Russia’s Kremlin, home to Donald Trump’s friends and America’s enemies.
As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, it’s a good reminder that America’s space program began as a response to Russian military activity. Specifically, the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite set off a dramatic reaction to what was viewed as the Soviet militarization of space, with rocket technology that could be used to launch nuclear weapons. The United States, led by the Democratic-majority U.S. Senate and Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, soon tasked the Senate Preparedness Subcommittee (which had been established in 1950 to deal with the then-looming crisis in Korea) with addressing the Soviet military threat from space, and created NASA. Within less than four months of the Sputnik launch, the U.S. launched its own satellite into orbit, and the “Space Race” was on. Eventually, America surpassed the U.S.S.R. by embarking on the Apollo program that led to the moon landing. The full-scale national effort of the Apollo program galvanized America to such an extent that the term “Apollo program” is now a figure of speech that means a large coordinated effort, involving scientists and deep governmental resources, to solve a huge challenge (such as climate change.)
The issue of “preparedness” in the face of a Russian threat is something that Democrats should be using now to attack Donald Trump and the Republicans. Specifically, Russia attacked our democracy in the 2016 elections. Russia’s attacks have been termed “cyber warfare,” and even Republican Dick Cheney has said that Russia’s attacks “could be considered an act of war.” In the internet age, Russia’s attacks on America arguably are as serious as the attacks on the United States at Pearl Harbor or on September 11, 2001. However, Donald Trump and many Republicans are refusing to defend us against this threat.
Even worse, as Democratic U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren described at a recent CNN town hall, Trump welcomed the Russian attack because it was designed to help him:
The first is that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election in order to help Donald Trump…. Part two, Donald Trump welcomed that help…. This was a sophisticated attack. They attacked part of the voting system, that’s going to be an ongoing federal investigation. They hacked into more than 50 computers at the DNC, the DCCC, a very serious attack. Part three is, when the federal government starts to investigate part one and part two, Donald Trump took repeated steps aggressively to try to halt the investigation, derail the investigation, push the investigation somewhere else, but otherwise keep that investigation from going forward and turning into a serious investigation about a hostile foreign government that attacked us and about his own personal interest.
Trump’s failure to address Russia’s attacks and prevent further attacks — his lack of “preparedness” of America’s defenses — calls his patriotism into question. Despite the findings of our intelligence agencies that Russia attacked us and continues to do so, Trump still has friendly phone calls with Vladimir Putin and does not press Putin to end Russia’s cyber warfare against the U.S., indeed calling Russia’s cyber war on America a “hoax.” Likewise, Trump continues to act friendly toward North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, who also poses a threat to the United States and to world peace, even after North Korea test fired missiles several days ago.
We hear plenty of generic “Trump is bad” criticism, based on his fresh Outrage of the Day, from Democratic politicians. But pointing out Trump’s lack of preparedness of America’s national security, and his lack of patriotism in defending us against our enemies, is a more pointed and potentially more effective attack.
Photo by Xiquinho Silva, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/Naug8E
