THERE'LL BE RAZORS FLYIN' THROUGH THE AIR

In 1939, Winston Churchill spoke of his frustration with Russia, a country he described as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”  “But,” he added, “perhaps there is a key.  That key is Russian national interest.” 

In some ways, it doesn’t matter precisely why or how Russia interfered with America’s 2016 presidential election.  The key question is simply whether they did it or not.  And it sure looks like they did, because why wouldn’t they, given the chance?  A confused, angry, divided America is absolutely in the Russian national interest, especially if Americans themselves could be manipulated into sowing the confusion, the anger, and the divisiveness.  And when the dust settled on November 8, 2016, Putin and his oligarch pals were the big winners. 

Putin’s path to victory in 2016 turned out to be relatively easy.  So many Americans made so many foolish decisions.  That’s the most direct explanation for how American democracy went off the rails in 2016.  But that doesn’t fit the mainstream media narrative about salt of the earth working class white people being the backbone of the country, so it took a while for the press to grasp that they had to stop parroting outdated conventional wisdom about the nature of the American electorate.

The 14th century logician William of Occam (or Ockham) proposed an easy test for choosing between competing explanations for the same phenomenon.  The simplest explanation (assuming it accounts for all the facts) is the best explanation.  This test became known as “Occam’s Razor.”

Sadly, Occam’s Razor seems almost quaint in the 21st century, where power is the only enduring fact, and inconvenient truths can be denied or ignored.  Enter QAnon, stage right.  I don’t know whether QAnon is a prankster, a performance artist, or a true believer.  But since his predictions seem designed to make his followers look foolish, the “true believer” option seems unlikely. 

Consider Q’s recent prediction that on December 5, Donald Trump would arrest 60,000 of his enemies and put them in concentration camps.  Not 6, or 60, or even 600, which would be an unprecedented mass arrest.  No, wait and see.  It’s gonna be 60,000. 

But December 5 came and went, and as best anyone can tell, Democrats and prominent #NeverTrump Republicans are still at large.  There has been no sign of mass incarcerations.  George H.W. Bush’s funeral on December 5 would have been a perfect opportunity to round up many of the key architects of the Deep State, but they all seem to have walked away from the memorial service, unrepentant as ever.

That’s the sort of publicly embarrassing miscalculation that would end the career of your run-of-the-mill doomsday prophet, but Q is made of sterner stuff.  He and his surrogates have the advantage of operating in an environment where “fake news” is the only news there is. 

What?  You say you didn’t hear about those 60,000 arrests?  Well, of course not.  Don’t be naïve.  Mainstream media is covering it up.  Just be patient.  All secrets will be revealed and all prophecies will be fulfilled – if not this time, then next time for sure.  January 9 seems to be QAnon’s next deadline. 

In the meantime, back on planet Earth, Robert Mueller is the anti-QAnon.  He’s methodically laying out evidence of criminality in the highest levels of the Trump regime.  Those of us who’ve been paying attention have guessed, at least in broad outline, what Mueller was likely to find.  And now we’re getting confirmation, most recently in the form of Michael Cohen’s plea deal with the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York (SDNY). 

According to Cohen’s sentencing recommendation, a mysterious figure known only as “Individual-1” directed him to commit two felonies.  Which, come to think of it, is a felony all by itself.  Individual-1 would appear to be in big trouble.  But who could Individual-1 be? 

Oh, wait!  SDNY’s sentencing recommendation provides a clue.  “Individual-1, for whom Cohen worked at the time, began an ultimately successful campaign for President of the United States.”  That narrows the possibilities down a little bit.  I’m beginning to suspect that Individual-1 is Donald Trump.

Remember back in early 2017, when pundits fell over themselves every time Donald Trump managed to get through a public appearance without making a complete fool of himself?  “OMG,” they’d exclaim, “this is the pivot we’ve been waiting for.  Today is the day Donald Trump became president.” 

We don’t hear that much anymore.  Outside the fever swamps of propaganda outlets like Fox News and QAnon, Trump’s not fooling anyone.  Well, maybe he’s fooling himself.  Last night, Trump greeted Cohen’s sentencing agreement with a tweet: “Totally clears the President.  Thank you!” 

Maybe Trump’s lawyers hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to explain to him who Individual-1 is.  Besides which, a claim of complete exoneration is hard to reconcile with the whole “witch hunt” narrative Trump has been trying to build.  But consistency isn’t the point.  The point is simply to give the base something they can cling to for a couple of days, while Trump manufactures a new distraction or two.  One thing Donald Trump is good at is changing the subject.   

Meanwhile, we’ve learned a new synonym for “collusion.”  It seems that in the summer of 2016, a Russian agent offered Donald Trump, Jr. (or as SDNY might put it, “Individual-1-Junior”) what he called “political synergy” and “synergy on a government level” in return for a few teensy-weensy considerations.  In other words, we’ll help you steal the election if you’ll get rid of the sanctions Obama placed on us.  And, hey – there’s no law against establishing synergy, right?

Actually, yes there is – if the synergy takes the form of tangible campaign assistance from a foreign government or foreign national, it’s an illegal campaign contribution.  Folks like you and me would hear that offer and immediately think, “Whoa, that sounds kind of shady, I’d better stay away.” 

But Individual-1’s family fortune was built on shady opportunities, so it’s not surprising that Junior’s response was, “If it’s what you say, I love it.”

We know so much more about the Trump family now than we did two years ago.  We know about their sketchy personal histories.  We know about their sketchy business practices.  We know how long and how deeply they’ve been involved with Russian mobsters.  Now Robert Mueller is using that sketchy history as the canvas on which he’s painting his analysis of the 2016 election. 

Some people, including members of the press whose regular sources leak like sieves, are frustrated with Mueller because his team doesn’t leak.  Some have responded by cultivating new sources and breaking new stories.  Other – pundits and reporters alike – seem to have gone in the opposite direction, shutting down their critical faculties and refusing to acknowledge behavior patterns that are obvious to more reality-based observers, including members of the grand juries that Mueller and his colleagues have worked with.  

For the past two years, there’s been so much random information out there that it’s been hard to separate the signal from the noise.  But with every new indictment and sentencing recommendation, Team Mueller is connecting dots.  And with every new connection, the possibility of an innocent explanation for the Trump-Russia “synergy” gets harder to believe.  Occam’s Razor and Winston Churchill agree:  the key is Russian national interest.  Hold that thought, and the Trump presidency begins to make sense.