Donald Trump today described his campaign as “brilliant,” but those of us who were there remember it for what it was: lurching, volatile, scraping the bottom of the barrel for even remotely competent staff. As we now know, the campaign, in the form of Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone, was willing to take all the help it could get. The trickle of indictments from Robert Mueller make it increasingly difficult to believe that there's no there there, that the Russians didn't meddle, that the Trump campaign didn't know about it, let alone actively welcome it, that all this stolen information just happened to coincide with Trump's statements and the campaign's ad buys and didn't change any votes.
Of course, Trump denies it now. It's hard to imagine even a politician less thin-skinned and prideful than him saying, essentially, “Yes, you're right. My victory was illegitimate, and therefore so is my presidency.” There is no other way to frame this: This is, and has always been, about the legitimacy of his presidency. And no one, especially not a sitting president who values the idea of himself above all else, would cede that ground.
And of course Putin denies it. Going into the summit, friends in the White House pool and TV hosts asked what Putin would do to Trump in their meeting. Would he try to intimidate him, like he did by bringing his black Labrador Konni to his meetings with the notoriously dog-phobic Angela Merkel? Would he push on all those financial ties Trump's sons have bragged about over the years? Of course not. In the end, the only approach that works with Trump is flattery. Trump wants Boris Johnson to be prime minster of England not just because he likes his position on Brexit, but because “he has said very nice things about me.” He likes Putin not just because he's an authoritarian Trump clearly wants to emulate, but because he believes Putin called him a “genius.” (The actual word used, “colorful,” was more of a backhanded compliment, but Putin wisely let the mistranslation stand.) And if Putin were smart, which he clearly is, he would have flattered Trump exactly the way he needed to be in their tête-à-tête: by echoing his denials. Of course we didn't interfere, Donald. You won fair and square. You did it all by your genius self.
I was always skeptical of the idea that Putin had kompromat on Trump that was something akin to the rumored pee-pee tape for two reasons. First, because the operative element in blackmail is shame, and as we saw with his reaction to another embarrassing tape, the one from Access Hollywood, Trump is un-blackmailable on that front. I also assumed that Trump would lash out at anyone who tried to pressure him openly: Do this, or we release the tape. No one puts Trump in a corner.
What didn't occur to me was the most obvious option, the one we saw revealed in Helsinki. When Putin was asked if he had compromising materials on Trump, Trump interjected and said, “I have to say, if they had it, it would have been out long ago.” And it’s true. It’s been out for ages, since the October 2016 warning by the intelligence community, then the January 2017 report from the Director of National Intelligence, then the drip-drip-drip of revelations in the press, and indictment after Mueller indictment, the last installment coming just three days before the Helsinki presser. Trump was right. It is out there.
The kompromat is the election result itself, and Trump is lashing out at the people who are trying to get him to do something on its basis: the press, the Democrats, the intelligence community, Robert Mueller, and Trump's own Department of Justice. We are the ones saying, Do this or else. And Trump is, predictably, lashing out. The only person, it seems, who knows how to use the blackmail to his advantage is Putin. True to the intelligence training he spoke about today, Putin knows his subject and his supple psychology, the nooks and crannies of his insecurities and obsessions. Why threaten him when you can get him to do your bidding with simple flattery: Of course we didn't interfere, Donald. You won fair and square. You did it all by your genius self.
It's a solid theory, for sure. Trump is doing Putin's budding because anything else would be an admission that he cheated and had help, that he didn't win on his own, and that he doesn't deserve it, that he's nothing more than a sham. His ego can't handle it.
That's all true, of course. Trump has always been a sham, but now he's trapped in his own grift forever, and so are the Republicans around him and the voters who fell for the long con. They will never, ever come clean on this, but it would destroy them for all time. They would go down as the greatest villains in modern history, the dupes, the suckers, and the goats.
They flocked to Trump because they were terrified that America was passing them by. Admitting they were willing participants in the con, because the best cons always make you want to believe in them, you see, that would end them. They would lose everything, and they would deserve to lose everything.
Remember, Trump never thought he was going to win. But he did, and he did it with help from Putin. So now he's along for the ride, and Putin is driving. We're all passengers now.
So they will play along until we disabuse of them of the notion that the con can continue.
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