It’s Always Been Russia

Jonathan Last: “Trump’s political career is inextricably linked to Putin and there are many theories as to why.”

“The ‘why’ doesn’t really matter. It makes no difference if Putin has been blackmailing Trump with kompromat or if Trump sincerely believes that Russia deserves to dominate Europe.”

“But all the same, there’s a simple, non-conspiratorial explanation. Russia has a long history of playing spygames and waging information warfare against other states.”

“In Trump, they saw an American politician who was wholly transactional and they realized that this presented them with an opportunity: If they helped Trump in such a transparent and ostentatious way that it was basically public, then Trump would see Russia as being on his side, and so would treat them as allies.”