Useful idiots.

“Make America Great Again”

Feb 16 2018, 4:23 pm ET
Trump’s Russia narrative upended by Mueller indictments
by Jonathan Allen
News analysis

WASHINGTON — For more than a year, President Donald Trump has insisted that Russians did not interfere in the 2016 election, going so far as to call such allegations a “hoax” and a “made-up story.”

On Friday, special counsel Robert Mueller, the man charged with investigating the Trump team, filed indictments filled with cold, hard fact, charging 13 Russian nationals with executing an incredibly sophisticated cyber-based operation to aid Trump’s bid for the presidency.

In other words, Mueller called Trump’s bluff.
[….]

Immediately after the 2016 election:

Autocracy: Rules for Survival
Masha Gessen
[….]
Rule #3: Institutions will not save you. It took Putin a year to take over the Russian media and four years to dismantle its electoral system; the judiciary collapsed unnoticed. The capture of institutions in Turkey has been carried out even faster, by a man once celebrated as the democrat to lead Turkey into the EU. Poland has in less than a year undone half of a quarter century’s accomplishments in building a constitutional democracy.
[….]
The power of the investigative press—whose adherence to fact has already been severely challenged by the conspiracy-minded, lie-spinning Trump campaign—will grow weaker. The world will grow murkier. Even in the unlikely event that some mainstream media outlets decide to declare themselves in opposition to the current government, or even simply to report its abuses and failings, the president will get to frame many issues. Coverage, and thinking, will drift in a Trumpian direction, just as it did during the campaign—when, for example, the candidates argued, in essence, whether Muslim Americans bear collective responsibility for acts of terrorism or can redeem themselves by becoming the “eyes and ears” of law enforcement. Thus was xenophobia further normalized, paving the way for Trump to make good on his promises to track American Muslims and ban Muslims from entering the United States.
[….]
November 10, 2016, 5:26 pm

It’s not over.

Previously:

Your $27.00 won’t get you into heaven anymore (June 19, 2016)