There’s no denying that Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign to help Donald Trump. Only that explains why Trump keeps acting like Putin’s useful idiot. And yes, Trump is really that stupid and transparent.
Trump is Putin’s useful idiot
Of course, Putin keeps playing the coy mastermind who pulled off that electoral feat. He started mere days after Trump’s inauguration.
The occasion was a joint press conference with Hungarian President Viktor Orban. A reporter asked Putin about Russia’s involvement in the conflict raging in the Dunbass region of Ukraine. Putin deflected and projected, betraying a consciousness of guilt about Trump’s election:
As we all know, during the presidential campaign in the United States, the Ukrainian government adopted a unilateral position in favour of one candidate. More than that, certain oligarchs, certainly with the approval of the political leadership, funded this candidate, or female candidate, to be more precise.
(Kremlin.ru, February 2, 2017)
Except that Putin was just doing as Russian spies like him do.
Moscow has long used its intelligence agencies and propaganda machine to muddy the waters of public debate, casting doubts over established facts. Russia [has a] pattern of trying to blame other countries for its own actions, like the attempted poisoning last year of a former Russian intelligence officer or the downing of a passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014.
(The New York Times, November 11, 2019)
What does Putin have on Trump?
Russian intelligence has spent years, if not decades, gathering all kinds of “kompromat” on Trump. And you can bet Putin is intimately familiar with every tidbit. That’s why he knows all too well how to stroke Trump’s fragile ego or trigger his manifest insecurities.
Over the past three years, they’ve had several one-on-one meetings. And it’s beyond suspicious that Trump barred all US officials from them. But you can also bet that Putin seized each opportunity to play Trump with even greater deft than Iago played Othello.
That’s why nobody should have been surprised by this:
One former senior White House official said President Trump even stated so explicitly at one point, saying he knew Ukraine was the real culprit because ‘Putin told me.’
(The Washington Post, December 20, 2019)
Then, of course, there’s the open and notorious way Putin got Trump to make a mockery of US intelligence.
That occasion was a joint press conference in Helsinki. A reporter asked Trump about the consensus finding that Russia cyberattacked the 2016 presidential election.
At a joint press conference after one-on-one talks lasting more than two hours in the Finnish capital, the US president offered no criticism of Putin or the cyber-attacks that the US intelligence community says he coordinated to help Trump’s 2016 election campaign.
‘They said they think it’s Russia; I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia,’ Trump told reporters. ‘I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be [Russia].’
(The Guardian, July 16, 2018)
But nothing betrays what compromising information Putin must have on Trump quite like Russian pundits now openly mocking him on State TV:
As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov returned home from his visit with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last week[,] Rossiya 1 aired a segment entitled ‘Puppet Master and ‘Agent’ — How to Understand Lavrov’s Meeting With Trump.’…
And in the meantime, much to Russia’s satisfaction, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is still waiting for that critical White House meeting with the American president: the famous ‘quid pro quo’ for Zelensky announcing an investigation that would smear Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
(Daily Beast, December 16, 2019)
Russians see Trump as a laughingstock. They even joke that Putin will have to grant him asylum when he leaves the White House (a la Edward Snowden). And why not? After all, Russia has arguably never had a more ‘useful idiot.’
Why are so many Republicans parroting Russian propaganda?
Putin can’t help but grin like the Cheshire Cat whenever he talks about Trump. However, with all due respect to his puppetry, most Russians can’t believe their dumb luck.
After all, even Putin couldn’t have anticipated Trump enlisting so many other useful idiots to parrot Russia’s propaganda and do its bidding.
[Testifying before the House impeachment inquiry Thursday, former White House adviser Fiona Hill] admonished [Republican] lawmakers for promoting a ‘fictional narrative’ that it was Ukraine – not Russia – that interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
‘In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests,’ she said.
(USA Today, November 21, 2019)
Republicans are now so beholden to Trump that they feel obliged to ape his kowtowing to Putin. Shame. Sad.