From the beginning of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election meddling, there has been a wide gap between the expectations of President Trump’s critics and the scope of Mueller’s probe. He was never charged with taking down a President and thus far nothing he’s uncovered has come close to doing that, but that’s the only acceptable outcome in the minds of most Democrats.
There are two dynamics in play from the left that drive their hopes regarding the Mueller investigation. Both seem similar but the separation between them becomes more apparent upon closer examination. The first dynamic is their hope that the election itself was rigged. They want to feel vindicated for never accepting the President even after the final votes were counted. They were sure Hillary Clinton had actually won the election even when it was clear that she had lost and Mueller’s probe represents a potential for them to scream about the election being stolen from them.
The second dynamic surrounds ongoing collusion. They believe the President and his campaign worked with the Russians and/or Wikileaks, but more importantly they believe the President is currently “owned” by the Russians. They cite unsubstantiated reports and fictional dossiers to demonstrate their righteousness in an ongoing fight against the corruption of the White House from within and by outside forces. It’s the justification they seek for remaining incessantly unhinged.
In short, they want Mueller to prove to the world they were right to object initially and they were right to perpetually oppose everything and anything attached to President Trump.
This is the part of the story where I must point out my own opposition to the President. Unlike leftists, I don’t go with the standard NPC ideology of “Orange man bad.” I am critical of the President’s tone and how he presents himself in his role. I object to his support for criminal justice reform, ban on bump stocks, use of tariffs, and failures regarding the budget, Planned Parenthood, and Obamacare. But I support most of his other policies, including border security, tax cuts, and bureaucracy cuts. My opposition or support is based on the individual actions he takes, words that he speaks, and policies he endorses. Some may say I’m playing in the middle, but that’s far from the case. I am playing on the side of conservatism and limited-government federalism. When he’s right, he’s right. When he’s wrong, he’s wrong.
It’s important to understand how I see the President to lend credit to what I’m about to say:
The Mueller report is going to disappoint leftists greatly, but they’ll still try to spin it as a win regardless of what it says.
Very few revelations from Mueller’s investigation have entered the realm of conspiracy or collusion. His team has uncovered wrongdoings by multiple people for a variety of reasons, but so far nothing has even resembled the smoking gun the left has sought that ties the President directly or indirectly to efforts by the Russians to influence the results of the 2016 election.
It is all but certain that Russia tried to influence the election itself. That part is not in question. We can draw certain conclusions from this and wonder if it had any actual impact on the results, but the real question we all should be asking is why they did it. Do they have “dirt” on Trump, as many have speculated? Did they feel Clinton’s history of intervention was not preferable to President Trump’s campaign policies of limited engagement outside of America’s direct interests? Were they playing the chaos factor as they have been shown to be doing now?
This last one seems to be the most likely scenario. While leftists want to say the Russians helped get President Trump elected while his supporters say the Russians weren’t involved at all, the most compelling theory is that Russia has been trying to seed discontent in any way possible regardless of the political ramifications. In other words, they didn’t care who won as long as Americans were as polarized as possible.