No Mystery: Trump's Behavior Explained

Warning:  This is a conspiracy theory that subsumes U.S. conspiracy theories. William of Ockham would approve.

Lying about the predicted severity of a pandemic that has left 250,000 dead Americans. Clearing protestors with tear gas for a photo op with a Bible. Lacing the White House administration with white nationalists. Welcoming Q-anon and other wild conspiracy theorists into the GOP. Telling people to rise up against Democratic governors instituting public health measures. Calling American elections rigged in advance of the elections, then refusing to acknowledge a one-sided election loss. Deciding to take no federal action as the pandemic reaches its worst stages, increasing exponentially. Trying to circumvent an American election by leveraging mid-management state officials into his corner. Inserting his loyalists into key Pentagon positions in the last 60 days of his presidency, then firing his election cybersecurity chief. Withdrawing troops against most military recommendations. 

Mainstream media asks why, as if it all isn't obvious. Doesn't Trump realize the permanent damage he has done to American institutions? Doesn't he realize how he is compromising American security, both here and abroad? Well, of course he does. That's the point. There's no real mystery to any of this. If you simply apply Ockham's Razor, all evidentiary roads lead to Rome, or in this case, Russia.

Tom Nichols, a specialist in Russian relations and author of The Death of Expertise, has already spelled it out many times. He says it gently, explaining that he has always considered Trump compromised by the Russians.

To put it more directly, the simplest explanation for Trump's behavior is that he's a Russian asset. Now some people argue, and it's true, that one doesn't need to know that one is a Russian asset to indeed be a Russian asset. That's correct, of course, but I'm not going to tap dance with the verbiage. The only logical conclusion is that Trump is a Russian asset, and he knows he's a Russian asset. 

This is Manchurian candidate stuff. Trump has managed to do maximum damage to the United States in a very short period of time. He's created racial divides at each opportunity, stepped aside as we're en route to a half million Covid-19 deaths, and has worked to compromise everything from the democratic process to military leadership to cybersecurity. 

If you'd been planning to destroy the United States and cripple its international capabilities, these are exactly the actions you would take. Trump has been executing a Putin wish list every step of the way. Yes, it's possible that this is all accidental correlation of Putin's wish list and Trump's actions, but realistically, with Ockham's Razor perspective, how likely is that?

What I don't understand is why "Trump as Russian asset" isn't getting serious airplay on every network.

Arguments Against Trump as Russian Asset

The usual pushback to the Trump as Putin lapdog frame is that not every international decision made by the U.S. has favored Russia unequivocally, especially those directly involving Russia. This argument misses two points. First, it presupposes that Putin's goal would be to make every single decision go in Russia's favor during Trump's presidency. Putin, however, would not be so baldly obvious, especially regarding near-term minutia.

Second, this argument assumes that the goal of Putin's Trump puppetry is short-term Russian gain. If, however, the actual goal is to destroy the United States long-term, not boost Russia short-term, then Trump's decisions all fall into place. To put it bluntly, if you're competing with someone for resources, stealing a few loaves accomplishes far less than injecting them with a cancer.

I think that Tom Nichols is correct. Putin's possession of Trump has come to a head with Trump's recent actions. If Vladimir Putin were the man in the Oval Office doing what Trump is doing today, Putin would  be arrested immediately for espionage. Trump will not be arrested today. Or tomorrow.

Putin has, by any measure, won. He is to be commended, as he has pulled off a stunt worthy of all Bond villains combined, and in full view of the world.

Bob Dietz

November 20, 2020

Third Party Power

I can't say that any of Trump's post-election behavior is surprising to me. He has done a bit of a Spinal Tap, taking the act to an 11, but I think that most of us who have followed him long-term expected nothing less.

People seem taken aback by the GOP enabling him, but look at the facts. Even with Trump's "deplorables" base, the GOP is a minority party in terms of demography. Then consider the very real possibility that the president is probably not averse to teaming up with far right media to create a third party, and that such a third party might conceivably outnumber "classic" Republicans. Trump could, of course, by founding such a third party, relegate the GOP to near-term powerlessness rather quickly. This Sword of Damocles third-party threat means that Trump has tremendous leverage over a corrupt, self-absorbed Republican leadership. The GOP might not love the idea that Trump wants a 2024 go at the presidency, but they simply do not have the ability to dissuade him because he owns that third-party-founding potential. He has them by the scrotum.

This third party threat has been implicit in Trump's entire run, including the 2016 primary leading up to his election. It's part of the reason that the GOP establishment has treated him with kid gloves the last four years. My personal conservative guesstimate is that Trump has the capability to siphon off at least 25% of the Republican electorate into a third party population, and he has always had this capability. The sycophantism of "normal" Republicans is therefore understandable. If they don't keep Trump in the GOP fold, they risk losing any semblance of their current power.

White Identity Politics

White nationalism is inextricably threaded through Trump's hard core base. Mainstream American media has done a good job connecting many of the dots. "The Vast Far-Right Web Behind the Hunter Biden Story," a November 3 piece by HuffPost reporter, Luke O'Brien, is a fine detailed specific exploration, while Sean Collins' July 21 piece in Vox, "Trump once flirted with white nationalism. Now it's a centerpiece of his White House" is a broader overview. 

Any new third party will undoubtedly feature, with decreasing subtlety, hard core white nationalism. Allow me, a non-political creature, to make an obvious observation. To borrow a 1970's Captain America storyline, the Fourth Reich is here. And it's American.

Nobody wants to call it what is, but if my estimate of Trump potential for siphoning off GOP voters is correct, the United States is home to somewhere around 20 million members of what could reasonably be designated The Fourth Reich. Keith Olbermann refers to these folks as Trump's Brownshirts (Braumhemden), and he's absolutely correct. They are currently firmly embedded in the GOP general electorate until such time as Trump asks them to extract themselves and recruit for his third party.

The way to recruit in 2020 is to start an online media network and then grow it into a national brand that doesn't require much in the way of advertising. Trump is more than capable of launching a state TV well beyond the content limitations of Fox. 

The Months Ahead

Right now, the GOP is being held hostage by a large but likely minority chunk of its own party. Donald Trump controls the playing field. His loss in the 2020 election with his threat of a 2024 run, in fact, fits almost perfectly into much of the Q-anon conspiracy prophecies. According to Q-anon, Trump is fated to disappear for a time, at the conclusion of which he will arise from the shadows with his allies in key military positions. They will then arrest all of the decadent pedophiles and save us from the New World Order and ourselves. 

If Trump plays along with this conspiracy mythology, we will be treated in the years ahead to a growing body of conspiracy theories and an increasingly fervent, expanding Q-anon base. Twenty million Brownshirts is not a small political movement, and it will grow.

Buckle up. As for me? I'm not concerned. I am, after all, German.

Bob Dietz

November 18, 2020

Two Words

I have just two words for a holier-than-thou, narcissistic, thinks-he's-a-genius idiot. Of course, these two words are for Dallas owner and general manager, Jerry Jones.

Colin Kaepernick