CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Manuring the Ground: Trump, China and Stolen Elections

Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain

He has never been able to accept it, but even after winning the 2024 US presidential elections, Donald Trump continued to fixate on the election result of 2020, when he lost to the Democratic contender, Joe Biden.  In doing so, he mirrors the anxieties of the Democrats who lost in 2016 to Trump, forever leaving Hillary Clinton convinced that her defeat was due, not to her own failings but to the dark machinations of the Kremlin and any other number of rogue outfits tampering with the US elections.  The 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment accepted that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election” but made no assessment that it altered the eventual vote count.  The bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, despite identifying Russian “cyberactivity directed at state election infrastructure” and various “intelligence-related activities targeting the US voting process” failed to find “evidence that votes were changed and found that, on balance, the diversity of [American] voting infrastructure is a strength.”

The theme of robbery through ballot interference has become an American staple.  For Trump, its mother’s milk, a suitable distraction to his other policy failings.  His Iran stratagem has collapsed, with Tehran and Washington essentially in a state of undeclared war.  Who, or what to distract the public with?  As things turned out, China proved to be the handy bogeyman and headline act in yet another show of Trump broodiness.  “Tonight,” he announced on July 16 in a prime time address, “I’m announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure.”  The evidence in question showed an election system “dangerously” exposed “to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference.”

The documents in question covered........

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