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In reply to the discussion: 'The perfect target': Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years - ex-KGB spy [View all]regnaD kciN
(27,059 posts)40. You miss a couple of points...
To my knowledge, Trump made zero effort to extoll the virtues of communism or to denigrate the United States in any sort of public manner, which would be the only use for a semi-famous rich real estate dude in NYC. Much the opposite, he embraced capitalism.
...he didn't have to "extol the virtues of communism" to be useful to the U.S.S.R., and he didn't "sudden(ly), in his early '70s," decide to run for president. On the contrary, as the article mentions, he first floated a run for president in 1988 (only months after his visit to the Soviet Union), and again in 2000. In 1988, right at the end of the "Morning in America" era, his brief run included an open letter/advertisement in major papers calling for U.S. foreign policy to distance itself from N.A.T.O. and stop spending its defense funding on Japan. It doesn't take a master diplomat to realize that both of those proposals would have been music to the ears of the Soviet Politburo just as much as they would be to their current Russian successor.
When they groomed Trump in the '70s and '80s, did the KGB expect that Trump would eventually become president? Highly unlikely. But was it to their advantage to reel him in, with the expectation that he could become prominent in the Republican Party (and, being the very image of capitalist success would have made sure he was welcome there, or in the emerging "Third Way" Democratic wing, for that matter) and thus become a major voice for isolationism? I'm guessing that was their real goal, and it paid off admirably.
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'The perfect target': Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years - ex-KGB spy [View all]
DonViejo
Jan 2021
OP
The other very effective side of this gambit is the American unwillingness to believe it.
byronius
Jan 2021
#9
Act on what we (royal) know? Our legal system is set up to play the waiting game
Backseat Driver
Jan 2021
#29
My opinion is this is some dude just trying to make some money off of Trump haters.
Calista241
Jan 2021
#10
Spot on. Shvets and Unger is again stretching reality to fit the best selling lists...
TomVilmer
Jan 2021
#18
You know about that lavish palace on the Black Sea? I bet it's the trump family new dacha.
erronis
Jan 2021
#12
This is why it should be a stipulation that before a candidate can be nominated they must be fully
onetexan
Jan 2021
#15
It simply isn't rational how Trump defended Russia/Putin at every turn.
world wide wally
Jan 2021
#19
What the Soviets and Russians needed most out of Trump is money laundering services
jmowreader
Jan 2021
#44