The Two Levels of Information War

We have to look at what the Russians did during the U.S elections on two levels.  First, there is the obvious one of stealing information from a major party running for the office of President, then publishing selected parts of that information on Wikileaks.  That was disruptive.

But on the second level there is something more - the Russians are feeding the ideas on both sides that (1) President Trump is not a legitimate President, and (2) the Democrats may have done more than normal politics in their attempts to get elected.  There is no reason for either of the lines of discussion to continue in the open, but they seem to have a life of their own.  They are paralyzing the government's ability to govern, which is probably the intent.  The major political parties are trying to help by making every issue one of legitimacy of one thing or another.  One Representative went so far as to say that the President cannot legitimately propose a candidate for the Supreme Court because he himself was not legitimate until the Russia Investigation by the Intelligence Committees was complete.  This is the height of arrogance.  This is a far left view that has no place in a democracy, but does have a place in Russia.

At every opportunity one party tries to criminalize the behavior of the other party's members.  Government institutions like the IRS and the Intelligence Community were used to make the case for the prosecutors.  There were malicious prosecutions in Wisconsin that tried to criminalize the behavior of a potential Presidential candidate.  Judges are chosen for their political views, then installed and sought out by bringers of cases.  This is a subversion of law, but one they have been allowed to get away with.

Some day, if we run a really good investigation, we might find out how much of some of these ludicrous positions are taken because there is influence by a foreign government involved, probably more than one foreign country since we have forgotten about China while Russia takes front stage.  Fortunately, neither the press nor Congress has more than a few percentage points of their audience that think they are credible.

The sad part of all of this is the Russians don't really have to do very much to be successful at undermining the functions of government.  All they have to do is feed those who are willing to do it for them.