title:  Foreign Governments Have Been Giving Elections To Republicans For Decades
text: During the revelations that Russia had a giant hand in influencing our election, one word has been used throughout the media: unprecedented. Well, unprecedented is not exactly true. While it is true that Russia s hacking has been blatant and Trump s involvement is becoming undeniable, this isn t the first time a foreign and hostile government has played a role in installing a Republican leader and we don t have to go very far back to see examples.Nearly 50 years ago, in 1968, the most famously scandal-ridden President began his term under a scandal. After his Democratic opponent Vice President Hubert Humphrey switched course from his president, Lyndon B. Johnson, and promised that we would pull out of the Vietnam war, Nixon began falling in the polls. On October 30th, Johnson, though, announced that there would be peace talks and Nixon s lead disappeared. So, Nixon invited Vietnam to intervene.Nixon s team met secretly with Anna Chan Chennault, a wealthy supporter of Taiwanese President Chiang Kai-shek, co-chair of Republican Women for Nixon and confidante of South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. At Nixon s behest, Chennault informed Thieu that Nixon would secure a better deal for his country than either Humphrey or Johnson, and that the Democrats were effectively prepared to sell out Saigon in order to secure peace at any price. If Chennault could convince Thieu to stay away from the negotiating table, the talks would collapse, LBJ would look foolish and the Democrats  11th-hour gambit would fail.Johnson and the Democrats knew it was happening. The National Security Agency had intercepted cables between Thieu and his D.C. ambassador.( [I am] still in contact with the Nixon entourage, which continues to be the favorite despite the uncertainty provoked by the news of an imminent bombing halt,  one communiqu  began.) On the basis of these cables, LBJ ordered the FBI to tap Chennault s phone; the bureau, in turn, concluded that she  contacted Vietnamese Ambassador Bui Diem and advised him that she had received a message from her boss (not further identified) which her boss wanted her to give personally to the ambassador. She said the message was that the ambassador is to  hold on, we are gonna win  and that her boss also said,  Hold on, he understands all of it. Johnson didn t mince words. He called it  treason,  and a gross violation of the Logan Act, which prohibits civilians from negotiating with foreign governments. Still, there wasn t enough to firmly plant the smoking gun in Nixon s hands, so the American people didn t have this bit of information before the election.South Vietnam pulled out of the peace talks and well, we got a President Nixon. The rest is history, and well, people should be reminded that an administration that begins in scandal will likely end in scandal.The second recent instance happened fewer than 40 years ago. In 1979, university students in Tehran, Iran stormed the American embassy there and took 63 American hostages. In hindsight, we were kind of asking for it. In 1953, the CIA helped overthrow Iran s government because of oil. Instead, we installed the Shah, who was corrupt and brutal. When the Shah fell in 1979, then President Jimmy Carter allowed the Shah to seek medical treatment for cancer in the United States. Iran s new leader, Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhulla Musawi Khomeini, who hated us anyway, demanded extradition so the Shah could face trial. Carter refused.Still, as we were nearing the election, it appeared that the hostage situation was coming to a resolution, which would have nearly assured Carter of reelection. The Reagan camp couldn t let that happen. Reagan s campaign manager, William Casey talked to sources close to the ayatollah and convinced them to delay the release of the hostages. Reagan went on to win the election and the hostages were released on inauguration day.Of course, details of both these cases are different from the details in the Trump/Russia hacking scandal, but I would argue that today we are in a worse situation. By helping Trump, Russia is providing themselves blackmail ammo in case Trump does something they might not find agreeable. More than that, though, in the days when cyber security is at the top of everyone s minds, what Russia has done to us is as dangerous as any terrorist act and the ramifications are far bigger. Trump has allowed a hostile foreign government to infiltrate our electronic communication, which is almost everything. What s next, credit card information and IRS records of individuals who speak out against Trump?The bottom line is that we can t allow Donald Trump to take office. There s too much at stake. We can t afford another Nixon. We can t even afford another Reagan.Featured image via Sean Gallup/Getty Images. 