Putin’s Re-election, Election Interference: Ukraine style and the “Secret Shadow Campaign that Saved the 2020 Election”
Renee Parsons
Despite the continuing chaos at the southern border, the ever-burgeoning Federal bankruptcy waiting for the other shoe to drop and assorted civil disturbances, why should the American public care that Vladimir Putin won re election as President for a fifth term in an 87% landslide and that with 112.3 million votes cast, 74% of the country cast their paper ballots in a record turnout for Putin. As if an increase in the Ukraine war threatening a WW III scenario would improve US predictions for the future.
Putin ran as an Independent as one of four nominated candidates with voting between March 15 – March 17. It was the seventh presidential election in Russian Federation history with historic regions of Ukraine which had been in dispute since 2013 were approved for annexation by voter referendum in 2022. Those participating included the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye.
But of course, it’s all a lie, right. There is no way that Russia could have fair and free elections. Isn’t it a communist country? Seriously, how is it that the Russians could have a more secure, a higher voter turnout and a more successful election process than the US, the world’s largest and oldest democracy on the planet.
One principal reason Americans might dismiss the Russian results goes to the heart of accepting the 24-7 narrative spin from a compliant western media that Russia is a long-standing political opponent and an economic competitor, not to mention its adversarial role in Ukraine with NATO acting as its ever-reliable purveyor of US military conflicts. The US has recently confirmed the presence of American troops in Taiwan – what a surprise!
And yet, at the same time, Congress debates a ridiculously short-sighted $1.2 Trillion budget filled with irrelevant climate trinkets and woke gimmicks, billions of dollars for earmarks that may remain deeply hidden within its 1000 pages including funds for gratuitous military conquests as a gift to the donor class as the need may arise. In addition, funds were included for children’s trans-surgeries, the wars in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and virtually no funds to stop the invasion of undocumented immigrants.
To further explore the differences, just prior to the election, Putin’s delivered his annual address to the Russian parliament highlighting the significance of the special operation in Ukraine, the need for global security and Russia’s socio-economic growth while focusing on demographics and technological independence.
As Putin pledged “Russia will end the war in Ukraine, eradicate Nazism, and achieve all the objectives of the special operation” warning that a direct clash between NATO and Russia would be “one step shy of a full-scale World War III.” Putin further advised that NATO military personnel were already located in Ukraine and that English and French have been heard on the battlefield.
Long time international observer and former UN Inspector Scott Ritter told Sputnik that today’s success in Russia could be attributed to Putin’s rise to prominence immediately after the collapse of the USSR and the failure of perestroika in the 1990s. As the criminal class of oligarchs attempted a takeover, the country struggled for survival as Putin’s ‘dedicated leadership’ redefined the nation and its economic system into a free market capitalist state.
To compare Putin’s annual address to the US SOTU address would be a colossal disappointment since the latter is frequently lacking in sober, objective analysis or factual data and more usually a rah-rah jamboree touting US initiatives with little forethought into domestic consequences or future global implications.
In his election victory speech, Putin defined “a warrior is someone who defends the homeland and future” and that ‘we are standing here like comrades in arms. We have a huge development agenda, and people felt it in their hearts and came to create conditions for the development and strengthening of their Motherland… the results of the election are a guarantee that these tasks will be accomplished and goals will be reached.” “I dreamed of a strong, independent, sovereign Russia,” Putin told the audience, expressing his hope that the results of the vote “will allow us all, together with the Russian people, to achieve these goals.”
***
During the campaign, election interference responses escalated as Ukraine routinely launched artillery and drone strikes on Russian border regions causing destruction to many critical infrastructure and residential neighborhoods, resulting in numerous civilian casualties. Ukraine conducted a series of drone strikes around St. Petersburg and south to Rostov as its military continued to violate border sovereignty and kill citizens in Belgorod fifty miles within the Russian border.
Zelensky’s top advisor, Mikliak Podoliak supported an increase in the ‘scale of turmoil’ in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions stating that “Russia could feel what war is” and that “Once they live in bomb shelters, constantly hear sirens and so on, they will [think] differently” Podoliak revealed a total lack of understanding of the extent of Russian suffering during WWII. Podoliak is known for a history of voicing support for Ukraine incursions into Russian territory with estimated losses at 1,500 casualties and dozens of armored vehicles.
In addition, US State Department spokesman Matt Miller displayed an unpleasant hostility and total lack of understanding about Russia’s sovereignty as he also threatened international observers.
***
Immediately after the vote, Putin contrasted the US presidential campaign as “increasingly uncivilized” adding that “ I think it’s obvious to everyone that the American political system cannot claim to be democratic in any sense of the word.” Referring to the lawfare attacks on Trump, Putin pointed out that political opponents were using the government’s own administrative resources to suppress another presidential candidate in its own election.
“The whole world is laughing at what is happening in the US.” “We are behaving with more restraint than their opponents in other countries, but this is just a catastrophe, not a democracy – that’s what it is,” he said in an interview with journalist Dmitry Kiselyov. Describing how Trump ‘reproached me for sympathizing with Biden” Putin added, to my surprise, he [Trump] was persecuted because we allegedly supported him as a candidate. Well, it’s complete nonsense.”
***
For those who missed it the first time around, revisiting the Secret History of the Shadow Campaign that Saved the 2020 Election deserves a methodical re read as it provides painful insights into how thoroughly and systematically the Dems out-organized a more lethargic GOP. The original article ran in Time magazine, February, 2021.
Especially identified were Norm Eisen, a former college bud of Obama’s who became a key organizer in 2020 with the Transition Integrity Project which is expected to regroup in anticipation of the 2024 election. Citing Trump’s alleged assault on democracy, his alleged authoritarian tendencies and other nonsensical accusations for which there is no evidence or experience never stopped the Dems from creating a semi hysterical political narrative.
In addition there were an impressive number of ‘volunteer’ efforts guided by sophisticated, experienced politicos like Protect Democracy, the Fight Back Table, the Democracy Defense Coalition, back-to-back zoom meetings that coordinated a vast array of ‘progressive’ 501c3 organizations including the Working Families Party, Indivisible and MoveOn.
The piece de resistance was the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights with more than 150 organizations signing a letter to every member of Congress seeking $2 billion in election funding as the CARES Act, passed later that month, doling out $400 million in grants to state election administrators. Eventually even private philanthropy stepped up with Chan-Zuckerberg Foundation chipping in $300 million in addition to a little noticed joint statement of support between the US Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO on Election Day.
In a three-page confidential memo titled “Threats to the 2020 Election” written by Michael Podhorzer, former political director for the AFL-CIO, 2020 was the beginning of an informal yet potent alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. It was a coalition which originated the allegation that ‘disinformation’ was rampant among ‘criminally insensitive’ Trump supporters which became an essential for the Dems to stifle public awareness of where the country was headed if the Dems ‘won’ the 2020 election. They were not ‘rigging’ an election; they referred to it as “fortifying’ democracy and its suppression was vital to the 2020 election outcome,
The bottom line is that a well-heeled, experienced national network exists which merely needs to turn itself on, to re-gather itself to initiate the next phase of their effort to destroy the America beyond recognition. The unanswered question remains whether the RNC’s current effort to revitalize itself will be sufficient to offset what can be counted on as another exhaustive effort by the Dems to deal a final defeat to Republicans and our Constitutional Republic.
Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC.