Mike Barnicle: Russia Implanted an Infection into the American Political System and It Lasts

BARNICLE: “You know, Joe, the interesting aspect of this story and the way it’s playing out, and just from the reporters you just listened to from Keir Simmons and others, is this is an infection implanted into the American political system. If you talk to people, ordinary people, they will bemoan the fact that our state of politics today is just so polarized that both parties hate one another, that no one — no one is cooperating with one another. There’s no across-the-aisle cooperation the way there used to be 20, 30 years ago. All of that is true, but the point is that it’s done and it’s a deadly sequence committed by Russia. And if you listen — if you listen, to many conservative Republicans, not all of them, but many conservative Republicans in the House and the Senate, they do indeed parrot Russian propaganda. They dress it up, they change the verbiage, but it’s Russian propaganda. And it lasts. And the infection lasts. And it’s one of the reasons why people, I think, despise our politics here today. Average Americans walking around saying, you know, they just can’t get together, they hate each other. Well, they don’t hate each other. But one side, more than the other, is parroting Russian propaganda.”