bush V Gore at the time so this is an Atlantic Article

Years of Lee Atwater style dog whistles and Southern Strategy

You would think they'd Draw the line somewhere

We now have virtually an entire party that is normalizing Russian Style (or Old Chicago Style) electioneering. "Winning" is now everything. And people who take silly things like integrity, virtue and rule of law are suddenly despised as "losers." We resist this, at considerable risk that we may find killings and extra-judicial lawlessness by officials will jail or kill us too. But we do it anyway, so that our children (or grandchildren) can inherit a system with integrity.

These things are as important as the Russians here. But what Donald Trump did with the help of the Russians crosses a legal line that is still in place. At least for now.

And then the Icing on the Cake

The reality is that the GOP doesn't need Russian help to break the law and cheat. But Trump needed Russian Help to break what was left of GOP integrity and turn the GOP into a Russian Style Cheating operation. The Russians could provide manpower and an external Intelligence operation to break into State and Campaign databases to get the data he needed to engage in psi-ops against his opponents.

When We Fight Back, we win. But beware

When we fight back, we win. But when folks are determined to replace a decent and just system with one optimized for ruthlessness and kleptocracy, there are no guarantees that the win will endure. Trump's incompetence is delaying their success", but this fight is only beginning. Indeed for some of us things may yet get as desperate as the situation depicted in the Star War's Prequil "Rogue One". It will take real courage for some of us to survive what is coming. But it can be done. Hope comes from courage and effort. Wars are won with strategy, and not everyone gets to party. Nor are all strategic victories tactical ones.

We have real evidence of Treason now. It needs to be followed on, and not allowed to be covered up.

If we let them get away with it, its over.

The Problem Grows

The Republicans have driven off moderates and people with integrity. They've become increasingly ruthless. Their Pundits often openly so!

Even so, most Republicans up til recently, drew the line at working with a hostile foreign power:

As Chris Christie concedes:: "I think, quite frankly, it's probably against the law."
Yet Pundits like the execrable Judge Jeanine Pirro:: “As someone who’s run for office five times, if the devil called me and said he wanted to set up a meeting to give me opposition research on my opponent, I’d be on the first trolley to Hell to get it,” Fox

She and most of her party, admit they are willing to & seem to have already sold their souls for cash, attention and power. They'll do anything "to win." They'll lie to and steal from their voter base. They'll sabotage our institutions. They'll ignore or repeal rule of law and common decency. This is beyond sick and into evil. Anyone calling themselves an "evangelical Christian" and supporting this kind of evil is a hypocrite. Yet as Christopher Stroop has profiled and I blogged on before, that is exactly what they are doing! See:

Charlatans, Dominionists, Fanatics and Russians

Suddenly the Republican Party is fine with letting folks who want to destroy the democratic and popularist features of our Republic and subvert them or put them in the hands of oligarchs.

I have a lot more to say. But that is enough for this post. I've added links to substantiating information and such; and will add more as I'll come back to this post, if I can, so people can use it as a resource.

Hannah Arendt and Totalitarianism

Trump's GOP Totalitarian Movement and Totalitarian Propaganda; Hannah Arendt Trump and the Stateless; The Dictator in Front of the Mob; Hannah Arendt on Donald Trump's Mob; Our Democratic Movement is not Totalitarian; The Power of Doublespeak; Being a Little Less Naive about Politics; Authoritarians and Totalitarians, Altemeyer & Arendt; EMAD Trump; Subsidiarity and Fascism
Soviet History: https://youtu.be/XO6-nuk0UhA
Wrong the Day it was decided --> Formatting is awful. I wrote this back in 2007.: http://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2007/09/12/wrong-the-day-it-was-decided/

I started this post a little more two weeks ago and it already seemed ancient history when I came back to it on 8/17/2017 hoping to scope it down and finish it.

HoltesThoughts

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Overview of the Russian Challenge

The Issue is with the GOP

The Broader Issue

Survival of our Republic

GOP Trying to Fix elections

Normalizing Hacking and Stealing Elections

The Issues with Official Fraud Keep Growing

You would think they'd Draw the line somewhere

And then the Icing on the Cake

When We Fight Back, we win. But beware

The Problem Grows

Further Readings

Hannah Arendt and Totalitarianism

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