Donald Trump goes bonkers about Russian election hacking, gives something away

| 9:30 pm EDT July 24, 2018
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Donald Trump had spent a significant amount of time trying to convince us that Russia didn’t actually hack the 2016 U.S. election, or that Vladimir Putin wasn’t involved, or that Russia is no longer trying to interfere in U.S. elections, or some other dishonest variant. Now that Trump’s embrace of Putin has become so ludicrous he’s being widely accused of treason, Trump is suddenly acknowledging that Russia is indeed targeting the 2018 elections – but he’s making his most bonkers claim yet. In the process: he’s also giving something away about what he expects to happen next.

Here is Trump’s latest ridiculous lying spin about Russian election interference: “I’m very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election. Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don’t want Trump!” Wait, what?

On first blush, this comes off as Donald Trump simply trying to deflect from his ongoing entanglement with Putin and other Russian criminals. But if you read a little more closely, you realize what Trump is truly seeking to accomplish here. He’s trying to lay the groundwork so that if the Democrats dominate in the November 2018 elections, he can blame the Russians for having rigged it in their favor.

There is not one mentally stable person who would believe this, of course. But at this point it may not be so much about Donald Trump convincing anyone else, as it is about convincing himself. He’s already made clear that he can’t accept how deeply and widely despised he is. He can’t accept the idea that his historic unpopularity is in danger of wiping out his Republican Party in the midterms. Trump’s tweet today gives away that he knows the GOP is going to lose badly, and he’s already trying to rationalize it.