With Nothing But Free Time on His Hands, Vladimir Putin Allegedly Worked to 'Influence' the 2020 Election

A wise philosopher once posed the existential question, “Why you so obsessed with me?” That philosopher was Mariah Carey and it was a diss track referencing Eminem. But take that question out of the song, and it can apply to anything. For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s obsession with the American election process.

The New York Times is reporting that Putin, Iran, and other countries worked to “denigrate the candidacy of Joseph R. Biden,” using tactics that included “intelligence operations to influence people close to former President Donald J. Trump.” The information comes after the declassification of an intelligence report, released on Tuesday, suggesting multiple countries conspired to alter the results of the election. However, China, the country that former president Trump blamed for everything, actually opted out of fucking with the election—presumably because the risk wasn’t worth the payoff and probably also because Americans just fuck everything up on their own.

While the report might seem to aid the far right in its eternal effort to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election, in fact the report does the opposite. According to the Times, the report functions as a “repudiation” of Trump and his officials, who had been making claim after claim of voter fraud. The report “categorically dismissed allegations of foreign-fed voter fraud, cast doubt on Republican accusations of Chinese intervention on behalf of Democrats and undermined the allegations that Mr. Trump and his allies spread about the Biden family’s work in Ukraine.”

TLDR: You’re delusional, you’re delusional/Boy you’re losing your mind.

The attempts to influence the election were reportedly starkly different from interference in 2016, when there were efforts to change ballots altogether. Instead, the Kremlin went with a more subtle approach and attempted to “affect U.S. public perceptions in a consistent manner,” probably an easy enough task considering the then-president was doing the exact same thing by just launching a few tweets from his toilet at odd hours of the morning.

As an active voter, I should probably be enraged by this information and question how Americans can continue to have free and fair elections when we can’t even trust the information going out to voters.

But again, I must turn to the sage wisdom of Mariah Carey and ask a more important question to President Putin: It’s confusing yo’, you’re confused you know/Why you wasting your time?