It’s now been almost two months since the presidential election, but it’s still unclear exactly how all this shit went down. And by all this shit, we basically mean Russia interfering with things to help Donald Trump get elected. We’ve known for a while that this was probably a thing, but now we’re more sure than ever, and in the last week or so there have been several important developments in the saga. Buckle up, because this shit is like an episode of The Americans. But we can’t count on any of you to be up to date with that show, so instead we’ll explain it in terms we know you’ll understand: Mean Girls.
Last week, Obama finally decided to name names and sanction specific Russian individuals for election interference. He also ordered 35 Russian diplomats to leave the US, which is basically the political equivalent of the middle finger. In addition to some individuals, we also sanctioned the Russian intelligence agencies, so like, we are not chill with Russia at all right now.
The plot thickened the next day, when someone found computer code linked to known Russian hackers in an electrical facility in Vermont. Tbh Vermont is kind of unimportant, but chances are the hackers have been everywhere, so it’ll be interesting to see what other information comes out soon.
Everyone expected shit to hit the fan after Obama announced his sanctions, but so far Putin is playing it cool. He announced that no American diplomats have to leave Russia—but like, what if they’re really just being trapped there? We low-key know nothing about diplomacy, but this whole thing seems fragile to say the least. Putin said that, rather than being petty, he’ll try to repair US-Russia relations after Trump’s inauguration. That shouldn’t be too hard, considering that Trump and Putin are already like BFFs.
The US government isn’t backing down, with a State Department spokesperson saying this week that the government is “100% certain in the role that Russia played” in fucking with the election. All of the top cabinet officials and intelligence agencies agree on this, so at this point it’s basically a fact.
Meanwhile in Trumpland, it’s the same old story. Trump’s spokesman said on Monday that there’s still no evidence of any Russian hacking or its influence on the election, because denying the evidence definitely doesn’t benefit him in any way at all. Trump has still been tweeting about how stupid the whole thing is, so like lol. Trump is going to have a lot of work to do once he’s President, like deciding whether he actually wants to trust the FBI and CIA after talking shit about them for so long.
So at this point, what happens? Most likely, nothing. Trump will get inaugurated in a couple weeks, and then it would be up to Congress to impeach him if they think it’s warranted. But who’s in Congress now? Oh yeah, a ton of Republicans who got a boost in the election because they were on the ballot with Trump. Hahahaha fantastic. It’s going to be a long, scary four years.
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