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What more could Putin hope for?

Danielle Pletka writes this morning:

…allegations that Trump is a Russian agent, being blackmailed by Russia, or a traitor bent on destroying America. That’s just crackers….Frothing conspiracy theories about Trump only drag everyone into that world. Non-stop outrage is exhausting and counterproductive.

Let’s leave aside that Danielle has produced her share of froth. I’ve often thought her outrage at Democrats was exhausting and counterproductive.

What Danielle fails to do is account for Trump’s behavior towards Putin. Let’s suppose that he is not a Russian agent, blackmailed by Russia, or a traitor. Why is he doing what he is doing? It is true, as she says, that the policies of the Administration are different from the behavior of the President, but that makes the mystery even greater.

This morning, the New York Times reveals that President-elect Trump was shown the intelligence demonstrating Putin’s personal involvement in the Russian effort to interfere in his favor. He has nevertheless spent a year and a half shitting on the American intelligence community and denying its unanimous conclusions, now confirmed in a Justice Department indictment. How does one account for that?

One possibility is that he is concerned about the legitimacy of his own election. But that doesn’t actually require him to deny the Russian interference. He could instead simply deny that it affected the outcome.

Instead he has chosen to deny everything: interference, collusion, impact. The interference has been established to the satisfaction of the intelligence community and the Special Counsel. Collusion is well on its way, even if you don’t believe (as I do) that Trump’s public appeal for Russian cooperation in publicizing Hillary Clinton’s emails was a signal to Moscow to release whatever it had. The question of impact will never be resolved, as it involves a counterfactual on which reasonable people won’t agree.

He is president. The main issue is not the legitimacy of his election, but rather the means by which it was achieved and how to prevent Russian interference in the future. By now, most of us have accepted, even if with regret, that the Trump Administration will serve until January 2021, come what may. We would still like to know why Trump behaves the way he does vis-a-vis Putin. Wouldn’t you, Danielle?

Despite all the sturm und drang, Republicans are sticking with Trump. They even liked his performance with Putin and think the allegations of Russian interference are a distraction. The real issues today for most Republicans are immigration and trade.

That is what Danielle should be most concerned about. Trump has converted a party that once supported free trade, legal immigration, and a strong trans-Atlantic alliance into one that wants to protect non-competitive American producers, end the welcome to the tired and poor yearning to breath free, and treat Europe as an enemy. That will wreck the American economy and its leadership of the liberal democratic world. I won’t froth, but what more could Putin hope for?