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The Useful Idiot



The Kremlin's interest in Trump apparently dates back to 1987.  He first visited Moscow that year, ostensibly to research building two luxury hotels.  No sooner did Trump return to New York than he took out full page ads in major newspapers assailing NATO allies for not providing enough for their "common defense," accusing them of being "non-dues paying allies."  He went onto question the purpose of NATO and repeated a number of Soviet talking points.

It's always been easy to bend Trump's ear, especially if you present your desired aims in a way that is favorable to his interests.  He has long seen politics as an extension of his real estate empire, one largely cultivated in his own mind, but substantial enough to attract Soviet and later Russian interest. For decades, Russian oligarchs laundered their ill-gotten gains through his numerous properties, keeping him afloat despite the enormous debt burden he had incurred.  As a result, Trump was favorable to Russian interests when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

His friendliness toward Russia was on full display during his first term. He had nary a bad word to say about Putin, while he admonished NATO countries for not paying their dues.  This despite members of his own cabinet, notably his "generals," openly criticizing the Russian president and apparently going behind Trump's back to provide Ukraine the logistical support it needed to counter the Russian-backed insurgency in the Donbas.  

For the better part of 8 years, Ukraine not only held off this urgency but pushed it back to the point Putin feared he would lose his foothold in the Donbas, which was strategically important to him.  He had backed two "breakaway republics," much like he had in Georgia and Moldova, supporting their so-called independence. 

Trump never seemed fully aware of this, which is why it caught him by surprise that there was so much resistance to his attempt to block Congressional military support for Ukraine in 2018 in his effort to dig up some dirt on Biden, his prospective 2020 presidential opponent.  Trump not only bucked his military advisors but long-standing Congressional bipartisan support for Ukraine.  This led to an impeachment hearing in 2019, although ultimately acquitted by the Republican Senate, as it was in their interest to keep Trump in the White House even if he occasionally went astray.  Ukraine continued to get its military funding and logistical support, which was the main reason it was able to withstand the full-scale Russian assault in February, 2022.

During his first term, Trump was largely held in check by a cabinet hand-picked by Republican leaders, assuring that Trump wouldn't stray too far from the traditional conservative path.  Yet, on July 4, 2018, we saw an extraordinary event.  A group of seven GOP senators and one representative traveled to Moscow ostensibly to "warn" Russia of its involvement in the 2016 election.  The optics couldn't have been worse, as the discussions that were held seemed more conciliatory toward Russia than they did adversarial.  Alabama Sen. Shelby went so far as to say, "we don't necessarily have to be adversaries," essentially pushing the allegations of election interference aside in an attempt to open up better trade relationships.  Not that we really needed anything from Russia.

COVID took everyone's attention in 2020.  Even here, Trump displayed an unusual friendliness toward Russia in providing the Kremlin with badly needed ventilators at a time they were in short supply in the US.  No one could really figure out what was going on, as Trump was not only defying sanctions that dated back to 2014 but providing aid during a time of deep crisis in the US.  All this to a country that claimed it had the coronavirus under control.

You might call it quid pro quo, as Putin exerted his influence over Trump.  There had been an ongoing investigation since 2017 into Russia's involvement in the 2016 election, which Trump won thanks to the Electoral College.  Russian hacks had targeted four key states that once comprised the Democratic "Blue Wall" in the Midwest, and had also tampered with Florida voter registration data.  Yet, not enough was uncovered to make direct links between these hackers and the Kremlin in an attempt to get Trump elected.  Trump made sure to have the investigation closed down by firing Jeff Sessions and replacing him with Bill Barr in the second half of his administration.

Many were saying Trump was severely compromised, or "kompromat" in Russian, yet no major American political figure could bring himself or herself to say Trump was a Russian asset, largely because no one wanted to believe it.  As unsavory as Trump's real estate dealings were, most figured it was just part of his way of doing business.  "It's all transactional, baby!"  That may be fine in the business world but when you have a president with such tainted connections, you can bet his presidential administration will be tainted too.

It seemed that many GOP senators and representatives were compromised as well, along with high-ranking military figures like former Gen. Michael Flynn, which Obama had warned Trump about when he assumed office back in 2017.  Still, there were enough GOP lawmakers and generals that held the traditional American stance against Russia to push their questionable colleagues to the side, even if they continued to support Trump after the 2021 insurrection attempt.

One would have thought this would bring the malignant Trump era to a close, but amazingly he was not only able to survive the fallout, but flourish during a time of unrest over inflation. Americans seemed more worried about surging gas and egg prices in 2022 than they did Russia invading Ukraine.  Trump went from persona non grata to the voice of this unrest when he announced his bid to run again for office in November of that year. This despite having no less than 80 federal and state indictments hanging over his head.  Most people thought it a joke at the time, but as Biden's mental acuity came into question Trump's poll numbers soared and by early 2024 many were seeing Trump as a legitimate presidential candidate as no other Republican had successfully been able to capture the imagination of the base of the party.

