Friends, it annoys me so end that the Left, which so often takes the side of foreigners over Americans, has twisted the issue of "foreign meddling" into one that casts Trump and Republicans as lacking patriotism. What cheek! My latest article shows how foreign meddling in elections is a very widespread phenomenon, and the laser-like media and Democratic focus on Russia-related meddling is self-serving and deliberately misleading. In particular, I draw attention to one way in which China is engaging in egregious election meddling as we speak -- and the media and the Left couldn't care less... Read all about it:
Worried About “Foreign Meddling”?
Then Throw the Book at China!
Every day for the
past 18 months, we have had to endure legions of news reporters and
liberal lawmakers appearing on our television screens, pretending to
deplore “Russian meddling” in America's 2016 presidential
election. Never far below the surface of this tedious moralizing is
the implication that (evil) Trump wouldn't be President if it weren't
for Russia's skulduggery, and, since he surely worked hand in glove
with the Russians all along, he ought to be booted from office.
The truth, as
many conservatives have pointed out, is that a) Russia's “meddling”
was irrelevant to the central dynamics of the 2016 election, which
was lost by Hillary Clinton – a truly dreadful candidate – more
than it was won by Donald Trump, and b) “foreign meddling” in
American elections, and American meddling in foreign elections, is
nothing new or particularly outrageous. Indeed, every election is
imperfect, and yet, despite these imperfections, those who truly
believe in democracy readily acknowledge that, broadly speaking,
electoral results still encapsulate the people's will. This is why
Richard Nixon, despite his well-founded concerns about election
rigging in 1960, never contested John F. Kennedy's victory. He
foresaw that this would lead to endless electoral hair-splitting and
a field day for lawyers, all of which would damage the country he so
loved. He thus swallowed his pride and waited his turn to run again.
If only Democrats were as patriotic and far-sighted!
“Foreign
meddling”, in any case, comes in many forms, and it is by no means
the Russians who are solely, or even primarily, responsible for it.
Aggressive “influence campaigns,” of the sort waged by Russia in
2016, were waged by the United States throughout the Cold War, and we
still “meddle” from time to time. The Obama administration, for
instance, gave money to a group that campaigned against Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel's 2015 election. Moreover, the
U.S. actively intervenes in Iraqi and Afghani politics. Influence
campaigns are also standard operating procedure for China, Israel,
Iran, and various wealthy Persian Gulf oil states.
It's not merely
governments that “meddle”. Foreign citizens may be forbidden from
donating to U.S. political campaigns directly, but their (paid)
lobbyists in this country are not. Foreign lobbyists gave millions to
candidates in 2016. (The Russians, by contrast, laid out only
$100,000 for their famous Facebook ads.) The top recipient? Hillary
Clinton, of course. Senator Chuck Schumer was third. The enormous
foreign contributions made to the Clinton Foundation are also a
matter of record – some of them made during Hillary Clinton's
tenure as Secretary of State – and it is not hard to imagine that
these overseas donors may have expected some backscratching in return
for their largess.
Corporate
donations to political campaigns and Super PACs represent another way
for foreigners to “meddle” in U.S. elections. Corporations can
give unlimited amounts of money to organizations promoting political
causes, rather than specific candidates, and, lest we forget, the
stockholders of these corporations are very often foreigners,
espousing foreign, or “globalist”, agendas. Evidence is also
mounting that wealthy foreigners contribute to Super PACs directly.
Safeguards to prevent this are pitifully weak.
Meanwhile, the
most potent form of “foreign meddling” in the 2016 election had
nothing to do with financial contributions or hacking. It came in the
form of repeated statements by foreign leaders that were designed to
undercut the Trump campaign and boost Hillary Clinton's chances of
victory. British Prime Minister David Cameron labeled Trump's call to
restrict Muslim immigration “divisive, stupid, and wrong”. French
President Hollande said Trump sometimes made him want to “retch”.
China's finance minister called Trump's trade proposals “irrational”.
