The (alleged) Russian hack of the DNC should be one of the biggest stories of the year. Why isn’t it?In his view, one reason is that we're distracted by the content of the emails. And then there's this:
The next reason why it isn’t a bigger deal is that the aggrieved party, the Democrats, aren’t pushing the story forward as much as they might, first because they don’t want to attract more attention to the content of the emails, and second because they aren’t making the kind of vicious accusations Republicans would if the tables were turned -- the kind of accusations we in the media eat up. Instead, they’re saying milquetoasty things like this from Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook: “When you put all this together, it’s a disturbing picture. I think voters need to reflect on that.”I think it's also because, over the years, liberals and conservatives have developed conditioned responses to foreign threats that are mirror images. For nearly 70 years, conservatives have overemphasized the danger posed by foreign foes. In the past few decades, we've seen them treat as existential threats to America not only ISIS and Al Qaeda but Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega, the Sandinistas in Nicragua, and even a left-leaning government in tiny Grenada.
Liberals, understandably, have developed a habit of questioning conservatives' insistence that the Apocalypse is nigh because a foreign enemy is rattling sabers. And yes, this extends even to Democrats who are derided by the left as warmongers and neocons -- they may go to war, but they don't wallow in it in a "Mission Accomplished" way. Barack Obama hasn't. Bill Clinton didn't. Hillary Clinton won't.
This means that the party harmed by the leak of these emails is the party made up of voters who don't delight in war and don't respond to alarmism about foreign threats -- so it's hard to get us roused in this instance. Meanwhile, the party that does respond to foreign policy alarmism is in the tank for Donald Trump, and thus doesn't want to hear a discouraging word about him. Even the Never Trumpers don't want to aid and abet Hillary Clinton.
So the people who respond every time we're told that there's a new Hitler overseas are categorically uninterested in seeing Putin as a threat in this case, while those of us who have resisted many recent assertions that we're at one minute to midnight aren't conditioned to respond to a message like that now. I don't know what might reverse this, but let's hope it happens.