How Russiagate hurts American democracy

If Trump and his die-hard followers (such as the 49 percent of Republicans who believe Russia didn’t meddle in the 2016 election) exist on one extreme — dismissing evidence of unethical or even possibly illegal behavior as “fake news” — much of the so-called “Resistance” exists on the other, refusing to recognize the president as legitimate. Of Trump, Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez declared in a speech last year, “You didn’t win this election.” No doubt thanks, at least in part, to incessant conspiracy theorizing, 57 percent of young Americans viewed Trump as illegitimate in March 2017. Mueller’s investigation has yet to conclude, but 70 percent of Democrats already support impeachment. In 2016, Trump’s opponents rightly condemned him for repeatedly charging that the election was “rigged.” Today, those opponents lodge the same accusation, save for the perpetrators…

Maybe Cambridge Analytica does lie at the heart of a conspiracy to transfer voter data to the Russians, who then used it to micro-target voters in swing states. Maybe the president, whose underling paid off an adult-film actress not to speak of her encounter with his boss, is so deeply ashamed of the contents of the infamous “dossier” compiled by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele that he secretly agreed to begin a campaign for the presidency as a first-time candidate for any office and, on the off chance he won, surreptitiously advance Russian foreign policy objectives.