I genuinely believe that Trump is a puppet of Putin, and I also genuinely believe Trump himself has no idea. When shown the actual numbers of deaths of Americans due to COVID, in that Aussie interview last week, he was genuinely flummoxed for a moment. I believe he had never seen that information. His aides don't tell him anything he doesn't want to hear, and only tell him good news. ALL of his aides and family are completely compromised by Russia and China, however. So the ONLY information Trump acts on (outside of Fox News) is the bad information, fed to his closest team, by the Russian operatives running them. I don't think Trump has any idea that he is completely under Putin's thumb. Seriously.
I don't doubt that any of this is true. I want to believe it isn't true. I secretly hope this is true. It reads like an amazing spy novel... or like a season of The Americans on a much more insidious level. If it is even 10% true, our republic is in more trouble than any of us realize.
US History classes in 15 years are going to be REEEEEAAAAALLLY interesting. I kinda expect the whole Trump cadre to move out of the US at some point in the next few years, to a place that is more "friendly" to their type of business dealings and friends. Oh Don Jr and Ivanka and the rest of the reprobates will still nominally have addresses in NYC, and gladly accept checks from Trump properties in the US... but I expect they will live the majority of their time outside of the US borders. In ... erm ... "friendlier" territories ... That's the model many ex-Dictator's families follow....
I certainly hope so... but my experience 30 years ago didn't include Japanese internment camps, Black Wall Street, or Stonewall... so I have little hope that 15 years will be enough time for dust to settle and truth to come out.US History classes in 15 years are going to be REEEEEAAAAALLLY interesting.
Same with me... but I think information is different nowadays. We are no longer solely beholden to the view of a couple of Texas conservatives who approve all history books in the USA. Once Trump dies, I expect the FOIA requests will come fast and hard, and we will see some really interesting analyses of the full scope of his misdeeds, who were his accomplices, and the organizations that worked behind the scenes to control him... Heck, we already have much of that for Paul Manafort, who was Trump's fixer in Russia...
I will agree with you that Trump doesn't think he's a puppet. He definitely does what he can for his good buddies the Russians, though. Dubinin himself arranged his first visit. I'm also entirely certain that Melania Trump is an FSB asset and has been since college. I doubt she's the only hot Slavic girl the FSB dangled in front of Donald Trump but she's the one that stuck. In exchange for tempting American businessmen her family got visas and she probably got an allowance until someone took the bait. But they've got something on Trump, too. He's a man of pure Id between a carrot and a stick.