The hacked election
The meeting of the US Electoral College to choose the president is usually little more than a “formality”, said Jonathan Martin in The New York Times. “Yet as with so much else in this turbulent election year”, this one was “punctuated by anger and dissent”. One New York elector, Bill Clinton, cast his vote for his wife, and then suggested that she only lost because of outside interference – “the Russians and the FBI”. Anti-trump groups had hoped that they might persuade enough electors to withhold their votes. But members of the college are bound by tradition, and in some cases by state law, to support their party’s candidates; and in the event, only two Republican electors declined to vote for the president-elect (while five Democrats declined to vote for Hillary Clinton). Despite the protests across America, and the recounts, it was inevitable, said Olivia Nuzzi on The Daily Beast. “Come 20 January 2017, Donald J. Trump will travel to Washington, place his hand on the Bible, and become president of the United States of America.”
Even so, said Charles M. Blow in The New York Times, I believe that history “will judge kindly those who continued to shout, from the rooftops: ‘This is not normal!’” It is not normal to have a president surround himself with white supremacy sympathisers, conspiracy theorists and climatechange deniers. It is not normal to have a president with “massive, inherent conflicts of interest” because of his business interests – the details of which he has refused even to publicly disclose. It is not normal to have a president whose campaign, according to the CIA and the FBI, was supported by Russian hackers – who raided the emails of Democratic officials and top Clinton staffers, and published them online. Most of all, it is not normal that Trump refuses even to “acknowledge the violation”. Though the evidence is overwhelming, he has dismissed the idea of Russian involvement as “ridiculous”. Trump’s relationship with Russia is “the most disturbing aspect of his coming presidency”, said The Washington Post. He has defended Vladimir Putin’s regime against all criticism. He has extensive interests in Russia. And he has nominated as secretary of state the former Exxonmobil chief Rex Tillerson, a close associate of Putin’s and an opponent of Russian sanctions. Perhaps Trump is just aiming to “rebuild constructive relations with Russia”. But many are worried.
Russian hackers probably didn’t affect the election result, said The Economist. But normally, both Democrats and Republicans would be up in arms at any such meddling in American democracy. This time, though, there seems to be a “partisan standoff”: Republicans have tended to play down the story, with many suggesting that the CIA assessment is unproven or even an attempt to smear Trump. That this unprecedented attack on the US political system “has divided rather than united the two parties that run the world’s great democracy should unsettle anyone”.