Russian meddling

Russian meddling in the politics of the United States and most every other Western country demands a tough response, but it should not come as a surprise. President Vladimir Putin has long believed that such interference is an effective way to assert the Kremlin’s might.

What may be most disconcerting in the entire affair is what it says about the state of democracy in the country that is supposed to be the model for the world.

Whether the Russian web brigades actually affected the outcome of the presidential election, or any other, is impossible to tell. The fake news, false identities, cyberattacks and other tactics outlined in the Justice Department indictment last week seemed aimed at people who probably already got that sort of ranting from plenty of zany, homegrown sources.

But therein lies the true danger: that the polarisation in American politics, society and life has become so yawning that people on the far Right, and to some degree on the Left, are prepared to accept the most appalling and transparent lies to bolster their beliefs. Whether President Trump knowingly colluded with the Russian web campaign is almost beside the point, since he is directly colluding with Russia’s efforts to discredit democracy when he treats the Kremlin’s brazen cybermeddling as a partisan issue and absurdly pins the blame on Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.