The news continues to talk endlessly about Trump, his administration and ties to Russia. On the surface, these are scary accusations. Underneath the smoke screen, they are an obvious, almost pathetic attempt to undermine the current government in a last-ditch effort to retain their waning power over the public.
Russia very well may have tried to sway the elections, but their current voice is not that of a country who won. Let’s review the hacking scandals from the election and see just how much they hurt our election process.
The Hacks
As you likely know, the Democratic National Convention was hacked, and during last year’s election, the hacked emails were released. The information painted a terrible picture of the Democratic Party, and many had their suspicions of corruption confirmed. The hacks were big news for a long time, and American intelligence agencies unanimously agree that the hacks were directed by Russia in an attempt to sway the election.
The full story of the hacks is long and undulating, but there are a few important notes. First, the hacks were detected by the FBI almost a full year before the leaks were published last summer. Consequently, the Obama Administration was fully aware of the issue, and they chose not to act. This ultimately can only tell us that they did not deem the hacked emails to be a credible threat to democracy.
The Results
While you may scoff and assume that Obama made a mistake, the results of the hacks and elections paint a different story. In Russia, the campaign was largely seen as a failure. While they surely preferred a Trump win to a Hillary win, they have ultimately taken the position that the election had minimal benefits for their agenda.
American analysts agree. While a few will stand on hyperbole, the consensus is that the hacks didn’t actually sway the election. The publicized examples of corruption only confirmed suspicions that such actions were in place. The voters who were most invested in the emails were already campaigning against Hillary. The scale of Trump’s victory cannot be mathematically reduced to hacked emails.
A New Media
Instead of determining the election, Russia’s efforts instead reinforced an intellectual movement that was already on the rise. American media was losing credibility, and the people were ready to turn to alternative resources for information.
When they could no longer trust mainstream reporting, many Americans began looking for raw data. WikiLeaks became a prominent source for unfiltered data, and voters were happy to be able to draw their own conclusions without injected media bias.
It’s worth noting that hacked emails were only a small part of the total pile of data that has been and is available through the site. What we really found is that Russia was able to exploit an existing and growing distrust of media, and the hacking efforts undermined those organizations far more than the government itself.
Why Trump Was Elected
Trump’s election was a victory for many Americans for many reasons. It deposed an exposed, corrupted official and prevented an extension of an inept administration. It reinforced the value of the Electoral College system to prevent a tyranny of big cities, and it highlighted the importance of this check in the system.
The policies that are so popular in a handful of major cities have devastated the working class of the country, and they used their voting power to speak loudly. Perhaps more important than the election results themselves, the voter turnout spoke loudly of issues plaguing America.
The mainstream media was widely shocked by the results, demonstrating just how out of touch they have become. A vote for Trump was as much a vote against those organizations as anything else, and their power has waned considerably in the span of a few short months.
Russia may have tried to undermine democracy, but they actually strengthened it. Voters have found more reliable sources of information, and with less exposure to bias, they are armed to use their power more responsibly and effectively than ever before. The exposure of corruption within our system has already enabled us to take corrective measures, and the corruption of our media has caused its undoing, and things can only look up from here.
In the end, we managed a positive, democratic election despite external efforts of tampering. It was an exercise in the resilience of the American system and democracy as a whole.
~ Conservative Zone
