The Mueller probe was always politicized

Editor's Note: Tom Fowdy, who graduated from Oxford University's China Studies Program and majored in politics at the Durham University, writes about international relations focusing on China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The article reflects the author's views, and not necessarily those of APD.

Sunday evening saw a summary of the long awaited Mueller report presented to Congress, after a two-year investigation. The most ardent critics of President Donald Trump will be disappointed.

Whilst the probe said that Trump did not conspire with Russia, it said that whether he obstructed justice was inconclusive -- not exonerating him.

Trump triumphantly took this news as a political victory. He tweeted: "No Collusion, No Obstruction" and later dismissed the investigation as an "illegal takedown that failed."

Surely, the president will be relieved.

The probe has been a longstanding stain on his administration and a threat to his political standing, of which he has repeatedly reacted uncomfortably to. Whilst some around him were indeed implicated, and even imprisoned, he himself has seemingly emerged unscathed; overcoming what was his opponent's biggest stake against him.

For all his outstanding flaws, the president does have seemed outstanding points. As much as a degree of collusion did occur at the lower levels, for the most part this entire saga was drowned with political agendas stemming from disapproval of the president on other grounds, or for that matter an incomplete inability to come to terms with the fact he was elected in the first place.

Those who hoped for the president's implication, impeachment and even imprisonment were riding on the back of hysteria.

The events of November 8, 2016, shocked the world. Despite a campaign filled with misinformation, atrocious comments and a projection of extreme incompetence, Republican candidate Donald Trump won the United States presidential election by acquiring a majority of Electoral College votes, defeating contender Hilary Clinton in a number of key swing states.

It is not an exaggeration to say that such a result was one of the biggest and most traumatic political upsets in history. It had accumulated within a political environment that had become extremely polarized and divisive. Those opposed to the president reacted with anger, dismay and grief. They weren't able to come to terms with the new reality.

As a result, a quickly emerging series of allegations in the aftermath that the election had been manipulated by the Russian Federation became a convenient venting point for those seeking to take the fight against the new administration.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at Palm Beach International Airport in Palm Beach County, Florida, March 24, 2019. /VCG Photo

The selling point of such a claim was that it allowed people to invest their emotions in the belief that the whole thing was illegitimate, thus Trump didn't truly "belong there" in the first place; instead, it was the sinister work of an adversarial foreign power attempting to undermine the United States.

Whilst of course, the probe itself would find there was some evidence of this, the problem was that in the typical hysterical and defamatory way which U.S. politics operates, these claims were exaggerated to unforeseen levels of hysteria and hyperbole.

People banked on it hard, assuming that Trump's impeachment and even arrest were foregone and inevitable conclusions. For two years, this was weaponized as the biggest attack on the administration.

Now, it's all coming crashing down. America needs to come to terms with the fact that until at least 2020, Trump is going nowhere. Most unfortunately for them, it is extremely unlikely he will be going down in history as a criminal or a foreign collaborator.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr's signature is seen at the end of his four-page letter to U.S. congressional leaders on the conclusions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election after the letter was released by the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, U.S. March 24, 2019. /VCG Photo

His critics now have to face the music that they become absorbed in their own echo chamber of hype and ultimately, that Trump's presence and being is not simply reducible to an evil Russian plot, but is a product of what America has become. This hurts greatly, because what Trump says and does undermines the country's image, reputation and integrity to the rest of the world.

Thus, the problem does not lie abroad, but at home. The United States is a deeply unequal country with a political order which overwhelmingly benefits the rich and penalizes the poor. So many Americans have not been able to recognize how such a society has fostered deep instability, left many behind and created rifts which have manifested into explosive nationalism and racially aggressive politics, pitting a country against itself.

Contemporary America has been a story of globalization for the few at the expense of the many. The end product is Trump. This wasn't an accident.

Two years of clutching at straws have been at best a huge distraction from the real pathology that is undermining the U.S. now that the Putin scapegoat has run dry, it is time to wake up and confront the Trump problem for what it really is. Change is the only answer.

(CGTN)