These benign explanations of Trump's behavior follow two clear paths. One is that Trump is too stupid to understand the difference between Russia interfering in our election and collusion between his campaign and the Russians. The other is that Trump's ego makes him think that highlighting Russian interference in the election simply diminishes his actual victory. Of course, these theories are in conflict. In one, Trump is simply too dumb while in the other he has full understanding but his ego won't let him admit it.
A more recent corollary of the first theory is that, whatever Trump may actually have done, he simply doesn't believe any of it was illegal, or has convinced himself so. This has become necessary to explain Trump's increasing attacks on the Mueller investigation and the constant tweets, statements, and actions that amount to a continual obstruction of justice.
The third option that explains so much of his behavior and everyone else who worked on the campaign and lied about their activities is that Trump is simply guilty of collusion and/or conspiracy with the Russians. But that option rarely gets broached at all in stories about Trump and Russia.
Chait cites Washington Post reporter Philip Bump as an example of searching for the most benign interpretation of Trump's behavior when he writes, "a significant part of Trump’s approach is simply how he sees dealmaking. NATO is a contract that was thrust upon him. Putin is a deal waiting to be made between two strong-minded individuals. That others insist such a deal is unwise or can’t be done is all the more reason for Trump to run toward it." This statement manages to ignore the unseemly fact that most of the "deals" that Trump has made have always involved some interesting corollary where Trump or the Trump Organization receive some benefit. The two most recent examples of that are the flip-flop on ZTE sanctions after a Chinese investment into a Trump development project in Singapore and offering Kim Jung-un the "opportunity" to have Trump develop the North Korean coastline in return for giving up his nukes.
Of course, there is a perfectly logical and reasonable geopolitical theory that Trump could use to explain his continued actions that benefit Russia and ties in beautifully with his attacks on China. China is set to become the 21st century superpower. In order to counteract China's global ambitions, it will be necessary to become allies with Russia in order to provide a pincer movement of containment. All of Trump's contacts with Russians during the campaign and all his actions since then that seem to benefit Putin have to be seen in this light. In addition, the rise of China also means that NATO as presently configured is far less important than it used to be and shouldn't tie up as much US resources as it does.
Whether or not you believe that strategy or theory is legitimate, it would provide a more rational basis for what Trump has done than almost anything else other than collusion. And there would be plenty of Republicans and hawkish foreign policy professionals who would support this point of view. But neither Trump nor anyone in the Trump administration has even proposed this theory to the best of my knowledge.
The reporting bias on benign explanations that Chait highlights is especially apparent in the coverage of Rudy Giuliani's increasingly ridiculous defenses of the President. Giuliani keeps on saying that he is continuing to negotiate with the Mueller about an interview with the President. And Trump continually says that he wants to speak with Mueller but his lawyers won't let him. This is pure hogwash at this point. These "negotiations" have been going on for nearly a year with no result. Trump and his team concluded early on this year that they would not submit to an interview and would try to force Mueller to subpoena Trump, creating a constitutional crisis that would be taken to the Supreme Court. Either way, Trump was never going to talk to Mueller before the midterms. But the media continually reports Giuliani's statements about negotiating with Mueller as fact, despite no confirmation from the Mueller side.
Giuliani also states that any campaign would take a meeting with someone offering dirt on their opponents. This statement continually goes unchallenged although it seems to finally be getting some pushback, such as on Morning Joe earlier today. The most often cited example of how false Giuliani's statement is was how the Gore campaign dealt with receiving the Bush debate prep material. Gore's people returned called the FBI immediately and those who saw the material recused themselves from any further debate help for Gore. Of course, there was a degree of self-preservation in their patriotism as they suspected that the material was actually a dirty trick designed by Karl Rove.
Of course, the Trumpsters never considered the fact that receiving dirt from the Russians would actually compromise their campaign because they lived in that gutter their entire lives. More importantly, there has never been a campaign in modern American history that had as many contacts with a foreign enemy as the Trump campaign with Russian and that includes the Nixon campaign negotiating with North Vietnam and the Reagan campaign negotiating with the Iranians in order to win their elections. This virtually never gets mentioned in media coverage of Rudy's claims.
Josh Marshall makes the extremely cogent point that all the evidence shows that Trump is guilty of conspiring with a foreign power to win an election. Whether that can be proved in a legal sense remains to be seen. But the media and a large segment of the American public is having a hard time accepting the fact of his essential guilt. Marshall writes, "We know Trump is guilty, as civic and public matter if not a narrowly legal one. We’re just having a hard time coming to grips with the fact." And it's not going to get any easier if the media keeps ignoring the most obvious explanation for Trump's behavior just because it's too uncomfortable to contemplate. Of course, that may be because much of the media realizes, but won't admit, they were complicit in Trump's ascension as well.
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