Dangerous Liaisons

Not since George W. Bush famously "looked the man in the eye" have we heard a major U.S. Presidential candidate speak so highly of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. 

Trump has tried to downplay their "bromance,” but, like a young, naive lover, he seems to have difficulty explaining their mutual admiration:

David Sanger of the New York Times: "...You've been very complimentary of Putin himself."

Trump: "No! No, I haven't"

Sanger: "You said you respected his strength."

Trump: "He's been complimentary of me. I think Putin and I will get along very well."

Sanger: "So I was just in..."

Trump: "But he's been complimentary of me."

Trump's relationship with Putin has sparked much speculation. "There's something strange and disturbing going on here...," Nobel laureate Paul Krugman recently suggested. Jeffrey Goldberg writing in The Atlantic was more direct:  "Trump has chosen this week to unmask himself as a de facto agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin...."

I feel the Trump-Putin bromance went too far after we learned that Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and targeted Trump's file. Most dismissed the hack as a predictable Russian spying activity, that Russia was motivated to learn more about a lesser known candidate for the U.S. Presidency. But sometimes the more plausible answer is in fact the correct answer. More likely, the hackers served those who would see Trump become President. The hackers got embarrassing internal emails and that which they knew only resided on DNC servers: the Democratic strategy against Trump. 

The DNC hack is our modern day Watergate, but instead of bumbling American burglars working on behalf of an overeager Richard Nixon, sophisticated Russian hackers stole the Democratic Party playbook on behalf of their overeager Republican partner, Donald Trump.

This turn of events is particularly scary. After all, Nixon was a crook, but he was our crook. Watergate threatened our democracy. The DNC hack threatens both our democracy and sovereignty.   

Smart Stupid America

"He is the archetypal businessman – a deal maker without peer."

America is now comprised of mostly stupid and smart-stupid people. Gone are the days of the well-rounded citizen. We are an overworked, under-educated people. The trend doesn't look good.

We should expect the dumb to succumb to Trump-baiting. But how do you explain the "college-educated" Trump supporters? Aren't they supposed to know better?

Apparently not, though it's not always their fault. To succeed in our highly technical and competitive world, it is becoming increasingly necessary to push ourselves harder and harder in our careers, often to the detriment of our families, but especially to our role as citizen. In this environment, reading history, philosophy and keeping up with the latest legislative proposals, community events, etc., becomes nearly impossible. 

But we should also remember that being "college-educated" doesn't mean one has a clue about public policy. Just ask your Trump-supporting friends what degree they earned. If they're making a good living, it's likely they don't have a degree in political science!

In addition, ask your "college-educated" friends what they do with their time when they're not working. An engineer, for example, who spends his non-work hours with family & friends, in Church services, watching TV or playing fantasy football, is likely to be as ignorant about public policy as the ignoramus. 

And they'll often even be forgiving to their ignorant politician. When I asked one of my ex-Trump supporter friends who has since turned his allegiance to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson about how he felt when Johnson didn't know anything about the besieged city of Aleppo, he replied, "Who cares? I don't know where Aleppo is either." And, of course he doesn't. Who has time? 

So Trump support can be explained by the fact that many people are just plain stupid, that many people are desperately trying to succeed in our challenging economy and have no time to study up, or by the fact that many people who should know better remain willfully ignorant, being otherwise occupied with the plethora of time-wasting activities our wonderful capitalist system has spawned. 

So how do we escape a cycle that most of us don't realize is happening because we are either the stupid ones or the smart-stupid ones who can be so easily fooled by a shrewd populist? 

I heard one gem: "Maybe if we elect Trump, he'll be such a disaster, we'll learn our lesson and the next candidate we elect will be a mainstream moderate...." Haven't we been there already?