If Mueller Doesn’t Find Proof Of Collusion, “Russiagate” Will Be Discredited For Good

In all likelihood, Robert Mueller will not present any evidence of Trump/Russia collusion when he soon puts out his Russia investigation report. And that’s when Russiagate-and the cold war propaganda narrative that it perpetuates-will lose all of its credibility.

If there were proof of collusion, it no doubt would have come out by now. The United States has vast and sprawling intelligence agencies that can pick up virtually every digital communication, and the communications showing collusion would have been leaked long ago if they existed.

This is what makes Russiagate a conspiracy theory, and a highly implausible conspiracy theory at that; if Trump were working for Putin, he wouldn’t have armedanti-Russian forces in Ukraine, put sanctions on Russia, escalated the U.S.’ proxy war against Russia in Syria, approved a Japanese ballistic missile defense sale that Putin strongly opposed, expanded NATO, or recently sabotaged U.S.-Russia peace hopes by terminating a crucial Cold War nuclear treaty.

I don’t support Trump. It’s clear to me that his administration has advanced the
same neoliberal, pro-war policies that Bush and Obama carried out. But it’s just as clear that the Russia collusion charge is baseless. In addition to the reasons for this I just mentioned, last week Politico put out a report which revealed views about the Mueller investigation from defense attorneys and from “more than 15 former government officials with investigation experience spanning Watergate to the 2016 election case.” As Politico’s article assessed about what they learned from these experts:

The public, they say, shouldn’t expect a comprehensive and presidency-wrecking account of Kremlin meddling and alleged obstruction of justice by Trump — not to mention an explanation of the myriad subplots that have bedeviled lawmakers, journalists and amateur Mueller sleuths.

This means that when Mueller puts out this report, which he’s likely to do after the midterms, the war propaganda machine will find itself in a corner. Without a way to prove the Trump/Russia story that they’ve been pushing for two years, the proponents of the larger “Russia is our enemy” narrative will no longer have leverage.

As the Western plutocracy advances its current imperialism-motivated aggressionsagainst Russia, it needs to manufacture consent for these measures. And the claim that Trump is “Putin’s puppet” has served as an excellent way to get this consent. By associating Russia with Trump, the anti-Trump factions of the ruling class have been able to convince many progressive-minded people that Russia is a threat, and that we therefore need to “stand up” to Russia through economic warfare and military buildup.

The flaw in this propaganda campaign, though, is that it’s been invested in Mueller finding proof of collusion. If that doesn’t happen, the justification for starting a new cold war with Russia will be discredited, like how the rationale for the Iraq War was refuted when the WMD story was proven to be a hoax.

This is why when Mueller’s report comes out, and this central claim behind the Russia story is discredited, we shouldn’t stop talking about it. We should keep bringing it up whenever neoconservative politicians and pundits make a claim about Russia, because it will be a powerful arguing tool. If we can leverage this towards switching around the narrative about Russia, a peaceful future will become much more possible.