In recent months, a number of leading American media outlets have taken that argument even further, suggesting that Putin's Kremlin actually put Trump in the White House and now is similarly trying to affect the November 6 midterm elections, particularly House contests, on behalf of Trump and the Republican Party. According to a page-one New York Times "report," for example, Putin's agents "are engaging in an elaborate campaign of 'information warfare' to interfere with the American midterm elections."

Despite well-documented articles by Gareth Porter and Aaron Matéeffectively dismantling these allegations about 2016 and 2018, the mainstream media continue to promote them. The occasionally acknowledged lack of "public evidence" is sometimes cited as itself evidence of a deep Russian conspiracy, of the Kremlin's "arsenal of disruption capabilities…to sow havoc on election day." (See the examples cited by Alan MacLeod at FAIR.org.)

Lost in these reckless allegations is the long-term damage they may themselves do to American democracy.

Consider the following possibilities.