Whatever we are to make of the Republican memo on the ongoing investigations into Donald Trump and his campaign, I can’t help but be depressed by this artifact of our time.
What does it say about the Republican memo that the Kremlin is pushing it, more than they’re pushing anything else right now?
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 30, 2018
The problems with Chuck Schumer’s allegation are easy to see. In fact, it is almost an invitation. Now anything that Russian actors even pretend to push across social media will be taken to “say something,” about Schumer’s partisan opponents. If partisan passions encourage us to make this level of suspicion a matter of routine in our political life, it dramatically lowers the price of psy ops, against this country. Vladimir Putin could just take a lesson from the Donald and tweet us into even deeper divisions.
This is the rhetorical mode of a second rate power. I don’t care how it started. But it leaves me feeling like we’ve been imported into the Ukrainian Rada.