Is Putin Helping Trump in This Year’s Election?

It is quite an understatement to say that Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump has had a difficult time finding allies not only in the country but also in his own party. Trump, even for Republicans, is considered to be an undesirable candidate due to his xenophobic, sexist, and hateful remarks that are characteristic of his campaign thus far. Even at the Republican National Convention, there was quite a bit of chaos with groups of delegates sparring over their stances on supporting Trump. Senator Ted Cruz, a former republican presidential nominee, also gave a well-planned speech at the convention explaining why supporting people like Trump is detrimental to the democracy of this nation. Clearly, there is no consensus on whether or not Trump is capable of becoming the next United States President not just in the Democratic sphere, but the Republican one as well.

However, while Trump has had difficulty with his domestic audience, he has found an unlikely friend halfway across the world. Though Vladimir Putin has not directly supported or praised Trump, some are questioning whether the recent email scandal related to the Democratic Party are somehow connected to the Russian government.

Just in the past few days or so, there has been a slew of hacked emails released to the public that originated from the Democratic Party. Because there are thousands of these emails, it is hard to ascertain, at the moment, just how detrimental these leaks can be to the next potential president Hillary Clinton. To make matters more complicated, these emails were supposedly hacked by two Russian intelligence agencies further questioning the motive behind such operations.

Cybersecurity experts believe that something sinister may be at play considering the involvement of Russian hackers and the time period in which the emails were released, right before the Democratic National Convention. Considering that Trump has made favorable remarks directed at Vladimir Putin, in addition to downplaying the usefulness of NATO, it would not be much of a surprise to find out that the Russians have been attempting to aid Donald Trump in the election race.

Trump has continuously stated that he admires Putin and, if he were to become president, he would seek to restore ties with the country on all levels. Russian media has even portrayed Donald Trump as the better alternative, painting Hillary Clinton as a neo-con who seeks to destabilize the world by engaging in more conflicts.

None of this is direct evidence that the Russian government is completely behind the email leak, but the circumstances are suspect. I don’t think anyone can remember a time when something this coincidental managed to happen throughout the course of months.

Events like this bring into question the level of security put in place to defend against such attacks. These foreign attacks on the United States cyberinfrastructure should be wake up calls to push for better preventative methods especially given the potential fallout from them. Whether it was the Russians or somebody else, something needs to be done about the negligence concerning this nation’s privacy and secrets. Airing our dirty laundry to the rest of the world only provides them with more ammunition and ultimately puts our citizens at risk. It can even change the course of, perhaps, one of the most important election periods in our country’s history too.

Featured Image via Pixabay/Fancycrave1