Trump supporters sent Donald Trump to DC because they wanted to blow up and eviscerate their own government. Russia shares the same goals. So carefully messaged articles by the Russian Propaganda arm have stirred up and played on the massive levels of ignorance, prejudice, misunderstandings, latent racism, and misogyny of large portions of the American public- to create confusion, fear, and mistrust of their own government and institutions. And now the Russians got their wish- no wonder they were celebrating his victory and opening bottles of Vodka in Moscow on election night.
Such a foreign policy agenda has not been isolated to the US, of course. They have been playing similar games all over Europe. Over the past decade, Russia has boosted right-wing populists across Europe. It loaned money to Marine Le Pen in France, well-documented transfusions of cash to keep her presidential campaign alive. Such largesse also wended its way to the former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, who profited “personally and handsomely” from Russian energy deals, as an American ambassador to Rome once put it. They have been pushing xenophobic and anti-EU candidates across Eastern Europe and the Baltic states as well. Russia been a sponsor of Golden Dawn in Greece, Ataka in Bulgaria, and Jobbik in Hungary. Joe Biden warned about this effort last year in a speech at the Brookings Institution: “President Putin sees such political forces and popular sentiment as useful tools to be manipulated, to create cracks in the European body politic which he can then exploit.” Ruptures that will likely multiply after Brexit—a campaign Russia’s many propaganda organs openly, and not-so-openly, promoted.
The goal? Fragmentation and destabilization of western alliances and governments.
Now, of course, the firing of FBI director Comey couldn't have been planned better. At this point Americans' mistrust of their government is at an all-time high, and they have elected a president which has credibility even lower than Richard Nixon- historical lows. There is no one with whom Trump can replace Comey that would have any level of trust by anyone in the US. And so one of the most powerful pillars of law enforcement and justice in the US has been destabilized as well.
And the US government is still operating on a skeleton crew- months after the election. This has been unprecedented in US history. Large Portions of many departments- from the state department to the EPA, remain understaffed and unfilled. The government is not even able to run routine activities of governance, let alone handle any crisis which may come up.
More Americans believe in Bigfoot than evolutionary biology. More of them believe in a 6,000 year old universe than climate change science. The lack of education in this country has been exploited as a weapon against us now. This massive level of ignorance is a seriously liability and needs to stop. We need to invest in more education if we wish to maintain a system of democracy.