I try to think about the kompromat/collusion theory realistically... which is that Trump and his team made certain assurances to Russia in exchange for help. Some of those assurances aren't possible today because of the Russia hysteria. Trump, fearing Putin, wants to show respect to him publicly, because Trump knows he hasn't delivered on most, if not all, of those assurances, and Putin could cause a bunch of chaos in the US by releasing damaging information on Trump and company. That said, the chaos would probably hurt Russia some as well.

I think if the conspiracy exists, Trump is riding the fence between acting in the interests of the United States and not overly offending Putin. Putin doesn't want defensive weapons sent to Ukraine but he does want the Western alliance to falter, and Trump, while claiming he's strengthening NATO by demanding they pay more for defense, seems to be driving a wedge between the US and our Western allies.

This post was edited by IceMage on Jul 17 2018 02:11pm

Which of the votes are you paying attention too?

The measure I quoted, it hasn't been posted yet. It'll be funny to see if Paul voted against or for his own statements.

Too rational for the trump cultists.

Same here, ill be watching as well.

And 50% of the funds from this podcast go directly to supporting the good folks in Israel. Please send your donations.

i dont particularly like the Israel occupation comments that idiot newblood made but when Shapiro started ranting about it yesterday i just changed to another show. as i regularly do when he talks about the conflict there.

occam's razor: if you have to choose between several alternative explanations for an observation or phenomenom, settle for the one that requires the least amount of assumptions, i.e. for the least complex one.

Yes, this collusion theory is a possibility and logically consistent within itself.

My alternative theory is that Trump is an insecure narcissist who cannot come to terms with the idea that russian interference might have helped him in his 2016 election victory, since acknowledging the meddling would inevitably undermine his greatest triumph and question the legitimacy of his presidency.

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For the collusion theory to work, we need two big assumptions:

First, that Trump colluded with russia for whatever reason and in whatever capacity. And second, that Putin preferred to get a propaganda win/nice words from Trump in Helsinki over Trump being complicit in Putin achieving his strategic goals.

To elaborate on this second point: Putin is a smart guy who knows that Trump can be much more soft on Russia-related issues if the domestic pressure is low; and that the way Trump handled the press conference would increase this domestic pressure. So yes, this summit was good for Putin's ego and propaganda. But under the assumption that Trump is colluding with him and wants to play into Russia's hands, the way the summit went down was a setback for Putin's strategic interests since Trump will now be forced to be tougher on Russia than ever before. Since Putin is known to be a cold-blooded and cunning strategist, this assumption that he preferred looks over substance is quite a big and debatable one.

For my theory of Trump being narcissistic, we need zero assumptions: Trump has been a prominent public figure for all his adult life, we have decades of material that proves him to be an insecure narcissist. And there is no denying that the assertion of russian meddling with the 2016 election does undermine his presidency.

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To sum it up, the collusion theory requires two big and not yet verifiable assumptions to work, while my narcissism theory requires zero assumptions. By occam's razor, the logical thing to do is to default on the narcissism theory until further evidence pops up.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 17 2018 04:11pm