Political Witch Hunt

Remarkably, a Republican Party that for four years fixated unwaveringly on the third-rate Benghazi "scandal" now seems generally nonchalant about the intelligence community's high-confidence bombshell that Russia intervened mightily in the U.S. presidential election.

That's the same Russia that is actively opposing American and western interests around the world.

Some Trump supporters have even said that if Russian intervention was required to obtain the desired result, then it's a good thing it happened.

As many commentators have already opined, Ronald Reagan must be turning over in his grave.

Ronald who? The Republican Party has undergone a breathtaking transformation these past few years, one which has only accelerated this election season. As events over the past year have made starkly clear, this is no longer the party of Reagan.

A few notables such as George Will lament the change and have departed; many just shrug.

But whose party is it? Trump's? Too soon to tell. With past orthodoxy seemingly jettisoned, the only discernible operative "ideology" appears to be political power. We will have to wait to see if there's anything more to it than that, because core Republican principles are in tremendous flux. At present very little can be described as "core."

The upheaval has been going on for a while, even if Trump has elevated things to a striking new dimension. Benghazi, for example, was never a principle but a political cudgel, wielded hysterically and incessantly until it was no longer useful.

The only enduring lesson from Benghazi is that consulate security wasn't what it should have been in an undeniably dangerous part of the world. Congressional hearing after congressional hearing in Republican-controlled committees could ultimately reach no greater conclusion. Five separate Republican committee investigations over the years finally led to the formation of a "select committee" to investigate it all again, and to reach the same result.

All this churning to discover how it came to happen that four Americans (including two diplomats) died in the swirling chaos of post-Gaddafi Libya.

Will Republicans, who are soon to exercise almost total power, take the same trouble to understand the nature and extent of Russian interference in our democratic institutions? It's hard to discern any particular inclination to do so, except by a few forlorn souls such as John McCain, whose principles at least occasionally transcend politics.

Russia might be a pariah, but in this instance it's our pariah. Or Trump's, anyway.

Asked about the new U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia to punish its meddling, the president-elect opined that we should just "move on." All's well that ends well, right?

Whatever happened is in the past. Not, mind you, that we're acknowledging that it happened.

There's this from the New York Times on a Friday morning interview with Trump, shortly before his meeting with the nation's highest intelligence officials to discuss their report (the unclassified version is here) on Russian influence in the election:

Mr. Trump told The New York Times in an interview that the storm surrounding Russian hacking was nothing more than a “political witch hunt” carried out by his adversaries, who he said were embarrassed by their loss to him in the 2016 election. Speaking by telephone three hours before the intelligence briefing, Mr. Trump repeatedly criticized the intense focus on Russia.

No witches here, people. Move along.

As a thought experiment, ask yourself how this would all be different were it Clinton instead of Trump who had stood to benefit from Russia's interventions. Funny, right? Benghazi would be a smoldering ember compared to the high intensity conflagration of howling Republican outrage.

As I said, this is no longer Ronald Reagan's Republican Party. Whose party it is remains to be seen.

Copyright (C) 2017 James Michael Brennan, All Rights Reserved

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