To stop vote meddling, Western leaders have to want to do something about it

The question is not whether Russia and China will try to influence Western elections — it’s whether Western governments have the wit and will to do something about it.

In Washington, Democrats are warning of a fresh Russian effort to interfere in the upcoming US election with the apparent goal of helping President Donald Trump — a reminder of the 2016 Russian hacking and social media campaign that the President still refuses to acknowledge. And speaking of indifference, a new UK parliamentary report says government ministers “actively avoided” investigating whether Russia meddled in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Even assuming that Trump in 2020 is interested in protecting American democracy before his own political interests, getting in position to repel such foreign attacks is an excruciating task. Republicans rebuffed attempts by the Obama administration four years ago to issue a bipartisan condemnation of Russia’s actions.

And while US and UK security agencies took heat for not doing more to protect their countries from meddling, using spies to keep elections free and fair is a slippery slope: Look at how the reputations of the CIA and the FBI were damaged by the 2016 imbroglio.

Defending democracy requires leaders to protect truth, build national unity and elevate media sources that produce facts and not propaganda. Voters must pursue reality, rather than fantasies spun by unscrupulous leaders. Until then, adversaries of the West will always find weak points to exploit.

‘The carelessness of the politicians who continue to hedge their bets’

In a searing and unusual obituary for respiratory therapist Isabelle Odette Hilton Papadimitriou, published in The Dallas Morning News, her family blamed her death from Covid-19 on the “carelessness of the politicians who continue to hedge their bets on the lives of healthcare workers.”

It’s part of a growing US phenomenon of so-called “honest obituaries” that call out the country’s political leadership for failing to protect citizens from the coronavirus. “Her death could have been prevented,” Papadimitriou’s obituary reads. “Now, every year, on July 4th, when Americans celebrate their independence and watch the fireworks in awe, her family will be reminded of how their very resistance — rooted in liberty — detrimentally clashed with Isabelle’s inalienable right to life.”

Midsummer madness

It’s insufferably hot this week in the Washington swamp, that was already suffering a boiling summer of discontent thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and scorching pre-election discord.

Extraordinary scenes are unfolding on Capitol Hill that make the nest of vipers down the road at the White House seem like an oasis of calm. Republican House members rounded on colleague Liz Cheney of Wyoming, daughter of ex-Vice President Dick Cheney, accusing her of being insufficiently loyal to Trump after she supported Dr. Anthony Fauci. Sources told CNN that Cheney gave as good as she got in a meeting that one member described as “off the chain.”

Rising Democratic star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York was, meanwhile, involved in a heated exchange with Florida Republican Congressman Ted Yoho — who, according to a report in The Hill called her a f***ing bitch” as he strode away. Yoho denies he used the insult, but AOC quipped: “b*tches get stuff done.”

On Monday, veteran House Democrat Eliot Engel bluntly warned colleagues against backing challengers to sitting lawmakers in primary races — after losing his own longtime perch in New York to an insurgent backed by Ocasio-Cortez.

Fiery Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, who often gives the impression he’s trying to outdo Trump ahead of a possible 2024 presidential run, did his bit to inflame tensions. The Iraq War veteran from Arkansas said federal forces entering Democrat-run cities (a stunt to bolster Trump’s claims of rampant anarchy) are just like the troops sent to protect forts threatened by Southern insurrectionists in Confederate states before the Civil War.

Lawmakers won’t head home for summer recess until August. But common sense and civility have long since left town.

The ‘most tested man in America’

Trump may think the rest of the US is overtesting, but he himself gets tested plenty. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEneny said Tuesday that “he’s tested more than anyone, multiple times a day.” Trump later said he couldn’t recall having multiple tests in a day, but that he could “see that happening.”