The Russia-Trump Collusion Conspiracy Theory is a Dead Letter

The Democrat-led anti-Trump "Resistance" and its numerous media mouthpieces have been promoting their "Russia hacked the election" narrative for two years. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi fired the biggest recent salvo in this campaign after Trump invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit Washington.

"The notion that President Trump would invite a tyrant to Washington is beyond belief," Pelosi said in a statement on Friday, calling Putin a "thug." (The recurring use of "thug" to describe Russians has become so consistent as to have become a de facto ethnic slur.) "Putin's ongoing attacks on our elections and on Western democracies and his illegal actions in Crimea and the rest of Ukraine deserve the fierce, unanimous condemnation of the international community, not a VIP ticket to our nation's capital."

Despite liberals' uncharacteristically focused and sustained efforts -- imagine if Obama and company had pushed as hard for a public option on healthcare! -- their #RussophobiaMatters campaign is doing poorly.

Democratic leaders are confused. They've got the newspapers and NPR and a passel of cable news stations all over their "Trump colluded with Russia" story. Why don't people care? Christ, even Democratic voters don't care!

Aside from famine and war, few things are sadder than the sight of a hopelessly perplexed House and Senate Democratic leadership. So rather than let them spend a third year wondering why Russiagate keeps being greeted by a great national yawn, I'm here to explain it to them.

Everyone else can stop reading now.

Dear Mr. Schumer and Ms. Pelosi:

First: even if the story were true, it wouldn't make sense. You're asking us to believe that Trump's people met with Putin's people, not to discuss Trump's sleazy real estate developments in the former Soviet Union, but to encourage Russian hackers to break into the DNC, steal Hillary's emails and funnel them to WikiLeaks with a view toward angering enough voters to change the outcome of the election in Trump's favor.

Trump doesn't even read one-page memos. Yet we're being asked to believe that he supervised a ridiculously complex Machiavellian conspiracy?

WikiLeaks didn't get the DNC documents from Russia or any other state actor. They got them from a disgruntled pro-Bernie Sanders staffer at the DNC.

Anyway, the intelligence community -- you know, the friendly folks at the CIA, FBI and NSA whom Democrats worship the way Republicans revered firefighters after 9/11 -- says whatever Russian hacking occurred did not affect the outcome of the election.

Then there's this: Trump didn't actually want to win. Why would he go to such lengths to steal something he didn't want?

Second: everything you accuse Russia and/or Putin of doing is something the U.S. has done or is doing bigger and worse. Russia undermined Ukraine and forcibly annexed Crimea. By current international standards Russia committed a misdemeanor; as The Washington Post noted at the time: "Most people in Crimea wanted to break away from Ukraine and join Russia." Meanwhile, the U.S. was occupying both Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither the Afghans nor the Iraqis want us around.

Third: I'm going to use small words here -- where's the evidence of Russian "meddling"?

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy went on TV to discuss the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Because he needed Americans to trust and believe that the threat he described was real, he displayed aerial surveillance photos of the missiles in his speech to the nation. This meant revealing the existence of spy technology the Soviets weren't aware of, so it was a difficult decision for him. But providing credible evidence was more important.

At this writing, the Democrats' Russia arguments boil down to:

--Media outlet quotes anonymous congressional official or anonymous intelligence agency employee.

--Said anonymous source says the intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia meddled in the election.

--Details of how Russia accomplished said meddling are absent.

--Details of how effective said meddling was are absent.

If evidence of said meddling actually exists, Democrats should follow the JFK example and cough it up. In detail. And explain what it means -- also in detail.

Until then, Russia as a political issue will continue to be a dead letter.

Kisses, Ted

Ted Rall, an editorial cartoonist and columnist, is the author of "Francis: The People's Pope."

COPYRIGHT 2018 CREATORS.COM

See Other Political Commentaries.

See Other Commentaries by Ted Rall.

Views expressed in this column are those of the author, not those of Rasmussen Reports. Comments about this content should be directed to the author or syndicate.