What, Exactly, Did You Expect the Mueller Report To Do?

Ever since Mueller began investigating Trump and the 2016 election, the whole effort seemed to snowball in importance. More and more people began to talk about what the report was going to do. We all watched it develop, and some read so much into the slightest bits of news that would come out. The argument was Mueller was a genius, and he was going to prove once and for all that Trump was crooked. It was all one big masterplan, and once it was complete, the world would know at long last all the Truth about what really happened.

At least, that’s what people came to believe, it seemed. And now the report is finished, and Trump’s Attorney General read it and assured us all that it cleared Trump of any wrong doing. (In other news, Cruella DeVille’s lawyer read over the independent investigator’s report into a string of dognappings and assured the public Ms. DeVille was totally exonerated by its findings, though maybe the report wasn’t ever going to be released to the public . . .)

Of course there’s no small amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I’m left wondering what, exactly, people expected to get out of this report. Yes, I realize it was the mythical silver bullet that was going to Solve Everything, but anyone who believes that somehow still believes the problem lies solely with Trump. That if we could just get him out of office, then all would be well with the country again.

As I’ve said before, President Trump is really just a symptom of deep seated problems in America. 90% of Republicans think he’s doing a swell job. 1 in 3 independents think the same thing. Heck, even 4% of Democrats like what he’s up to. Yes, he’s able to cause all sorts of problems from his seat in the Oval Office, but the continued tolerance for him and his approach to politics and life in general isn’t going to go away with the wave of a wand or the lines of a report.

Imagine, for a moment, that the report said Trump was 100% guilty of collusion. That he’d personally called Putin up on the phone and asked him to help win him the election. Imagine that phone recordings of the conversation were even included, complete with a Dr. Evil-style laugh fest at the end of the talk, as they all contemplated how awesome this plan was going to be.

I honestly don’t think even that would have moved the needle enough to do anything other than further divide the country. Yes, it likely would have persuaded more independents, but in this day of Deepfakes and altered media, it’s too easy to dismiss anything. You’d have Republicans claiming the tape was doctored, and they’d trot out evidence of it, then all assure each other that evidence should be believed.

If you think I’m dreaming, then consider for a moment the response by some to the shootings in New Zealand. Livestreamed on Facebook. Manifesto published by the killer online. And yet you still have people claiming it was all done by actors. That it’s one big conspiracy. (I’m not going to link to any of it, and I don’t recommend any of you check out the idiotic arguments. They’re not worth the digital bits they occupy on a hard drive.) Never mind the countless witnesses. The law enforcement. The hospital workers. The news coverage. These people are fully ready to dismiss all of that as a conspiracy.

I understand the hope. The thought that somehow the general public will come to its senses and give Trump the boot. But it’s not going to happen through a Report. Trump’s power is rooted in fear. In making people afraid of people who are different than they are. That the country is changing, and that we are under attack. The only real way to combat that is either to somehow get those people who are afraid to overcome their fear, or to wait for those people who are afraid to be drowned out by people who don’t share that sentiment.

I don’t have solutions in this post. I know yelling at Republicans and calling them names won’t solve anything. The same is true for putting all your faith in Democrats, as if they’re the morally superior party. I personally believe the best shot we have at getting out of this is by breaking out of the two party system and the lie we’ve agreed to believe that one side is Right and the other side is Wrong. But one thing I’m sure of is that it’s going to take a whole lot more than a Report to make all of this go away.

We’ll have another presidential election in 2020. And we’ll see how the country’s feeling at that point. But it can’t be a “right vs. wrong” mentality that gets us out of this. Republicans aren’t 100% wrong, and Democrats aren’t 100% right, or vice versa. If you believe they are, then I’d argue you’re part of the problem too. Dismissing Republicans as “evil” or “bigots” is just another flavor of dismissing the Other.

But at this point, I feel like I’m just turning preachy. My apologies. It’s Monday, and no Report is going to solve any of my problems today, it seems.

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