I always try to look at the other side of any issue, even if it’s one I’m deeply invested in. Take the idea that Trump is and has been a Russian agent. I personally believe it has been an extremely dangerous bit of propaganda meant to gin up enough hatred of Russia that U.S. citizens would not only tolerate foolish escalations with a nuclear-armed country but would actually cheer them on. Nevertheless, I always take time to look at every important issue from various angles in order to understand it more fully and not become too invested in my own interpretation. Thus I asked myself today if there could be any truth to the idea that Trump was in fact doing the bidding of the Kremlin.
The notion is crazy on the surface, something out of a cheap spy novel. No, worse than that, it is something out of a Boris and Natasha cartoon. But perhaps that is my own bias speaking. I mean, after all, it is as good an explanation for Trump’s behavior as any other. The alternatives being that A. Trump is a super genius whose machinations are so complex that no mere mortal can comprehend them B. He’s an idiot who’s out of his depth when it comes to something else besides making real estate deals. A doesn’t seem real likely, so I therefore tend to go with B. But if Trump were being controlled by Russia in order to destroy U.S. standing in the world, it might look very much like this.
It doesn’t appear that the U.S. has a single ally in all the world, that Trump’s behavior has completely isolated us. It’s almost as if Andy Kaufman had come back to life and was performing his Tony Clifton character while wearing a Trump mask. This must surely be working out in Russia’s favor.
So while it all seems on the surface very unlikely that an otherwise sober and cautious Russian foreign policy would venture into doing something so extremely risky and unwise, the results are definitely in Russia’s (and China’s) favor. And while it is almost unimaginable that someone as vain as Trump would allow himself to be a witting tool and is too mentally and emotionally unstable to be used as an unwitting tool, the end results tend to back the theory.
There is one flaw in the story, however. Let us grant for a moment that Trump has been a witting or unwitting implement used by Russia to destroy the country Russia is most threatened by. This flaw is the Democratic Party. This flaw is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. You can’t blame Russia or Trump for them. Democrats had four years in office and were completely incapable of doing anything to make people want to support them. Donald Trump didn’t destroy the Democratic Party, nor did Russia.
Four years of Democrats in charge did nothing to abate the downward spiral the U.S. was on during the first Trump term. In fact, it accelerated it. During this time the world got a deeper glimpse into what a world ruled by the U.S. will look like going forward, and it was not a pleasant sight. Far worse than the vulgar behavior of Trump, Biden’s presidency showed just how reckless American foreign policy had become: risking war with a nuclear power, while giving carte blanche to an Apartheid state turning it up a notch to ethnic cleansing and genocide. Along the way they made as their closest allies the very worst people in the world: ethno-fascists (Zionists), Neo-Nazis (Banderites), fundamentalist terrorists (in Syria), and mercenaries and weapons manufacturers of all stripes.
The Democrats did nothing to undo the damage Trump had done. They didn’t issue an apology to Iran for Trump’s assassination of Iran’s national hero, General Soleimani, did not try to restart the Iran nuclear deal, did not cancel Trump’s tax cuts to the richest Americans that the rest of us must pay for with interest.
America’s reputation continued to fall lower under the rule of Democrats. While European vassal states were happy to have a fellow empty suit in charge in the U.S., the rest of the world, the ones that had the most to lose, became even more disillusioned with the United States and all it stood for. As bad as having Trump as a spokesperson for our country was, having an obviously cognitively impaired old man was even worse. And had Kamala Harris been elected, it would have made the charade even more obvious and unforgivable. No, if Putin had decided to bring Trump to power in order to give the U.S. a black eye on the world stage, he needn’t have bothered. The U.S. was willing to do the job for free.
So I am going to stick with my original analysis — that The United States is a dying empire incapable of righting its course. Anyone with intelligence, integrity and courage will never be permitted near the reins of power. A corrupt ruling class will do whatever is required to ensure that no threat to their privilege arises. Russia, like the rest of the world, is merely trying to hang on, doing its best to avoid the very real and existential threat that a nuclear-armed empire bereft of any of the virtues that once made its existence tolerable can cause. If the United States is on a self-destructive path towards its own demise, it only makes it worse to try to shift the blame onto other actors. Once we realize there is no other actor that is at fault, we can start accepting responsibility for our own behavior and thus start to make things better.
