Russian hacking was one factor in election

The debate over whether Russia got Donald Trump elected president is misguided. It's not an either-or question. Of course Russia helped Trump get elected, but that's not the same as saying they got Trump elected.

The basic facts are this: American intelligence has identified sources linked to the Russian gov-ernment that hacked into the emails of Democratic strategists and Hillary Clinton advisors and leaked those emails to Wikileaks and other sources that then distributed those emails to news outlets, which advanced narratives about Clinton's corruption.

There's little dispute within the intelligence community about this. It's been suspected for a long time. Even in August, the New York Times reported that FBI officials suspected the Russian government of hacking the Democrats. The only dispute between the FBI and the CIA is about intentions: Did Russia attempt to undermine American democracy by tainting the front-runner, Clinton, or did they try to take her down completely?

One can see that both goals serve the same purpose. To elect Donald Trump would do more to undermine American democracy than the worst cynics could possibly have dreamed. However, even if Trump didn't get elected, the emails that were leaked about Clinton and the Democrats were used to portray them as liars who said one thing to the public and another thing to their fundraisers. In short, it was a win-win for America's adversaries: If Clinton wins, the future presi-dent is unpopular and tainted by scandal; if Trump wins, he's unpopular, tainted by scandal, and incompetent.

The Clinton emails would have served their purpose, for both the Republican Party and the Russian intelligence apparatus, even if Trump hadn't won. Clinton's favorability rating went downhill and the percentage of voters who called her dishonest increased.

That's not a criticism of the Russians per se; from the perspective of national interest, the Rus-sian government did its job. However, for the Republicans it is not really in their long-term na-tional interest to applaud Russian interference in their own country's elections, even if it may have helped them this time. Intelligence sources also said that the Republicans were hacked but that their emails weren't released.

If Clinton's favorability ratings go down, then that means fewer voters want to vote for her and makes it harder for her to get elected. Trump and the Republicans clearly understood the impact the emails could have on her chances. They talked about the emails constantly and put refer-ences to the emails in campaign advertisements. If Trump didn't think talking about emails would move votes, he wouldn't have done so.

The idea of emails was a genius branding strategy. Already Clinton was in an email-related trouble of her own making. As Secretary of State, she had used a private email server, in defi-ance of rules regarding security and transparency. For a public getting barraged by piles of headlines, the distinct news about her private server emails and hacked emails easily blended together. Some conspiracy theorists, which make up a shockingly large proportion of Trump supporters online, even took emails about Clinton's staff purchasing pizzas and constructed a story about the pizzeria, by questioning whether it harbors pedophiles (a story known as #Pizzagate).

In any election, there are a lot of factors influencing the vote. To begin with, Republicans and conservatives opposed Clinton because of her liberal policy proposals. She wanted to "continue the legacy of Obama" by defending Obama's healthcare law and immigration policies. Further-more, Clinton was viewed as particularly dishonest even before the emails were leaked. She and her husband had been involved in a number of alleged scandals throughout her entire career. She isn't particularly good at ingratiating herself with voters; she is viewed as "inauthentic" because she can't slap hands and make small talk that appeals to the lower-middle class white folks in Midwestern states who were decisive in the election.

All of this is to say that there were many more factors at play than just foreign information opera-tions. But it would be inconceivable to think that all the news about Clinton's emails, which were leaked in a meticulous timeline for months by operatives who were straightforward about their desire to hurt Clinton, didn't influence a single voter's decision to vote against Clinton. Of course it caused some voters to oppose Clinton in a close election.

Clinton won the popular vote by 2 percent, which was a smaller margin than expected by some polls, and lost the decisive states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan by 0.8 percent, 0.8 percent, and 0.3 percent respectively. Would Clinton have been able to win had her emails not been leaked? There's no way to hold an alternative election under different variables, so there's no way to know.

The only thing that can be said for certain is that it was a close election and the hacking of Clin-ton's emails had an impact.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/MitchellBlatt.htm

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