Opinion Collusion Was a Seductive Delusion⁠↗

Indeed, the truest horror in Mr. Mueller’s finding is that we did not need Mr. Putin to be pulling the strings. We know now that under our shambolic democracy, a man as unfit as Mr. Trump really can legitimately acquire all the terrifying powers of the presidency without being controlled by a foreign puppet master.

Here’s my theory: Collusion was a seductive and convenient delusion. For many Americans, the simple truth that Mr. Trump really had won was too terrible to bear. The ease with which a racist, misogynist, serial con man had slipped past every gatekeeper in American life suggested something deeply sick at the core of our society.

Finally there was the plainer constitutional failure. You didn’t need a two-year federal investigation to determine the single most important lesson of the 2016 race: America does not treat all its voters, and all of its votes, equally. Across the country, the voices of thousands and possibly millions of people were suppressed. Millions more votes went essentially uncounted, because the perversities of the Electoral College elevate a few thousand votes in the Midwest over a few million in California.