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The Manchurian Candidate [1]
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Date: 2025-04-04
This morning it was reported that Trump left Russia out of his tariff program. There are only a few models left as to how to interpret what’s going on as making some sort of sense, if one allows that the destruction of America and its democracy is a goal benefiting someone else.
This would be an antithesis to Paul Krugman’s thesis that Trump is simply an ignoramus with a personality disorder who is intellectually myopic, and the destruction of America is just a product of simple, uncomplicated incompetence. One has to admit it’s an attractive thesis that even has elements of reassurance.
I saw the old movie “The Manchurian Candidate”, starring Frank Sinatra, back when it came out in ‘62. The term crops up from time to time as bait to conspiracy theorists, with little credibility. My browser gives several definitions, including this:
” The Term ‘Manchurian candidate’ has also come to refer to a person, especially a politician, who has been manipulated by an enemy power, often implying disloyalty or corruption.”
After reading today that Russia is excluded from Tusk’s tariff program, it provided a piece of the puzzle that America saw the first pieces of during the runup to the 2016 election.
The first piece of the puzzle I recall was the secret meeting Trump held with Lavrov moments after firing James Comey, the FBI director at the start of Trump’s first term, and during the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump’s meeting with Lavrov was unusual as the subject or subjects of the meeting were not recorded, but it was widely suspected that it had something to do with Comey’s firing.
Putin’s Russia’s premier website for news has been rt.com since Putin’s accession. Prior to the 2016 election, RT was reliably informative, had great documentaries, and a balanced, arguably friendly-to-the-US tenor. However, for the 2016 election, the website became the Fox News of Russia. Clinton was excoriated and Trump praised. The network had become unbalanced, and I avoided it. Putin’s fervid pro-Trump posturing provides a background for the puzzle. It’s the picture on the puzzle box that helps you find where the pieces may belong.
One of the pieces of the puzzle regarding were the actions of the Jan 6 insurrectionists, and Trump’s pardons of those who were convicted. The pardons confirm that January 6 was an attempted coup: to Trump the convicted were merely prisoners of war, which are customarily returned to the ranks of the enemy at war’s end.
There is America, and there is Trump. The two are at war. It’s not like Democratic child porn rings operating out of the basement of a Pizzaria in the D.C. suburbs. The evidence mounts.
Did Russia try to influence the President during the January 6 alleged insurrection? It happens that one of the most compelling pieces of the puzzle were people who during the crisis were covertly let in to the White House and met with the President. Each had real, palpable ties to Putin’s Russia, and attempted to goad the President into rash action, obviously in favor of a coup d’etat.
Is there some confirmation of Trump’s relationship with Putin’s Russia that predates his Presidency and might shed light on his current actions vis-a-vis Ukraine, the EU and NATO, and the tariff favoritism? It turns out there is, though on its own it would be easy to dismiss as conspiracy theory.
It’s a book by Craig Under, detailing his investigations centered on ex-KGB sources, and viewed by the hindsight provided by Trump’s actions, the conclusion the book comes to makes perfect sense.
Where it gets serious is the motive for the destruction of American history and institutions. Is destruction the actual goal, or is the destruction of America just a bunch of stupid, malicious people making mistakes? Both scenarios are credible.
Trump tried putting reputable people on his staff first time around, who virtually to a person rejected him with epithets such as “fucking moron”, “fascist”, and “the most deeply flawed man” the former presidential colleague had ever met. These comments come from sober persons from industry, the government, and the military.
This time around he is staffing himself with what James Carville calls “buffoons”. Call them lickspittles, Barbies, and greasers. The stupidity excuse could work.
Regarding the war chat on a chat app forbidden for the purpose and including strangers like the Atlantic editor, Signal was apparently in use for other than strategic purposes but was countermanded for use in strategic situations.
The stupids seem to be saying they were using the app they were provided for the purpose. (The same might not be said for gmail.) Was Signal loaded onto CIA computers to allow chats to be hacked? This otherwise conspiracy fodder has become, alarmingly, a possibly deliberate part of the intentional destruction of America.
That Unger’s sources might be telling the truth, and that Trump may be a Russian asset is not just conspiratorial speculation. There’s too much data now supporting benefit to Russia and detriment of America to the entire rest of the world.
Being friends with Russia is not a big deal. Once the Ukraine conflict gets straightened out stability between former allies can return. But the destruction of America is not acceptable, unwitting or not, consciously or subconsciously conducted. Trump might just have been cultivated by Putin and Lavrov as a “useful idiot”. This seems likely and allows for Krugman’s thesis that it’s just stupidity. But, constructively, whether he knows it or not, he’s being used as a Russian asset. It is what it is.
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