IamNotCreepy wrote:I tend to fall on the side of there being more incompetence and obstruction of financial crimes rather than direct collusion with Russia, but this New York Magazine article makes a
pretty compelling case by laying out in a very detailed manner all of the entanglements Trump and those in his circle have with Russia and ways in which they might be compromised.
It's a pretty long read, but the article is quite good. It doesn't discount plausible alternatives and lays out facts and theories in a very straightforward manner.
When I get a little more time, I'll dig through it for some choice quotes (there are a lot of them).
I read it in chunks over a day. It is an interesting read. The premise, that what-if it's worse than anyone let's themselves believe, is concerning.
I have tended to believe that there were people in Trump's orbit who were - knowingly or unknowingly - going far outside of standard protocol. Maybe it's the way they were used to doing things, and they unwittingly translated their experience into what can be generally considered 'bad moves'.
I have also figured Trump Inc, and by extension much of the family, have been involved in less-than above-board transactions involving murky characters from Russia and other kleptocracies. As the article points-out, when American banks started refusing to finance Trump's debts, he turned to alternative sources, many of which have ties to Russia. Both of his sons have publicly stated as much. Going down this line of thought, it wasn't about having personal kompromat on Trump, but rather, financial skulduggery on a guy who may be millionaire, but isn't a billionaire. Small hands, and all that...
It is difficult to explain Trump's affinity for Russia. Maybe he's just a big fan of what he considers strong leaders, which are generally considered autocratic, totalitarian, kleptocratic, or otherwise 'not good'. Maybe he wants to pull-off a gigantic pivot where he gets NATO/EU and Russia working against China, but doesn't understand that NATO/EU geopolitical goals are antithetical to Russian geopolitical goals. Maybe he really believes America can go it alone, with very limited trade, yet still tell the world how to go-about behaving.
Trump may simply be a dumb guy who has tried his darndest to make a few dirty bucks in a dirty world. Maybe he's intellectually incapable of both absorbing the role of the USA at the point where he took-over the helm, and understanding the history of how the USA, post WW-II, arrived at the wealthy, happy, and generally good-times place which it has been, more-or-less, for nearly seven decades. Maybe he just wants to burn-down everything that Obama did, regardless of whether it was a continuation of previous policy, or not, because Obama made fun of him with big words.
Or maybe he is, as is fashionable to say, playing three-dimensional chess. Maybe he wants to work-up traditional trade and defense partners into a froth to goad them into contributing more to the USA military-industrial complex, regardless of there being a real
military enemy, or not. You know, make everyone do like Greece does by contributing more than 2% of GDP to their military (except much of it goes to pensions, but... that's Greece for ya! <rim shot>).
And then there's Manafort. If there is someone who was part of the Trump campaign and was dirty, and in cahoots with Russian interests, it's Manafort. His boy, Gates, already rolled-over. Hell, Sean Spicer can't toe the Trump line on Manafort's involvement:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... n-new-book“The Manafort message was clear: Trump will be our nominee and our next president, and anyone who didn’t want to work to that end could spend the next four years in political Siberia. (No Russia pun intended.)”
HAHA, Sean! You are such a card!
It's difficult to overlook Manafort's impact on the campaign. I don't think the article mentioned that as the GOP was firming-up their platform at the RNC, the one and only change the Trump campaign pushed was:
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/04/56831079 ... ne-supportPresident Trump may have been involved with a change to the Republican Party campaign platform last year that watered down support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine, according to new information from someone who was involved.
Why that change? Why at that time? Either Manafort was taking advantage of a chaotic situation (which Trump would appreciate) to push something through, or Trump knew Manafort pushed it through. There are only two angles; Trump had no idea, and the guy in-charge of his campaign pulled a fast one on Trump, or Trump knew, and at the very least, did not object.
All that to get back to, why Russia? Why is Trump shitting on the G7, NATO, and NAFTA while refusing to say anything negative about Russia, unless it's to
bash Germany with faulty numbers?
I could believe, if I squint, that Trump is balancing his hate of Obama against his hate of China. Russia and the EU/USA do have a somewhat common cause; while the EU was formed primarily to be a trade block against the likes of the US (really, NAFTA) and China, TPP was meant to form trade relationships around China, yet Trump killed US participation. Maybe his hate is more against Obama than anyone else, and Trump is willing to make deals with anyone else, so long as he can wrap his head around the deal... which, so far, means no deals.
Maybe.
Maybe.
It may be.
That is the problem. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, and Trump could provide such by releasing his tax returns. That won't happen, willingly.
At best, Americans, you have a dirty POTUS who has, and will continue to, earn dirty money from dirty sources through dirty dealers. At worst, the POTUS is a Manchurian Candidate who didn't need to be brainwashed.
Or, it's somewhere in between - the POTUS is a selfish idiot who is over-leveraged by Russian money, and gravitates toward strongmen who run their countries with an iron fist because there weren't enough hugs from mommy and daddy Trump.
Or, Trump is earnest and honest *cough* and believes Russian interests are the same as American interests, which will really help #MAGA (because America is currently, contrary to all economic information, a shithole, because Obama).
Or, he is #MAGA and sunshine and lollipops, and America will be much richer, and more powerful, after Trump shakes-up everything, and so what if he made a few dimes off Russian money, there was no collusion.
Time will tell. What happens in the meantime will be... interesting.
A quantum state of signature may or may not be here... you just ruined it.