Trump* is Putin's dimwitted puppet. Stupidly dimwitted puppet.

[charlyvi]

..snip..

The temptation here is to avoid constructive criticism or analysis and just start shouting expletives. But in the interest of professional decency, let’s calmly state the obvious:

1) The president should not be openly questioning the findings of his own intelligence community.

2) The president should not be asking the Russian president if he meddled in the election, which makes him look stupid. He should be making demands and taking diplomatic and financial retaliatory action, and making threats of further actions should the meddling continue.

3) The president should not be defending himself to the press by saying “hey, I asked him. What more do you want?”

4) The president should not be appeared to pussyfoot about Vladimir Putin when there is an impeachment-level investigation and scandal over his collusion with Russia over its meddling in the election.

But does this really need to be said? Of course not. What’s more worth analyzing is why Trump is behaving so stupidly, so publicly.

The most obvious answer is simply that Trump likes Vladimir Putin and doesn’t want to upset him, or that the Russian president has blackmail goods on Trump. But that would only explain soft-pedaling on Russia issues behind the scenes. Trump doesn’t need to publicly look like a credulous fool in front of world reporters to keep Putin happy.

The other frequent response to Trump’s bizarre behavior is that he is trying to please his base for domestic political reasons. But that doesn’t fly here, either. Trump has been shedding public approval over the Russia fiasco, and while his hardcore base may not care about the Russia story, they also (outside of a radical contingent) aren’t deeply invested in Putin.

The real answer seems to be that Donald Trump really is as naive as he appears to be. If Putin tells him he didn’t meddle, he believes him. If reporters ask him about it, he says what’s on his mind.

That shouldn’t make us feel any better about it. The President of the United States isn’t just a complicit tool of Russian plutocratic white supremacist influence. He’s an unwitting one as well.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/11/11/is-trump-really-dumb-enough-to-believe-putin/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+washingtonmonthly%2Frss+%28Political+Animal+at+Washington+Monthly%29

Perfectly said!

[JI7]

1. LOL

https://m.

[charlyvi]

2. The Idiot in Chief

We are truly fucked.

[unblock]

3. i mostly agree, except i don't think he's unwitting. but he thinks there's nothing wrong with it.

of course he made a deal with the russians! what's the problem? he's always made deals.
he clearly knows it's illegal because he knows enough to lie about it.
but again, he figures, what's the problem? he's always done illegal things, he's always lied about them, and he's always gotten away with it because at worst he just sends his army of slimy lawyers and maybe he eventually has to write a check but mostly he gets away with it.

he's been involved with literally over 4,000 legal cases. he thinks it's all just a game and a cost of doing business.

he clearly knows absolutely nothing about the structure and norms and rules of government, so why should he understand that most of the crap he's done that's at worst a tort (or the kind of tax evasion rich people can get away with) when you're a private citizen is now a felony when you're a candidate or a government employee, never mind president.

this is why he basically embezzles, billing the federal government for his vacations and travel and so on. it's because he's always done that, getting his charities or his business to pay for his personal crap.

paying russian private investigators for dirt on a supplier or maybe a harassment victim who was suing him would be normal for him, so why should he think it's such a big problem to do that as a candidate?

he thinks this is perfectly normal. or rather, in fact, he thinks this is him being a clever businessman, taking advantage of the civil courts and so on. con men always think they're oh so clever.

[charlyvi]

4. You may be right.

Twisted. isn't it?

[UTUSN]

5. PUTIN must be giving himself hernias trying to keep from busting a gut laughing