gracchusdixit

It is a sign of how grim our times have become that it is no longer possible to be shocked by anything Donald Trump does, no matter how cruel, shameful, or vindictive.  His decision to assail and humiliate our closest allies at the opening meeting of the annual NATO summit in Brussels was therefore generally greeted, not with shock, but with a sense of weary, woeful resignation.  

Not that expectations were high.  Most thoughtful people on both sides of the Atlantic merely hoped that Trump might restrain his worst instincts and try to behave in a civil way.  Their hopes were dashed the moment he arrived in Brussels.

Trump had scarcely taken his seat around the conference table when he unleashed a fact-free tirade against NATO members in general and Germany in particular.  He asserted that other NATO nations are “delinquent” in the payments they “owe” the United States for years of defending Europe against Russian aggression.  He accused Germany of being “the captive” of Russia, because a German company has built a pipeline under the Baltic to import Russian natural gas.  He completely misrepresented the way NATO is funded, either because he doesn’t understand it or doesn’t want to.  All in all, his vitriolic attack on what is incontestably the most successful military and diplomatic alliance of modern times—an alliance created by the United States to serve its own military, political, and economic interests—was stunning.

If there is any consolation in this deplorable episode, it is this:  we can now stop pretending that there is any doubt about what Trump is up to.

For the better part of two years, journalists, commentators, former government officials, and Trump opponents at both ends of the political spectrum have been shaking their heads in bewilderment at his persistent defense of Russia and Russia’s autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin.  Against all evidence, against the unanimous conclusion of our intelligence agencies, against the no less unanimous affirmation provided by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Trump has denied that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to benefit him, choosing, instead, to accept Putin’s denials as “sincere”.   When the United States Senate voted for strict sanctions on Russia because of its interference in our elections, Trump delayed and backpedaled.  When a Russian defector in the United Kingdom was assassinated with a neurotoxic chemical agent manufactured in Russia, Trump had to be dragged screaming and kicking to retaliate and made no secret of his displeasure in having been forced to do so.  Whenever Russia or Putin are criticized, he goes out of his way to defend, and even praise, them.  

To all of this, the pundit class has rolled its eyes and professed its astonishment, claiming to be dumbfounded by what Trump’s motives might be.  Some have chalked it up to Trump’s bottomless narcissism, suggesting that he feels comfortable only with those, like Putin, who praise him lavishly.  Others have advanced the argument that he is an insecure bully, who gravitates toward other bullies on the world stage, because he sees his own reflection in their mirror.  Still others have argued that he bears a grudge against the established political and economic elite, the suave and cosmopolitan Europeans most of all, because they have never admitted him to their club; thus, the argument goes, Trump embraces thuggish outsiders like Putin out of grievance and spite.

It’s time to end this charade.  All these theories of the case are tortured circumlocutions, diverting our eyes from what has been unspeakably obvious from the day Donald J. Trump descended the escalator in the faux-gold atrium of Trump Tower to declare his candidacy:  the President of the United States is in the pocket of the Russian government, either because he is being paid or because he is being blackmailed, and we do not need to wait for the outcome of Robert Mueller’s investigation to see what is staring us in the face.

Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is sitting in jail, awaiting trial for money laundering and illegal lobbying.  All the while he was running Trump’s campaign, he was deeply in debt to one of Russia’s richest oligarchs, a close-friend of Putin.  He was paid millions of dollars to advance the cause of Ukraine’s former autocrat, who is now living in exile in Russia under Putin’s protection.  Add to all of which, Manafort’s long-time business partner in Ukraine was an agent for Russian military intelligence.  

As Trump was running for president, his one-time lawyer, Michael Cohen was conniving with a Russian-born mobster named Felix Sater to build a hotel in Moscow, a project that would have required Putin’s personal approval and financing by Russian banks controlled by Putin.

There were at least 46 undisclosed meetings between Russians and members of the Trump campaign and the Trump administration that were denied or lied about, in some cases under oath, most infamously by the current Attorney General of the United States, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.  

There were numerous attempts to set up secret back-channels by which members of the Trump campaign and administration could communicate with the Russians secretly, without the knowledge of the State Department or our intelligence agencies.  Spearheading these attempts were Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Eric Prince, the brother of Education Secretary Betsy Devos, who is the founder of a shady firm that provides private military contractors—a.k.a., mercenaries—to the Defense Department.  

Finally, there was the infamous meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016, in which Donald Trump Jr. eagerly embraced an offer by agents of the Russian government to provide information that might be damaging to Hillary Clinton, a meeting that was first denied, then misrepresented, by none other than Donald Trump himself.

Even before this week’s disastrous NATO summit in Brussels, to have imagined that these, and dozens of other compromising and conspiratorial acts were coincidences, accidents, or inconsequential errors of judgment required more than credulity—it required that we close our eyes, plug our ears, and crawl under a rock.  

Such comforting evasions are no longer possible.  Donald Trump’s betrayal of our nation’s fundamental interests is now openly on display.  Hillary Clinton was right.  Trump is Putin’s puppet.  His treachery is hiding in plain sight.