Helsinki--the Tipping Point?

[Dill]

(07-17-2018, 10:22 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: The fact that he wasn't an 'experienced politician' doesn't really seem to fly when it comes to him completely ignoring his own Intel community and law enforcement Directors, most of which, he appointed / hired. That just seems like something more than simple stupidity or ineptness.

IDK man, he had to know what the incredible backlash would be if he defended or sided with Putin, yet he did it anyway.

That is spot on.

He has people telling him how to prepare for summits, and what NOT to ever say. But he ignores their advice, wings it. Then blames the press and his staff when it all goes south, as his staff warned him it would.  "What about Hillary's server?" That isn't just inexperience. No candidate from either party would have called for this summit and then botched it like this.

I think it possible, even likely, that he DID NOT really understand the backlash that would follow from from kissing Putin's ring on behalf of the nation. I think Putin had a narrative ready for him, knew how to present it, and Trump, all alone and unprepared, swallowed it hook, line, and sinker, thinking his base and most of the party would understand how "important" working with Russia is and how unimportant invading the Ukraine was. ("It happened under Obama.") That is Putin's narrative--not the GOP's. And most of the GOP could see that.

This will go down as the greatest and most successful psy op in history. Can all the US security agencies and the DoD and Congress effectively respond to Russian interference in our politics when the #1 "mole" is the commander in chief--and can't admit he's the mole?