Russian meddling has far-reaching impact

Re Beware of domestic tricks, Walkom, Feb. 4 Thomas Walkom is right. Let’s keep Canadian politics from being muddied by the Russia meddling story, which may be true but is largely exaggerated by Donald Trump’s many opponents. America’s obsession with Russia’s involvement in the U.S. elections is endless: Did Russia interfere in the U.S. elections? If so, to what extent did its involvement alter the inevitability of Trump’s victory? Others question the very premise of the Russian involvement. In the eyes of the Democrats, if they could establish that Russia was the main culprit for losing the election, then by removing its “crony” (i.e. Donald Trump), the U.S. problems, along with millions of people who voted for him, would go away. In the meantime, more serious issues such as climate change, health, inequality, wars and surveillance are either buried or congress is quietly passing bills to undermine them. As for Canadians, do we really want to sacrifice more pressing issues for this? Being vigilant about what Russia does is different than being obsessed with the whole idea. Ali Orang, Richmond Hill Walkom makes an excellent point about the impact of WikiLeaks on the U.S. election. Regardless of who hacked the Democratic National Committee, the fact is that the information released about the Democrats’ shenanigans has not been denied — the incriminating emails are the real McCoy. Therefore, the Democrats are claiming that Hillary Clinton lost the election because Americans found out the truth. Curse those Russians! Pav Penna, Georgetown