Try as I might, I’ll be damned if I can think of historical analogies to Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election — and as I sit here thinking about it now, that seems odd. We have always had enemies; surely some of them have tried to mess with our governance and, specifically, our elections?<\/p>\n
The nearest thing I can come up with, and it’s not very close, is the infamous Zimmerman Telegram<\/a>, Germany’s invitation to Mexico to join a war against the United States in World War I; if victorious, Mexico would be awarded a large part of the American southwest. I suppose that counts as an intervention of sorts, albeit not in an election.<\/p>\n LaFayette fought during our Revolutionary War on the American side, and encouraged French sympathy for America. Baron von Steuben, a Prussian, fought on the American side as a commander of troops. Benedict Arnold defected to the British during the Revolution. Aaron Burr participated in some kind of hare-brained scheme to conquer the American southwest and set himself up as an emperor, I seem to recall, perhaps with the assistance of Spain. Properly, I’m not sure that any of those four cases would count as foreign meddling.<\/p>\n Maybe I’m just too old and creaky to have any business trying to think back to school days. I know Civil Commotion’s<\/i> readership is better informed and more widely read than average … so how about it? What should I be remembering?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Try as I might, I’ll be damned if I can think of historical analogies to Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election — and as I sit here thinking about it now, that seems odd. We have always had enemies; surely … Continue reading