Mexico's president baldly compared Trump to Hitler and Mussolini.
Clinton, by contrast, earned international plaudits. The Italian
Prime Minister declared he was “rooting” for her.
All of these
statements, naturally, were intended to influence public opinion,
including the views of American voters, and they represented a
departure from historical norms of non-interference. Was this
“foreign meddling” roundly condemned by liberals and the news
media? Of course not. Prior to Donald Trump's historic victory in
2016, concerns about “foreign meddling” were decidedly muted,
because it was assumed that the “right woman for the job” would
win.
Now, though,
China is presenting us with a new and arguably even more provocative
form of election meddling. Given its timing, and given Democrats'
incessant hysterical warnings about the existential threat to
American democracy posed by foreign interference, you would expect
that these pillars of patriotism and rectitude would be screaming
bloody murder. But no – as usual, it's only Trump-related and
Russia-related “meddling” that merits their attention.
And
how is China interfering with our democracy? In the most naked,
shameless manner possible. In response to President Trump's tariffs
against China, designed to combat Chinese trade manipulation and
theft of U.S. intellectual property, China has retaliated with
tariffs of its own. Those tariffs, however, have been targeted
against states and regions that supported Donald Trump in the 2016
election. Texas and Louisiana top the list of affected states. Rural
areas have also been hard hit, with China slapping steep tariffs on
soybeans, dairy products, and meat. Rural voters, lest we forget,
supported Trump in 2016 by record-setting margins. In other words,
China's tariffs are designed to punish Trump's key constituents. In
essence, they are designed to blackmail
Trump voters into abandoning their support for Trump, and by
extension for his economic and trade policies. China's actions are
therefore a direct and purposeful form of interference in U.S.
elections and in our system of governance.
Are Democrats
(and Trump-decrying Republicans) reacting to this assault on American
democracy and the integrity of our elections with sanctions, threats,
and general outrage? Not a bit of it. They are blaming the whole
debacle on President Trump, who had the temerity to challenge China's
dishonest trade practices in the first place! In other words, given
the choice of siding with American consumers and U.S. workers, or
with the foreign countries and interests taking advantage of them,
these two-faced politicians are choosing to undercut the President of
the United States and give aid and comfort to our trade adversaries!
Incredible.
The sad part is
that we know that President Trump's hardball trade tactics can work.
They did with South Korea, and just recently they produced a deal (in
principle) with the E.U. Trump's aggressive pursuit of fair trade
works best, however, when Americans project an image of unity. If
instead our adversaries believe that Trump will be forced to knuckle
under to a fractious Congress or a critical media, they will refuse
to budge in trade talks. Trump's domestic enemies know this. They
know their carping is undermining America's negotiating position and
exacerbating our “trade wars,” and they don't care. They want
Trump, and America, to fail.
The Left and the
media's utter indifference to China's attempt to manipulate American
voters proves, as nothing else could, that their phony outrage over
“Russian meddling” is exactly that: empty, opportunistic, and
undoubtedly temporary. Our political elites have stood by for years
as foreign interests exercised more and more control over American
democracy, and as U.S. economic independence was forfeited. They
expressed not a whit of concern about these trends before 2016. Now
that Donald Trump is President of the United States, however, these
political charlatans are pursuing an utterly hypocritical strategy:
in disputes between the Trump administration and foreign leaders and
interests, they invariably side with the foreigners; simultaneously,
they falsely accuse Russia and Trump of conspiring to rig an American
election, and they thus elevate a contrived discourse about “foreign
meddling” to the top of the public agenda.
It
is time to call these hucksters on their deceit and duplicity. Either
the media and Democrats should start taking all
forms of foreign meddling seriously, even when they are designed to
hurt Trump and Republicans, or they should cease their moralizing
altogether. As things stand now, the disconnect between the feigned,
chest-thumping patriotism and the actual globalist pusillanimity and
treachery of these scoundrels is shocking to behold.
