Is Trump Smart Enough To Try A Certain Russiagate Ploy?: Why Is Trump Firing Jeff Sessions Really?

Was Russiagate fizzling out as a distraction?  Oops. . .

This will be short and sweet, almost just the tweet that it can perhaps be whittled down to. . .

I am hesitant to ask questions about whether Trump is smart enough to do certain things.  It’s true that Mr. Trump hardly ever shows even the teeniest amount of erudition in his sentence construction and rarely searches for any new or more appropriate adjectives varying from the sideshow barker ones he uses repetitively.  His disregard for facts and disregard for hewing to any consistency makes it seem like he can’t keep track of facts or what he has said before. . .

. . .  Nevertheless, there are different kinds of intelligence.  Trump’s should never be underestimated.  He has a certain innate sort of trickster’s intelligence, an instinct and talent for distraction and deflection.  His trampling of facts as irrelevancies communicates his power plus how secure he feels (and how secure those who would side with him should feel) about his hold on power.  Similarly, the pronounced lack of effort he displays to be articulate declares to whom he is speaking, plus to whom he is not, and to whom he is not to be considered beholden.

So I am willing to give Trump a decent amount of credit when I ask the question whether he is smart enough to intentionally be pulling off a Russiagate ploy with his firing of his Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, who as the worst kind of racist, has served Trump quite faithfully in almost all respects since Trump appointed him at the commencement of his presidential term.  Trump made explicit that he was firing Sessions because Sessions had recused himself on the Mueller investigation.

It is natural and perhaps accurate to suppose two things about the timing of Trump’s firing of Sessions: first, that Trump fired Sessions only after the midterm elections in order that the firing not influence the elections, and second, that, looking at a shifted House of Representatives, with its investigative powers, now ruled a Democratic majority, Trump wants to fling extra hurdles into any possible investigations of his affairs (including things other than Russiagate, like Emoluments Clause violations and previous money laundering in connection with real estate transactions).  That's a tactic that can, no doubt, be assisted if Matthew Whitaker, Trump’s pick to replace Sessions, underfunds Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation.  That’s the Mueller investigation typically referred to as the “Russiagate investigation.”

A third thing that perhaps nobody seems to be supposing, and that Trump is perhaps getting away with, is that Trump, always the masterful Distractor-in-Chief, is pulling off a beautifully executed Russiagate ploy. . .

To wit: As the midterm elections drew to a close Aaron Maté writing in The Nation (retweeted by Glenn Greenwald) pointed out that “Russiagate” was MIA (Missing In Action) as a campaign issue, something confirmed by a Gallup Poll, and also mentioned during the Democracy Now!/The Intercept’s Election Night coverage by Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill.  Scahill said, “You know another thing that I think is really fascinating? It’s whatever happened to that whole Russia story?”

With no Democrats running for election picking up on or mentioning Russiagate as having any valid relationship to their chances of getting elected, the issue seemed to be dying out, losing its last bits of steam.  Not only that, but comedian media watchdog Jimmy Dore was predicting that whole Russiagate investigation was about to turn out to be a big “nothing burger,” pointing to a Politco article just days before the election saying that the investigation is probably doomed to disappoint as “government investigation experts are waving a giant yellow caution flag now to warn” that the investigation, aside from ultimately likely making little information public, is probably going to disappoint those expecting any “presidency-wrecking” accounts of “Kremlin meddling.”

As Aaron Maté (and others) have pointed out, the Russiagate scandal has served as a distraction for nearly two years, essentially the entire Trump presidency, sidelining people like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow (one of Maté’s favorite targets), from talking about truly critical domestic issues important to the public (like the tax cuts for the rich), from postmorteming the real reasons for the Democratic party’s 2016 loss, and letting MSNBC go more than a year without mentioning the war in Yemen despite the U.S. government's playing a leading role in the protracted war (and the colossal inflicted cholera epidemic), supplying the arms and equipment, refueling the bombers mid-air, and targeting the sites.

That redirection away from other issues gave Trump and cohorts a much freer hand in pursuing their fairly destructive agenda for this country.

Trump’s firing of Jeff Sessions resurrects the Russiagate issue.  Will it give Trump yet another two years of free rein to not be held accountable for other things?  The New York Times has, for two-years, been assisting in this blame-and-fear-the-Russians, Trump-related distraction.  That has set the Times up, along side of Trump and Rachel Maddow, as another major distraction machine.   The Times immediately jumped on the Sessions firing with a gigantic headline—  that was the top-of-the-page headline that screamed on the day following the first announcement of the election results, the day when the `sober' respective analysis traditionally begins. 

Much can be made of how Trump firing Sessions echos Watergate and Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre firings, and certainly the Russiagate to Watergate analogies have been unproductively pushed before, but now is a different time. . .  Back then the Republicans themselves were willing to help push Nixon out; what we know about Watergate was worse; and with Reagan and the Iran Contra scandals we have long since pushed the envelope of what abuses of power we tolerate from the chief executives of the United States. . .  Trump can expect there will be no serious negative repercussions for himself as a result of firing Sessions.

It’s true that just because an issue doesn’t get covered in an election, doesn’t mean that it is not important.  During the midterms there was also very little coverage of debate about climate change, but the difference with respect to that issue this time is that, according to polls, voters actually did care about that undiscussed issue, probably often factoring it into their votes even, this election year, as in others (2016), climate change wasn’t actually covered by the media as an election issue. However important the ultimate facts ever prove Russiagate to be, climate change is just one example of a fundamental, existential issue that's more important and is being ignored in the circus of distractions.

As noted, Trump can expect there will be no serious negative repercussions for himself as a result of firing Sessions, but will it generate another year or two of Russiagate distraction that will give him a freehand to continue to do his worst? . .  It may, indeed.

Is Trump smart enough to figure that out?  Probably.

(So maybe this is a tad longer than just a tweet.)