Back in 2017–18, it was “Russia, Russia, Russia.”  Today, it’s “hoax, hoax, hoax.”  For me, the worst part of the story is that it hurt the country incredibly.  It poisoned the well and we are still recovering.

Why did it happen?

First, the Democrats could not accept Mrs. Clinton’s defeat.  They had to explain it but couldn’t say the truth.  Like VP Harris, Secretary Clinton was a horrible candidate who did not connect with voters.  So the Democrats had to blame somebody, and Russia, Russia, Russia was an easy scapegoat.

Second, the extent to which the Obama team went to destroy President Trump is alarming.  This is an excellent summary from Professor Victor Davis Hanson:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign, later aided by the top echelon of the FBI, CIA, and the Director of National Intelligence, sought -- falsely -- to seed a narrative that Trump had colluded directly with Russia to win unfairly the 2016 election.

When that campaign gambit failed to alter the 2016 results, the Obama administration doubled down during the transition to undermine the incoming Trump presidency.

Double down indeed.  A massive effort was put in place to destroy the Trump presidency.   Why?  Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The other side of the story is the role of the media.  I spent much of 2017–2018 on Univision & Telemundo answering questions about articles based on “people familiar with the situation” regarding Russia, Russia, Russia.  These articles were treated like the word of God, but we now know that it was not the case.  To be fair, not all reporters went down the path of “anonymous sources,” but many did, and they hurt the credibility of the media.  Check CNN’s ratings to start.

Again, these people were willing to destroy the country because they couldn’t accept election results.  And then they told us that Trump was a threat to democracy!

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Image from Grok.