Meanwhile in Moscow, Putin had staved off an insurrection of his own when a wily Russian mercenary leader had chickened out of his assault on the Kremlin and saw his Wagner forces reduced to ruin. The whole thing looked so absurd as Putin's chef, Yvegeny Prigozhin, marched on Moscow.  For a brief moment it really did seem Putin was in danger of being deposed.  Things were going so poorly in Ukraine, with Prigozhin feeling the Kremlin had abandoned him that he decided to take matters into his own hands.  No one could really figure out whether this was a real or fake coup attempt.  Whatever the case, Putin emerged from this chaotic rebellion with a renewed vigor and set his aim on putting a president more favorable to his interests in Washington.

Trump's renewed image more or less corresponded with that of Putin.  The two rose together in the later half of 2023 and early 2024 to once again dominate the global news headlines.  It also helped Trump that Netanyahu had made Israel into a crucial campaign issue with his ongoing war in Gaza.  This put Biden between a rock and a hard place in terms of responding to Israel's reign of terror on Palestinians for the entire election year.  It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to see the interrelated threads as three prominent embattled political figures struggled for their political future.  The axis that emerged was enough to push Biden to renounce his presidential bid in favor of an unknown quantity in Kamala Harris, as Democrats saw their once favorable 2024 election hopes diminish in an aging president who badly fumbled his summer debate against Trump.

It seemed for a brief moment that Harris might pull off the unimaginable vision of a woman president.  She made Trump look like a total fool in a nationally televised debate in August, but somehow was never able to gain the traction she needed to carry the vote in key states that were becoming increasingly more conservative politically.  Trump, or rather his campaign team, hit on all the issues that mattered most in these voters' addled minds, as Trump himself seemed to have fallen off the cliff.  It didn't matter come election day as Americans voted for the idea rather than the man.  On November 5, 2024, Trump pulled off yet another stunning election night surprise by taking every single "battleground state" along with the popular vote.

None of this would have happened without direct Russian involvement.  While Team Trump struggled to overcome Kamala Harris' rising popularity, Russian hackers were busy at work creating fake stories that were promulgated through social media platforms like X to cast doubts on her past.  Trump was quick to pick up these leads, at one point questioning whether Harris worked at McDonalds while at Howard University in Washington, DC.  This led to a ridiculous photo opportunity of Trump flipping "hamberders" at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.  Sadly, these absurd images worked and Harris wasn't able to contest them in a way that satisfied voters' troubled minds.  It's the kind of propaganda Russia and the Soviet Union beforehand relished in.  We just like to believe people aren't so stupid as to fall for it, but sadly they are.

Here we are now with a President who has thrown away all of our long-standing positive relationships with Canada, Mexico and Europe countries in favor of Russia.  Once again, he has turned toward Putin as his administration actively works to resume trade relationships with Russia at the expense of Ukraine, which Trump has repeatedly labeled as the aggressor in this war, and claims Russia is just defending its interests in the region. This is a talking point lifted directly from the Kremlin propaganda playbook.  Say what you will about Zelensky, which Trump falsely claimed only has a four percent approval rating in his country, but he didn't start this war.  Russia did.

All this can be traced back to the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of 13 countries in the wake of this momentous collapse.  Russia was one of those countries and for the better part of 8 years it seemed like Moscow had turned a new leaf.  There was so much optimism in the 1990s with all the talk about "peace dividends."  Maybe we should have disbanded NATO and done more to bring Russia into the democratic fold but all that changed in 2000 when Putin assumed office and immediately went about re-establishing Russia's territorial imperative.  First in war-torn Chechnya and then later in satellite countries that had begun to stray from Moscow's influence.  He literally left a scorched earth behind him.  

Putin never saw Ukraine, Belarus or Georgia as countries independent from Russia.  The CIS, or Commonwealth of Independent States, was always seen as a later-day Soviet Union.  When Ukraine and Georgia tried to breakaway from it and join the more prosperous EU, they were not only admonished for it but Russia rolled its tanks into Georgia in 2008 to firmly tell the government in Tbilisi that it answered to Moscow.  

The same thing occurred in Ukraine when its people had the audacity to challenge Putin while he was staging his Winter Olympics in Sochi.  Only this time Ukraine pushed back and so the war effectively began in March, 2014, when Russia invaded the Crimean peninsula. Ukraine was unable to defend this former oblast but it refused to cede the Donbas to the breakaway "republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk.  Putin seized Crimea as his own, claiming it was never really part of Ukraine.  The disputed oblast was never really part of Russia either but then history has always belonged to the victors.

The problem we face now is an existential nightmare.  Russia's territorial ambitions have long been held in check by NATO but if its leading member is not willing to lend its support, and grants Russia all sorts of favors, then the world order is in very real danger of breaking down.  Trump has never been anything more than an useful idiot, or clown if you prefer, but even such clowns are dangerous because of the persons who prop him up.  It has long been Russian oligarchs sympathetic to an autocratic Russia, but now we see oligarchs of all descriptions like Elon Musk, who have business interests on all sides.  They don't see the world the way we do.  In large part because they have no allegiance to any country.  It's all transactional, baby!

MAGA has always been a scam because Trump has no allegiance to the United States.  He has only been looking to keep his real estate empire from total collapse after American banks refused to extend him anymore loans following his numerous failures.  It's just amazing that Russia found its useful idiot in a man no one could have ever imagined would one day be President of the United States, much less a second time.

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