'Political equivalent of 9/11'

WASHINGTON ― The former acting director of the CIA said Sunday that Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections constituted a significant attack on the United States, calling it “the political equivalent of 9/11.”

“It is an attack on our very democracy. It’s an attack on who we are as a people,” Mike Morell told The Cipher Brief. “A foreign government messing around in our elections is, I think, an existential threat to our way of life. To me, and this is to me not an overstatement, this is the political equivalent of 9/11. It is huge and the fact that it hasn’t gotten more attention from the Obama Administration, Congress, and the mainstream media, is just shocking to me.”

The CIA concluded in a secret assessment that Russia interfered in the U.S. election not merely to mess around with the democratic system, but specifically to help Donald Trump win the presidency, according to a recent report in The Washington Post.

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official familiar with the findings. “That’s the consensus view.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-morell-russia-election-hacking_us_584eb2cde4b0bd9c3dfd73cc

Back when I was interested in the UFO phenomenon I read a book by Jacques Vallée, of Close Encounters fame.  The thesis of it was that regardless of the UFO's, our government could never admit it because it would undermine their own legitimacy.  The government would never admit that anyone was--or could--muck around with its authority.

Now, substitute Russians for aliens, and you will see the import of the same argument.  The point of the argument is not the evility of the Russians, or the aliens, but the inefficacy of our own government cast in that role.   To admit that our own systems are so fallible, would undermine the foundations of our government's legitimacy.

Simply put...no one's going to do anything about it. Think of what's on the other side.

Electing Trump is also a "political equivalent of 9/11.”

Re the OP: that's why we didn't want Obama sticking his nose into Brexit in all fairness.

Lurker wrote:Electing Trump is also a "political equivalent of 9/11.”

To be sure.  But seeing that, and doing something about it are two different things.

Ok, suppose you send a letter to Trump saying the election was rigged and he isn't president.  Who sends the letter?  Obama?  The Director of the CIA?  Anyone in government is a part of the 'We/They' that Trump and the Trumpsters, his base, have delegitimized in their own minds, and the minds of many others.  They've got diminished authority these days.

So, the Supreme Court?  They are split, 4 - 4.  But even if they weren't, they have already been politicized by the Roberts Court the last time around.  See, Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000).  The LW/RW divisions have run much deeper than any institutions, anyway.

It gets to the point where you wonder who gets to decide presidential elections, anyway.  The media?  It's seems that once Trump was announced the winner on November 9th, it was all over.  So...whoever put the headlines out, I guess...maybe the New York Times made Trump the President.

In the wake of this, I can't think of anyone or any authority that could declare Donald Trump not to be the President.  Anything done by any one figure or body, be it the head of the FBI or the combined Congress, would be accused of acting unconstitutionally.  Any attempt to disqualify the election because of tampering, would be unprecedented--not that that is an absolute bar--and would involve the uncertainties of proof.

Few people think about it, but in fact we have an uncertain way of finalizing these sorts of questions.  We leave it to a vote--a vote of a jury, a vote of the Senate, a vote of Congress, or a vote of the people.  Here, we don't even have a constitutionals path...so again, the unconstitutional argument.  Who would hold the trial as to whether the Russians interfered?  If we find strong evidence (there is no such thing as certain evidence) that there was election tampering, who is going to hear the evidence?

Frankly, I don't see it happening.  At any step of the way, you could start a civil war.  And with Trump supporters--they are synonymous with NRA types, KKK-types, white supremacists, anti-government, meth dealing, motorcycle gang members, who are leaderless losers, who want only to be given a gun, and not asked questions, nor be called to account for anything--you could start a war with the drop of a pin.