If you were to read the inter­pre­ta­tion put forth by the main stars-and-stri­pes media outle­ts from Novem­ber 8th until today, you would walk away with a strong con­vic­tion that Donald Trump was the ulti­ma­te Man­chu­rian Can­di­da­te. Such an inter­pre­ta­tion is, for the time being, off target.

By now, it’s clear that the­re is, at the very lea­st, a sin­gu­lar­ly cosy rap­port bet­ween what was then the Trump cam­pai­gn —  and what is now the Trump Cabi­net — and Rus­sia. Mr. Paul Mana­fort, who took on the role of Chair­man of the Cam­pai­gn in June, comes to mind. Mr. Mana­fort was a clo­se advi­sor, among other things, to Rus­sian friend­ly-Ukrai­nian Pre­si­dent Vik­tor Yanu­ko­vich and a lob­by­i­st for the Rus­sian government. 

Mr. Michael Flynn, a natio­nal secu­ri­ty advi­sor, had repea­ted con­tac­ts with Ser­gey Kislyak, the Rus­sian Ambas­sa­dor to the Uni­ted Sta­tes when Pre­si­dent Oba­ma announ­ced sanc­tions again­st Rus­sia. Mr. Flynn, obli­vious that the FBI taps into the pho­nes of the Rus­sian dele­ga­tion to the Uni­ted Sta­tes, alle­ged­ly discus­sed such sanc­tions with the Ambassador. 

This could represent a potential infringement of the Law, as no private citizen can conduct foreign policy. 

Attor­ney Gene­ral Jeff Ses­sions also had con­ver­sa­tions with Mr. Kislyak in 2016. Secre­ta­ry of Sta­te Rex Til­ler­son was, befo­re acting as such, the CEO of ener­gy giant Exxon­Mo­bil, a com­pa­ny which has mul­ti­ple invest­men­ts and con­nec­tions with Russia. 

At this point, two things need to take pla­ce. Fir­st, Pre­si­dent Trump needs to relea­se his tax returns. The­re is just no way around it. It doesn’t take a humon­gous deal of ima­gi­na­tion to envi­sa­ge that Rus­sia has some­thing on the Pre­si­dent. We don’t exac­tly know what that is, but it is plau­si­ble to sur­mi­se that is some­thing rela­ted to Pre­si­dent Trump’s busi­ness dea­lings in Rus­sia and with the Rus­sians. The only way to shed light on this mat­ter is to take a look at the President’s tax returns. Pos­si­bly, given the situa­tion, Pre­si­dent Trump might actual­ly bene­fit from lif­ting the veil as he could say, if indeed the tax returns were to reveal nothing, in his usual fashion, “See? I told you the­re was nothing to wor­ry about. Fake news. Sad.”. Until the disclo­su­re takes pla­ce, the fren­zy will perdure. 

Second, the­re must be an inde­pen­dent inve­sti­ga­tion into any pos­si­ble coordination/collusion bet­ween the Trump cam­pai­gn and the Rus­sian government. 

We already know that Russia tried to influence the election. This investigation should look into a possible coordination between the Trump camp and Russia in doing so. 

In other words, did Rus­sia go at it alo­ne or were they orga­ni­zing with the Trump cam­pai­gn? Should this inve­sti­ga­tion reveal that any sort of the­se acti­vi­ties took pla­ce, then it’s impea­ch­ment talk. Even if the inve­sti­ga­tion pro­du­ced evi­den­ce of such col­lu­sion, this alo­ne would not ulti­ma­te­ly pro­ve that Pre­si­dent Trump won becau­se of Rus­sian sup­port: it would pro­ve that the Trump cam­pai­gn com­mit­ted some­thing ille­gal, not that this col­lu­sion had such an influen­ce in the elec­tion to chan­ge its outcome. 

Taking this next step would depend very much not on the clo­se­ness of the rela­tion­ship, but on how effec­ti­ve the rela­tion­ship was in influen­cing the elec­tion. Until we’ll have real evi­den­ce, we’ll have to pre­su­me that Donald Trump was not recrui­ted by the Rus­sian govern­ment to run for the Pre­si­den­cy, that he did not recei­ve sup­port of any kind from Rus­sian offi­cials and the influen­ce machi­ne was not power­ful enou­gh to affect the ulti­ma­te out­co­me. This leads us to voi­ding the inter­pre­ta­tion I men­tio­ned in the fir­st few rows and scram­bling for a dif­fe­rent one. How did a rea­li­ty TV star ended up win­ning the most impro­ba­ble race for the Whi­te Hou­se in the last century?

Pre­si­dent Trump was able to seem recep­ti­ve to what Arlie Hoch­schild calls in her book Stran­gers In Their Own Land the “anger and the mour­ning” of the Ame­ri­can peo­ple. Trump see­med to care about the anger that “the for­got­ten men” feel, wra­th­ful with their govern­men­t’s cor­rup­tion and with a Pre­si­dent who they felt was not “theirs”. Trump see­med to care about the mour­ning that “the for­got­ten men” feel in Sta­tes like India­na, Michi­gan, Wiscon­sin, Ohio, which were once the core of the Ame­ri­can eco­no­my and are now stud­ded with cities in disrepair.

Pre­si­dent Trump won the elec­tions becau­se the Demo­cra­ts deci­ded to sho­vel down the peo­ple’s throat the most esta­blish­ment can­di­da­te pos­si­ble in an era whe­re peo­ple would hap­pi­ly blow Washing­ton up. The Demo­cra­ts have aban­do­ned the wor­king class by who­se side, from FDR to LBJ, they used to stand. “The Par­ty of The Peo­ple” tur­ned into “The Par­ty of the Few”. 

But Pre­si­dent Trump did not win. The Demo­cra­ts lost. And Rus­sia has nothing to do with that.

If the Rus­sian Con­nec­tion has any rele­van­ce, then, for what we know at the moment, it is not becau­se it explains the elec­tion resul­ts, but becau­se it could explain from whe­re cer­tain (forei­gn) poli­cy posi­tions will come. As for that Elec­tion thing, keep calm and ask the Democrats.

Mar­co Canal

Aspi­ran­te eco­no­mi­sta, let­to­re, aman­te dei dibat­ti­ti intel­let­tua­li e gin&tonic, alpi­ni­sta, film il pane, viag­gio il vino e i Pink Floyd come reli­gio­ne. Pec­ca di insa­zia­bi­le curio­si­tà, bat­tu­ta faci­le, smo­da­ta ambi­zio­ne e deci­sio­ne. Alea iac­ta est.