I’ve been reading the Mueller Report for the past few weeks. I skipped around in it because I was drawn to various parts being discussed in news programs — but I’ve given at least perfunctory attention to all 400 pages. It’s terse, yet essential reading. The Mueller Report may be the most important document in the world so far in the 21st Century.

Everyone who believes in American exceptionalism ought to thank their lucky stars that people like Robert Mueller are a part of it. I was chatting with a friend on social media a few minutes ago and we discussed how Mueller is a throwback to an era where professionalism in national affairs was an expectation rather than a surprise. My respect for Robert Mueller flows like a river.

There has been a lot of suggestion from some in the media that Mueller speak plainly and openly about his report and it’s conclusions – something that Mueller has shown little appetite for. Mr. Mueller expects you to read the report and draw your own conclusions. Good luck with that, but I sure do agree with the sentiment. The fact that so few people have shown any interest in reading the report, as opposed to just listening to a summary from their personal echo chamber, is not a good sign for the future of our democracy.

Since Mueller himself is disinclined to interpret his own words for the indolent (including, evidently, many members of Congress) I’m not going to do it either. What I will do is tell you about my principal takeaways from reading the report. Fair warning — if you want to continue to feel good this Sunday morning I suggest that you stop reading right here and instead find whatever George Wuerthner wrote this week. That stuff is always funny.

A big takeaway from the Mueller Report for me is that agents of the Russian Government figured out that a very large number of Americans on both the left and right are an unfortunate, yet completely exploitable, combination of entitled, angry and gullible. Useful idiots.

Mueller goes into great detail on how Russian agents mined social media for people who were active, agitated and not overly bright and used them to gin up controversy on subjects across the political spectrum - from Black Lives Matter to the Second Amendment. In many cases these dupes were encouraged to promote and attend rallies that were actually organized by Russian agents hiding behind fake profiles on social media. All of this to undermine our faith in one another.

Most of these attempts were not incredibly sophisticated and would have not worked on anyone whose first reflex is to think rather than emote. But in some cases these gatherings were actually attended by hundreds of people none of whom actually knew the organizers.

Surprised? Just look through the comments on the Journal’s Facebook page that follow most articles posted there and you can just about smell the air at such a rally. I really, really need to go into real estate sales on Facebook.

Another thing that is obvious to from the Mueller Report is that Attorney General William Barr seriously misled the nation with his brief summary of the report’s contents. He didn’t lie because his carefully crafted prose used words that do exist somewhere along the continuum of possibilities in describing the report – albeit all at the extreme end that is favorable to President Trump. But no fair-minded person reading the Mueller Report would conclude that it “exonerates” the President of anything - unless you are willing to stretch the definition of exonerate to include unable to indict because of Justice Department policy.

It’s clear from the report that Mueller and his team believe that President Trump intended to obstruct justice. It’s also clear that Mueller feels that the President is guilty of many instances of behavior that if by some stretch of the constitution happens to not be illegal is nonetheless unseemly in the extreme.

My final takeaway is that Mueller is completely aware of the gravity of our current situation. He understands that he cannot indict a sitting president even for serious misdeeds. That being the case he understands that the proper remedy for the time being is political rather than legal. It’s up to Congress now and the electorate in 2020 to render judgment on Trump.

Mueller also understands that the same outside forces that interfered in the 2016 election, having concluded that their efforts were both successful achieved at very little cost to them, will be back at it again in 2020. Gird your loins.

Finally, and most importantly, it’s clear from the Mueller Report that if more of us don’t put aside partisanship and learn to read, impartially, a book or newspaper instead of self-reinforcing crap on the Interwebs our Democracy is probably doomed.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, consultant and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time happily raising three children, llama farming and riding mountain bikes and motorcycles.