You can blame Russia for a lot of things, but you can’t blame Putin for deceiving Clinton into elevating Donald Trump. A Salon piece by Ben Norton titled How the Hillary Clinton campaign deliberately “elevated” Donald Trump with its “pied piper” strategy highlights exactly why WikiLeaks was so valuable this election:

An email released by WikiLeaks shows how the Democratic Party purposefully "elevated" Trump to "leader of the pack"

An email recently released by the whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks shows how the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party bear direct responsibility for propelling the bigoted billionaire to the White House.

In its self-described “pied piper” strategy, the Clinton campaign proposed intentionally cultivating extreme right-wing presidential candidates, hoping to turn them into the new “mainstream of the Republican Party” in order to try to increase Clinton’s chances of winning.

The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee called for using far-right candidates “as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right.” Clinton’s camp insisted that Trump and other extremists should be “elevated” to “leaders of the pack” and media outlets should be told to “take them seriously.”

The strategy backfired — royally.

…It continued, “Our hope is that the goal of a potential HRC campaign and the DNC would be one-in-the-same: to make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to a majority of the electorate.”

Sorry, not Russia’s fault. Here’s the email if you don’t believe Clinton wanted Donald Trump as Republican nominee.

In fact, before Clinton’s $1.2 Billion defeat to Trump, Democrats had achieved their stated goal. On November 7, 2016 POLITICO published a piece titled They Always Wanted Trump:

“Pied Piper candidates include, but aren’t limited to:

• Ted Cruz

• Donald Trump

• Ben Carson

We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously."

…But Clinton, at least, got the opponent her aides wanted, and a strategy to stick to.

Once again, not Russia’s fault. Don’t say Trump is illegitimate or Russia influenced the election when Clinton’s campaign elevated Trump. As stated above, Hillary “got the opponent her aides wanted.”

Then there’s the sad and depressing Democratic primary. Former Salon editor Joan Walsh went so far as to call my writing “idiotic” and lobbied to get various editors to stop publishing me. Why? The answer is that I predicted in 2015 (Why Sanders defeats Trump, but Trump defeats Clinton) that Clinton would lose to Trump, and that only Bernie could win the presidency for Democrats. I’ve argued that Clinton deserved Espionage Act indictments and if brainwashed journalists hadn’t rallied around a person under FBI investigation, Bernie Sanders would have become nominee. Bernie Sanders destroyed Trump in polls, without endless scandals like Clinton, and would have united the Democratic Party. Even if the polls were wrong, Bernie would have won Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. These states haven’t voted Republican in presidential elections since the 1980’s.

The Brexit phenomenon that undermined Clinton’s chances in the Rust Belt wouldn’t have helped Trump if Bernie was the Democratic nominee.

Oh well, at least we now have a ferocious Keith Olbermann leading “the Resistance.” Sadly, he’s never once mentioned the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2015. None of the talking heads on the left ever mention Standing Rock or the ongoing Flint water crisis. These tragedies are too close to Obama’s legacy to address, so Trump’s danger to humanity and ties to Russia have become a Democratic obsession.

Interestingly, Clinton apologists ignore the fact Bill Clinton earned $500,000 from a Moscow bank with ties to the Kremlin. This isn’t fake news, The New York Times states “Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin.” Where’s the CIA report on Bill’s Moscow speech?

It’s nowhere to be found.

Finally, Democrats already had a person who could have defeated Trump, but chose a losing candidate. How do we know Bernie Sanders was cheated? Just ask Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile. DNC emails were authentic, and although Clinton apologists blame Russia (for having the audacity to inform us of corruption), it was the Democratic Party’s strategy to undermine Bernie Sanders. The repercussions of this strategy are highlighted in a POLITICO piece titled Heads roll at the DNC:

Three top officials were ousted Tuesday, as the organization struggles to right itself.

…interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile cleaned house Tuesday with the ouster of three top officials…

CEO Amy Dacey, communications director Luis Miranda and chief financial officer Brad Marshall are all leaving the organization, the DNC announced Tuesday afternoon, shortly after staffers were informed of the changes in a meeting. The announcement praised all three outgoing officials, but people familiar say the departures were heavily encouraged.

Former chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz stepped down on the eve of the Democratic National Convention after a mass email hack spawned a host of unflattering revelations — including what’s been interpreted as bias by the committee toward Hillary Clinton during her primary contest with Bernie Sanders.

It's interesting to note that Donna Brazile “cleaned house” and forced three DNC officials to resign based on WikiLeaks DNC emails. These emails proved that Democrats were never neutral and always favored Clinton over Sanders.

None of the celebrities or Democratic politicians boycotting Trump ever considered boycotting the Democratic National Convention.

Speaking of Donna Brazile, the Russians never made her give debate questions to Hillary Clinton. Putin also never forced CNN to cut ties with the current DNC chairwoman:

Donna Brazile, the acting chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, resigned from her role as a CNN contributor earlier this month.

Her departure was announced Monday amid fresh revelations that she sent questions to Hillary Clinton's campaign in advance of a CNN debate and a CNN-TV One town hall.

In a statement, CNN said it was "completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor."

CNN said it "never gave Brazile access to any questions, prep material, attendee list, background information or meetings in advance of a town hall or debate."

Brazile resigned from the network on October 14, three days after Wikileaks released an email in which Brazile says she got advance questions before a town hall event. "From time to time I get the questions in advance," she wrote in the email.

Russia did it! No, Putin doesn’t own CNN.

Congratulations Democrats, you got exactly what you worked so hard to achieve: Trump’s inauguration. Don’t blame Russia for Donna Brazile firing three DNC officials or CNN cutting ties with Brazile. It’s not Putin’s fault Clinton’s campaign elevated Donald Trump. Finally, know that Bernie Sanders would have won.

Bernie had the power to unite all factions within the Democratic Party. I tried my best to stand with Bernie through my writing and advocacy, however the FiveThirtyEight poll projection super-duper plus forecasts said Clinton would win, so my thoughts were swallowed up by Democratic groupthink. Therefore, don’t bother boycotting Trump’s inauguration. Enjoy the day and focus on progressive policy objectives during the next four years. Also, make sure to watch NO SELLOUTS with Tim Black and H. A. Goodman. The only other alternative is to realize that Clinton and her campaign worked to elect Donald Trump.