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Robert Mueller, the former FBI director best (and most recently) known for his investigation into supposed Russian collusion with the Trump campaign in 2016, died on March 21. Until Donald Trump was elected, Mueller was the epitome of an establishment law enforcement figure, attending prep school and Princeton, volunteering (to his immense credit) as a Marine officer in Vietnam, and rising to director of the FBI just before 9/11 and into the Obama administration. I will leave it to those with more knowledge of Mueller’s career to judge the validity of the praises and criticisms of Mueller last week. I’d like to point out one strange aspect of his final act: the left-wing cult of personality that grew up around him and his investigation.
There were prayer candles. There were parody Christmas carols. There were souvenir T-shirts and superhero cartoons (the latter involving Michael Avenatti, who, to be fair, makes Mueller look impressive by comparison).
For the left in 2017 and 2018, Mueller represented the hope for liberals that the Trump administration would be, not just stymied by losing Congress, not just voted out in the next election, but negated. Mueller’s team would prove, once and for all, that Russia had installed Trump into office and that the 2016 election, so disturbing to the left, could be ignored as illegitimate. Trump’s appeal could be dismissed as entirely a product of foreign interference, and the Democratic majority could continue going from strength to strength without having to contend with a new political reality. The Democrats thought they had solved politics, or at least presidential elections; Mueller would let them believe that again.
We are in a fairly evenly divided country (only one presidential election in the twenty-first century has had a gap in the popular vote of more than five percent, after five such elections in a row from 1980 to 1996), where both parties’ base sees the other as a threat, and each election is billed as the most important in our lifetime. Both parties, then, are looking for the one silver bullet that will prove the other side’s victories to be illegitimate and hand them a decisive victory to break the stalemate. For liberals in 2017-18, it was the Mueller investigation; at other times, it was the 2000 election or Diebold machines in 2004. For the right, it was Obama’s birth certificate or alleged fraud in the 2020 presidential election. For extremists on both sides, it’s 9/11 trutherism and Zionist conspiracies.
As long as our polarized politics are at an impasse, people will look for the “one weird trick” to break it. Cringy cults of personality around FBI agents will probably be among the less harmful consequences.
Discussion (6)
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When Mueller testified, he denied knowing what Fusion GPS was.
He either:
Some of these can coexist.
If #3, does anybody reasonably doubt that #2 was also at play and there was a widespread conspiracy to initiate and maintain this sham?
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The left favors Iranian mullahs, Hamas, Illegal alien rapists, child traffickers and murders, Latin American drug cartels, the Castro regime, Somalian welfare fraudsters and anyone else hostile to American interests but mostly those opposed to Trump in particular. So idolizing Mueller turned out to not be much of a stretch.
The left is now about the sensibilities of poorly educated single young woman and female-adjacent nominal males, hence the consistently hysterical style of marrying contradictory positions. See,
compactmag.com
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Mueller & Avenatti ...
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https://ricochet.com/567372/zealot/
One might wish Mueller had died decades ago, and I do, but it wouldn't have helped. There are always plenty of corrupt officials available.
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Trumpists like to pretend the Muller investigation was a failure because it didn't nail the orange imbecile (it also didn't clear him), but this is not the case. It documented extensive communications between Russians and members of Trump's campaign and various of their associates. "The investigation resulted in charges against 34 individuals and three companies, eight guilty pleas, and a conviction at trial." Mueller was an honorable man, not a term anyone has ever used to describe Trump.
Wikipedia:
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