New York Times columnist compares Trump's election to Pearl Harbor and 9/11

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published 15 February 2017

The New York Times' Thomas Friedman argued in his most recent column that the day President Trump won the election should be a date that lives in infamy, not unlike Dec. 7, 1941, when more than 2,400 Americans were killed at Pearl Harbor, or Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorist attacks left nearly 3,000 dead:

We need to rerun the tape. Ladies and gentlemen, we were attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, we were attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, and we were attacked on Nov. 8, 2016. That most recent attack didn't involve a horrible loss of lives, but it was devastating in its own way. Our entire intelligence community concluded that Russia hacked our election by deliberately breaking into Democratic National Committee computers and then drip-by-drip funneling embarrassing emails through WikiLeaks to undermine Clinton's campaign. And what have we done about it? Other than a wrist slap against Moscow, we've moved on.That is not okay. [The New York Times]

He implores Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to consider what they would do if the tables were turned, and the "CIA, NSA, and FBI had concluded that the Russians had intervened to help Hillary Clinton get elected." If that were the case, Friedman writes, "you would have closed the government and demanded a new election." "Now it's all okay?" Friedman asks. "So you can get some tax cuts?"