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jfengel

It is often asked what an actual foreign agent would do differently if he were trying to destroy the country.

I don't think that's entirely valid. Nonetheless, there is enough overlap that the question keeps getting raised.

So... perhaps that's what you're missing?

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Or, as the Canadian press wonders, right now, today and continuously, how can we tell if he’s lost his mind?

When he forgets to tell us how smart he is, and how many very difficult dementia tests he's passed. That's when he'll be fully scrambled.

It's easy to pin this all on a foreign enemy, but this "theory" is completely invalidated by noticing that Trump receives support from all the most powerful person of the country: Musk, Zuckerberg, Thiel, Ellison, Bezos... America doesn't need foreign adversaries to destroy itself.

Two of the big names in your list there are not even americans.

They are, by any relevant metric...

How many of these people have talked to Putin or other similarly-skilled Russian intelligence agents that convinced them that Russian style oligarchy would give them more power than liberal democracy?

I would guess most if not all. Bezos is the only one who I imagine might not have had detailed discussions. Musk was completely in the grasp of Putin, though that seems to have changed in the past month with the sudden change of heart and disablement of Russian military starlink inside Ukraine. Apparently it was implemented in a single day, and SpaceX staff was confused by the sudden change in heart. That is still consistent with Putin playing Musk like a puppet earlier when they had direct conversations.

I think there are a confluence of reasons for this behavior, and I while I think that foreign influence can't explain it all, it would explain a huge chunk.

It's always fascinating people who don't know how things work openly spouting evidence of their ignorance.

Feel free to offer how you think things work, and why, if you can.

You can't implement a whitelist when the party required to make the list doesn't do it.

Unless you're ready to switch the entire thing off.

The public statements from Ukraine from day zero don't agree with your perspective.

Hanlon's razor still applies: "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" [0]. He might be such a foreign agents, however we know that he is unintelligent and narcissistic, therefore everyone who makes him look stupid/bad is suddenly "public enemy number one."

Notes:

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

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