President Trump’s assertion that Russia’s “meddling” in our election isn’t really material because it had no discernable effect on the outcome of our election is just another lame attempt of his to cover up the truth. Russia did influence our elections. Here’s one such example from an influential Democrat turned Trump supporter:

Asra Q. Normani, a Muslim, activist, and lifelong liberal Democrat, was persuaded by Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks to vote for Trump. She wrote an editorial published in the Washington Post explaining her decision: “It was one Aug. 17, 2014, email from the WikiLeaks treasure trove of Clinton emails that poisoned the well for me.” She went on to detail what she found in Clinton’s leaked emails that so concerned her. Even though I disagree with her conclusions, what’s important is that she is but one example of many Democrats swayed by materials provided to WikiLeaks by the Russian to vote for Trump. [Her opinion piece can be found here.]

Both Clinton and Trump came into the race with high negatives. But when Trump made blunder after blunder, like attacking the Gold Star family or his taped confession of unsolicited groping of women, Trump supporters that considered switching candidates were met with negative story after negative story about Clinton from material that only came to light because of Russia’s hack of the DNC and prominent Democratic leaders.¹ Can you imagine any candidate getting elected after admitting he pretended to inspect the dressing rooms at the Miss Universe pageant just so he could ogle young women and, in some cases, underage girls in various stages of undress? The Russian hack mattered. It helped him at a time he needed help the most. And so did the thousands of “fake news” stories the Russians planted. As outrageous as some of those stories were, many Trump supporters believed them. And by many, I mean MANY.  The reason Russia planted them is because they know it’s effective. They wouldn’t have done it otherwise. There are a lot of stupid people out there. Lastly, because I believe Trump knew the leak was going to happen long before it did, it provided a psychological lift to his campaign during it’s darkest hours, the effect of which should not be underestimated.

So yes, there is no doubt the subversive actions undertaken by Russia had a material effect on our election and we mustn’t let Mr. Trump or the Russians persuade us otherwise. To my way of thinking, whether or not their influence was enough to game the election for Trump is incalculable and immaterial. It’s like asking if deflating the football for Tom Brady helped him win games. Maybe yes, maybe no. The only thing that’s clear is it certainly didn’t hurt and that’s more than enough wrong for me.

¹ By the way, it’s interesting that Trump never condemned the leaker, WikiLeaks, for making the Clinton emails public. In fact, he praised them, saying they did America a great public service. Well, Mr. Gander, if leaks are good for the goose…