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No, Russia didn't elect Donald Trump — the voters did
(Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

No, Russia didn't elect Donald Trump — the voters did

Let's always remember, first of all, that the world is full of hypocrites. Things are far less confusing when you come to understand and accept that reality. A great many people do not possess actual convictions nor do they judge events by one set standard. They cobble together a haphazard collection of principles on a case-by-case basis, according to what is convenient at the time. They will pretend to deeply believe in a certain thing one moment, and the next they will abandon it and mock those who still believe the very thing they pretended to believe 18 seconds ago. This is how many people — perhaps most people — operate.

So, when it comes to the unsubstantiated report from the CIA that Russia meddled in our election in order to get Trump elected, you'll find that many people who were quite unconcerned about Russia and skeptical of the intelligence community up until now have suddenly decided that the CIA is always right and Russia is the gravest global threat we face. On the flip side, you'll find that many people who were anti-Russia hardliners and basically trustful of the intelligence community up until now have suddenly decided that Russia is harmless, or even an ally, and the CIA is comprised of a bunch of incompetent partisan hacks. Mitt Romney was mocked by liberals and supported by conservatives when he warned about Russia during the 2012 campaign. Today, that idea has gained favor with the very group that mocked it, and fallen out of favor with the very group that supported it.

And it goes without saying that many of the liberals who think this Russia story is a big deal now, would not think it such a big deal if Hillary were the one they allegedly conspired to get elected. And many of the conservatives who think this Russia story is not a big deal these days, would certainly think it an enormous deal if Hillary were the one a foreign state supposedly conspired to get elected. And on and on. Everyone has switched sides on everything. It's all a game to us, it seems.

For my part, although I think it's pretty clear that Russia did hack the DNC, I am not remotely convinced and I do not think it's been at all confirmed that they did it specifically to elect Trump. Just today another report surfaced showing that the FBI does not necessarily agree with the CIA's assessment. So, we don't know for certain why Russia did it. We don't even know for certain that they did it at all. At least I don't know, and neither do you.

But there are a few things I do know, or think I know, about this whole situation. Here is a list of those things, in no particular order:

  • This needs to be investigated. Anyone who says we should not even investigate Russia's alleged involvement in our election is a shameless phony. Clearly, if Russia did in fact attempt to interfere in our election, that is a very serious thing and should be treated as such. It would be an act of cyber warfare against the United States by a foreign government. As Americans, we should all take exception to it. Obviously.
  • Whether it's true or not, there's no reason to believe that Trump won because of Russia. Russia or no Russia, Hillary was still the worst candidate any American political party has ever nominated. She was probably destined to lose regardless.
  • Agree or disagree with Trump's message, his voters voted for him because of it. As far as we know, Russian operatives didn't parachute into a field in Michigan the night before the election and force 225,000 people in Macomb County, or 150,000 in Kent, to vote for Trump at gunpoint. Those Americans filled out their ballots for Donald Trump because they believed in what Donald Trump said, favored his agenda, and trusted him to carry out that agenda. Russia didn't "elect Donald Trump," no matter if they wanted him to be elected or not. American citizens elected Donald Trump.
  • It's true that foreigners shouldn't have any ability to sway our election results. That's why we need voter ID laws to weed out the illegal immigrants. After all, Russia didn't send Russian citizens over here to pull the lever for the candidate that would be most advantageous for Russia. Mexico, on the other hand, does exactly that. Oddly, that's a form of "foreign meddling" liberals seem to favor.
  • The media are the biggest hypocrites of all. They showered Trump with TWO BILLION DOLLARS worth of free media and now they want to accuse Russia of conspiring to elect Trump? Russia didn't, through some dark sorcery, compel the news media to spend all day every day for over a year covering Trump and only Trump and nobody but Trump. They did that of their own accord. If any "hostile power" can be given the credit for electing Trump, it's the media. The media tipped the scales for Trump in the primary because he was good for ratings and they thought he'd be good for the DNC. They were right on one point but desperately wrong on the other. Perhaps if they had given equal airtime to Rubio and Cruz and the rest of them, things would have played out differently. We don't know that for sure, but we do know that you give a candidate an enormous advantage when you spend six months airing his campaign rallies live and uncut. And it wasn't a Russian conspiracy that forced the news media to do that or anything else. They did it all on their own.
  • The emails were real. If Russia did hack the DNC and did release the information in an attempt to elect Trump -- or for any other reason -- that doesn't change the truth of what was revealed. It's funny that Democrats have suddenly stopped suggesting that the emails were fake or fabricated. They now admit that everything was real -- meaning, their corruption is also real -- but they want us to be mad at Trump and Russia because of it. Sorry, no. Their corruption doesn't justify the hacking itself, but what were the voters supposed to do? Pretend they didn't know what they knew because they knew they shouldn't have known it? If political corruption is revealed through illegal means, we cannot change the fact that we know about it. And once we know about it, we must respond accordingly. It's like if your friend snoops through your neighbor's phone and finds out he's a pedophile. Sure, your friend shouldn't have been snooping, but he did, and now you know what you know, and at the very least you aren't going to have the guy babysit your kids. You are going to act upon the information you shouldn't know because to not act would be irresponsible and insane.

That's the position the voters were in. We shouldn't have known all that we knew, but we knew it all the same. And at the end of the day, what we learned -- not how we learned it -- is still the biggest story. And if it is indeed why Hillary and the Democrat Party lost, they only have themselves to blame.

To see more from Matt Walsh, visit his channel on TheBlaze.

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