Why Russia Will Be To Blame No Matter Who Wins the US Presidential Election

Obsession with interference

It looked like the matter of malicious Russian attempts to discredit the 2016 U.S. presidential election had been closed once and for all. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative report found nothing “of the sort” with regard to “Russian meddling efforts” that had been exaggerated for months. And, as it turned out, Vladimir Putin did not appoint Donald Trump as president. Due to the fact that another foreign leader, the president of Ukraine, got in the way, Russia and its “hostility” toward the United States was supposedly forgotten. But that’s only what it looked like.

Right on cue just before the Democratic caucuses in Nevada, a raft of American publications and experts once again began talking about “Russian interference” in the upcoming presidential election in November. A whole host of commentators, analyst, and experts in Russian affairs began to lament in unison that the Russians are meddling in U.S. elections and the U.S. urgently needs to do something drastic about it.

Here, I’d like to draw your attention to three key points. The first is connected to those who are working to replace Trump. Many among the public who are voting in the Democratic primaries realize that they have no chance of defeating the incumbent president, particularly the leaders of the Democratic Party themselves. The televised debate that took place just before the Nevada caucuses essentially showed that the entire team of potential future presidents running as Democrats is completely incapable not only of battling on equal terms with Trump, but of actually managing the country in the event the Democrats win.

The problem doesn’t just lie in the fact that none of the presidential candidates understand the most important international issues. They are also, to put it mildly, simply vacillating on the most important domestic issues, sometimes without knowing what’s actually going on. Their backup candidate, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, whom the other candidates piled on during the debate with even more fervor than they do Trump, also totally disappointed the Democrats. As a result, while exiting the floor in Las Vegas after the event, the former mayor of New York muttered, “My God, what have I got myself into?”*

The second point, I think, is just as basic. The most threatening person for the average American voter is still the Russian president. It is not the leader of North Korea, nor the supreme leader of Iran, nor the mysterious Comrade Xi, nor even the president of Venezuela (even though the Democratic presidential candidates refer to him in absolutely every context as the “bloody dictator” or the “communist monster”). Bernie Sanders, who is seriously hoping he will manage to beat his Democratic rivals, has called the Russian president a “fraud,” “a thug,” and even remarked that “the Russians are ruled by a communist dictator.”

With that, it’s telling that all the Democratic presidential candidates constantly play around with alarming terms such as “socialism” and “communism,” and consistently make examples of Venezuela and Cuba, places they have never actually visited. “I’m for socialism, but not Maduro’s kind of socialism,” Sanders reassured voters. But when asked how his calls for socialist changes in the U.S. differ from those in place in Venezuela, without blinking, Sanders responded, “We will not have a dictator. And neither Putin, nor Cuba will be helping us to run the country.”**

The third point is very important in order to understand what Russia will at least be accused of in November in the context of the upcoming U.S. election. As an example, Moscow has now been formally accused of helping both Trump and Sanders (helping both equally). That is, it doesn’t matter who wins the presidential election, it’s all the same. And that person will become “Moscow’s puppet.” Nonsense, you say? Absolutely not.

Everyday, correspondents from every TV station stand in front of Congress on Capitol Hill with microphones warning viewers that the U.S. needs to act urgently so that the Russian government doesn’t influence ordinary American citizens in the election. All the more so since Sanders has already rejected any plans “to receive financial help from Moscow in the election” (as if someone were offering him any).** However, two of the other candidates sarcastically hinted that Sanders would have lost the Nevada caucuses if it hadn’t been for the secret “hand of Moscow.”

What’s important is this: Russia is now being accused not only of supporting this or that party, but, more precisely, its favorites in the battle for the presidential post. Multiple experts are claiming something else; that with its meddling, Russia is allegedly already undermining the American electorate’s faith in the honesty and transparency of the election of the U.S. president itself. This is precisely why a hearing is scheduled in Congress soon regarding findings in a U.S. intelligence report. The hearing will pay special attention to the issue of Russian “election interference.”

It isn’t hard to guess what this report contains. I remember I was speaking to several American officials at the beginning of the year during a reception at a European embassy in Washington. The first thing they said to me (supposedly in jest), after having found out that I was from Russia and not from the embassy, was, “Don’t interfere in our elections!” When I replied that nobody, not then and not now, was interfering, I received a resolute rebuke from the officials, one, which being in America, I can hardly dispute. The officials said, “Well, the heads of our intelligence community can’t all be wrong at once!”

Now, much will depend on how quickly the leaders of the Democratic Party (and, to some extent, the voters themselves) decide on their presidential nominee. Primary elections in several racially diverse states are coming up and not one of the candidates has a clear advantage there. And as long as this uncertainty continues, the issue of “Russian interference” in the U.S. election will remain in the voters’ minds.

If Sanders breaks out ahead of the other Democratic candidates (and this is a completely realistic scenario), then the “hand of Moscow” will begin to get into full swing, both in the American media and in the speeches of the presidential candidates themselves. And then, it’s highly likely that both presidential nominees will have to “turn their backs on their ties with Russia.” Even if such links to “Russian interference” don’t exist.

*Editor’s note: Michael Bloomberg ended his presidential campaign on March 4. And although accurately translated, this quoted remark could not be independently verified.

**Editor’s note: Although accurately translated, this quoted remark could not be independently verified.