How Russia could spark a U.S. electoral disaster

4. The Russians attempt to throw the election. They might try to get Trump elected. Alternatively — and this would, of course, be even more devastating — they might try to rig the election for Clinton, perhaps leaving a trail of evidence designed to connect the rigging operation to Clinton’s campaign.

5. Once revealed, the result will be media hysteria, hearings, legal challenges, mass rallies, a constitutional crisis — followed by confusion, chaos and an undermining of the office of the presidency. Trump might emerge from the process as president after all. He will then go on, as promised at so many rallies, to “lock her up,” and of course to open a broad relation with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, the only foreign leader he seems to truly admire. Even if Clinton remains as president, she will be tarnished. At least a part of the country will assume she is illegitimate, that the elites/Clinton clan/mainstream media stole the election from “the people.”

6. More likely, the hack will fail, or never even get off the ground. But what’s the downside in trying, or even in letting it be known that it was tried? Rumors of election fraud can create the same hysteria as real election fraud. Already, Russia’s propaganda wire service, sputniknews.com, has speculated that The Post’s article on Russian electoral manipulation is a clever plot to “to hide the actual efforts at electoral manipulation” and a “good cover for vote-rigging.” That thought will be tweeted and posted and shared by a whole ecosystem of professional trolls and computer bots, over and over again until it finally shows up on authentic pro-Trump websites.