Predictions and Hindsight

There is a lot of speculation on if the Russians "stole" the election for Trump.  I will jump in and give you my thinking and let's see if it turns out to be true.

First we start with the fact that then businessman Donald Trump is an astute student of humanity.  His entire life has been that of exaggeration, boasting, confronting and intimidating.  He knew going into the primary that he could not best the other candidates on political knowledge and world affairs so he did not even try.  He played right to people's fears, anxiety and selfishness.  His Twitter account and use of right-wing media such as Fox (even when it seemed to be against him he was still using it for his advantage.  No conspiracy theory was off the table, no claim too outlandish, no correction unchallenged by turning back on the accuser.

Once he became the Republican candidate, people thought he would become more mature, even headed, and maybe even calm.  That did not work - enter Kellyanne Conway.  As per his previous persona, he doubled down with items like Hillary Clinton should be locked up, President Obama started ISIS, and that the election was already rigged against him.

Then a curious thing happened.  Social media became the method by which many people got their information.  Why read a newspaper when the news comes right to your phone.  Why search Google when your friends are all sending you news on Facebook.  Twitter allowed people to send rumors around the world before Politifact or any other fact-checking organization could respond.

People tend to believe what they want to hear and when they are bombarded by the same thing over and over and it becomes the truth - even if there is no shred of evidence.

Now enter the Russians.  I do not know their reason,  Maybe President Putin was mad at Hillary, maybe he wanted to help Trump, maybe he just wanted to mess with our minds.  Hacking the Democrats provided no information that would last more than a 24 hour news cycle.  Hacking the election machines was too daunting as it would only affect a small percentage of the votes.  So they hopped on the Trump bandwagon and started flooding social media with fake stories and unsubstantiated claims.  The fact that 100% of these were anti-Hillary just fueled the fire.

Now we have a perfect storm of two entities trying the same tactics and feeding off each other, and perhaps there was no direct collusion, just the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  Hillary Clinton was too slow or incapable of taking the fight back as she would always be firing from behind.  Even the statement that the Russians were interfering, normally a statement that would infuriate any American, was not looked as just another feeble attempt to change the focus from Clinton's "crimes".

So we had the perfect storm. One that fooled the pundits and the polls.  One that gave now President Trump the thought he had a mandate that he did not have.  Now that he is in office, he is finding that the real world in Washington does not work like the campaign trail.

The silver lining in this debacle?  If, and I believe it will be, it is shown that the Russians did play a part in upsetting our election process, people will come to the realization that they cannot blindly believe anything they hear.  They will be come the ultimate cynics.  This will be the beginning of a new era where people actually think and research what they hear.

Well I can hope.