BY JED DEL ROSARIO
BACK in the United States’ Trump Presidency, much was said and reported about Russian Collusion, asserting that Donald Trump was a puppet of Vladimir Putin and that he was receiving a lot of support from the Russian leader.
Eventually, the Russian Collusion story largely faded from American public consciousness. But now, as the US presidential election approaches, stories of Russians funding the Trump campaign, and his supporters, are returning.
The goal, of course, is to paint Trump as a Russian puppet, though I doubt that will dissuade the average Trump supporter from voting for him, and this is because a lot of countries try to influence the Americans.
The Chinese, Israel, the Gulf States and European Union all try to influence the American government, and the same can be said about non-US private companies and nongovernment organizations. If they do not do it directly then they work with third parties to lobby for their interests. AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is a good example, but is not the only one.
Foreign influence and foreign money is a fact of life for any sufficiently large and influential country, and has been that way since ancient times. If you have a powerful or important country, others will try to influence your policies. That’s a fact of politics.
But that’s not what’s important.
What is important is who your country think its friends and enemies are, and the reason why Trump’s enemies keep harping back to Russia is that they think Americans think Russia is their enemy. The fact Trump’s supporters don’t care tells you what they think of that accusation.
On the other hand, many Democrats have been proven to have wittingly or unwittingly been infiltrated by Chinese interests and as far as I can tell, they have not been punished by their constituency.
Furthermore, AIPAC’s influence is seen as positive by both political parties, but not for the further right and further left who oppose Israel’s influence out of their own ideological reasons.
Many in the US dismiss the issue of foreign influence as a fleeting electioneering issue, but it can also be seen as another symptom of America’s growing divide./PN
