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I cannot help but feel like "either the Russians have a mind control device or else the alternative media were right about everything" is a bit of a false dichotomy. The alternative alternative hypothesis, born out by his behavior during his first term, is that Trump is a simp for authoritarians in general and Putin in particular. It doesn't take a mind control device to explain how a not-very-bright 78 year old conspiracy theorist might fall for bullshit that flatters his preferences.
You're right - fortunately, that's a bit more extreme than what I actually said. I think John Mearsheimer presents the strongest version of the argument that the Potus and his administration seem to believe, and I've heard that a lot of people in Trump's orbit agree with his views. By far the most likely situation to me is that Trump and his team, after gaining access to the Federal Government's resources on the topic, think that he's correct as well.
You mean the mainstream hypothesis promulgated by the legacy media organisations.
I don't think that's an accurate characterisation of his thinking. If he prefers authoritarians, why is Vance out there telling Europe to roll back their incredibly authoritarian hate speech laws? Why is he telling Zelensky that he needs to have free elections - wouldn't he prefer Zelensky more if he just proclaimed himself Caesar for life? I don't think that whether or not someone is an authoritarian is what decides Trump's view of them. As for Putin in particular, do you want to go talk about Russiagate? I've made a lot of posts on the topic both here and on the old site we can go through first.
The POTUS is a conspiracy theorist? Bro, were you alive during Russiagate? The feds really were listening to his phonecalls and trying to take him down - we have the texts and the documents (ever read the Peter Strzok texts?). The Big Guy really was getting a cut from the Burisma scandal, and Trump was totally right to attack Ukraine over it in his first term. When you use the term conspiracy theorist to describe someone with multiple government agencies making spurious attempts to throw him in jail or stymie his efforts and who survived multiple legitimate assassination attempts you're just making the term even more useless than it already is. I mean, sure, the statement is literally true - but the conspiracies in question weren't just real, they were thoroughly documented and some people even went to prison over it.
No, it's literally what you said: " If the Russians have a mind-control weapon which can capture the President without the US military or IC doing anything about it then they have already won and you may as well just roll out the red carpet for them now.
Of course, the alternative hypothesis, that the alternative media and other voices have been correct about the US' pivotal role in starting the Ukraine conflict"
Now, I think you're probably smart enough that you don't think the Russians have literal mind control, but you unambiguously presented that as the only alternative to the Russia apologist POV being correct, despite there being some very obvious reasonable alternative explanations. Thus: a false a dichotomy between your preferred conclusion and a ridiculous one.
There's a laundry list, but the most prominent and undeniable are the Birther conspiracy theory and the 2020 stolen election conspiracy theory.
What I was objecting to was the claim that the alternative media were right about "everything". There's plenty they were wrong about - just ask Sidney Poitier. There was a lot of nonsense and misinformation spread on both sides of the Ukraine conflict, and just because one side was ultimately correct in the end doesn't mean that they were right about everything.
Are there? I haven't seen any. The idea that Trump was captured by Russian propaganda falls outside the "reasonable" camp to me, and it falls especially far out when I cast my mind back over the Russiagate scandal and what actually happened there.
My reading of the Birther conspiracy theory was that he was testing the waters for an eventual political run and building up some goodwill with the republican base. I don't think he actually believed that, but I'm open to the possibility that he did (it doesn't actually change my estimation of him though). As for the 2020 election, I'm not sure how much of that is "conspiratorial thinking" or whatever pejorative you want to imply with use of that language as opposed to trying to win and retain power.
But the bigger problem with accusing Trump of being a conspiracy theorist is that there actually were several conspiracies against him from inside the federal government. There really were spies listening to his communications and cooking up ways to prosecute him on spurious charges! I think you're really further destroying the value of "conspiracy theorist" as a pejorative here - was MLK a conspiracy theorist when he thought the government was surveilling him?
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