Has anyone noticed a slowdown with Joe? He isn’t drooling, he isn’t muttering to himself any more than plenty of other people do, but something seems different. Or maybe rather than different, something seems deeply familiar.
No, it isn’t the sort of cognitive decline we’ve all seen with loved ones. Rather, according to ABC’s latest nuke, the encroaching senility that has our former vice president hiding in his basement is simply… Russian propaganda.
Don’t laugh! This is serious stuff. National security! It took four reporters, with help from a fifth to write this story. It runs nearly 1,600 words. They have a document. It’s called: “Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of US Candidates to Influence 2020 Election,” and some super-earnest bureaucrat wanted it distributed to America’s top law enforcement so they could be on the lookout for this menace. His boss wouldn’t let him, so of course, he gave it to the media.
But why wouldn’t they let him? Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told Fox’s Dana Perino it was “a very poorly written report,” he and intelligence and analysis “officials had questions about it,” and “they’re hard at work on rewriting that report, putting it in better context.” But that’s not it, according to the Biden camp (and their five reporters), who know the real reason is “Russia and the Trump campaign are speaking from the same script of smears and lies.”
Now they’ve got your attention, don’t they?
We well know this isn’t the first time the Russians have had their way with a U.S. election. There was, of course, the infamous hack. While that bit of trickery didn’t actually cause Hillary Clinton to lie about Serbian sniper fire, reroute Her campaign travel away from Wisconsin, or cause Her to “abruptly collapse after just 90 minutes outside in mild weather,” it did trick John Podesta into giving his password away in a basic phishing scheme.
More insidious, however, and more to the Kremlin’s senility plot, was the plan to tip the balance of American democracy with a $46,000 ad-buy. In the $1.166 billion battle between Donald Trump and Her, it might seem laughable that this Russian ad-buy changed anything, but boy did Putin get his money’s worth.
Years of Democratic investigations spurred by years of frothy blathering from reporters and pundits unable to accept the country’s rejection of their kind-of-insane vision for America? Forty-six thousand dollars for four years of back-to-back earned media, investigations, subpoenas, and real, actual, effective work to undermine trust in our institutions? Thank you, he’ll have another.
So what can we hapless Putin pawns learn from this? Some self-reflection might be in order. If talking about Biden’s mental fitness is a Russian scheme, for example, what other seemingly legitimate concerns might the Kremlin be planting in our minds? Preferring lower taxes? Opposing partial-birth abortion? National mask mandates and lockdowns seem an obvious target. When you’re Vlad, Sputnik’s the limit.
Buckle up, America. “Red Dawn,” the remake, is upon us. This time, instead of Hollywood, it’s made in New York, and we can film right here, on location and in real-time, in Washington, D.C. You guys, we’ll be lucky to survive.