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It's easy to read into his parroting of putin's talking points as deliberate, but I think it might just be "wannabe mobster" talk. If anything it's probably a little more nuanced than uncle vlad pulling the puppet strings, but they sure do seem awful friendly..
I think it's risky to ascribe any real agency or planning to trump. He's a very simple creature, and he wears his cravings and impulses on his sleeve. I'm much more worried about the thinking people operating in his chaotic wake.
I’m a firm believer in Hanlon’s Razor, and like you ascribe most of his and his followers’ actions to stupidity, but there’s clearly also some maliciousness.
But given what little we know about Putin and his cunning as an ex KGB officer and likely one of the richest men on the planet — I’m Willing to go into conspiracy land and speculate that he has the ability to puppet master folks and I wouldn’t be surprised that he got his hooks into Trump.
I don't know where their actual motives fall on the spectrum from being useful idiots stage-managed by social media bots and foreign agent handlers, to deliberately working for personal rewards in a new Chinese world order. But does it really matter?