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Anyone notice the “common theme” (and common dates) involved in this Donald Twitter Tirade?
At the time, in the run-up to last year’s election, I just thought that Trump’s constant mentioning of a “rigged election” already-in-process, was just pre-emptive “sour grapes” — an attempt to let him walk away from his soon-to-be failed campaign, with some sort of “excuse” to drape over his wounded and humiliated ego — however lame that “rigged excuse” may have been …
Turns out the Donald, with his resignation of going back to his previous gig of being a minor Celebrity Billionaire, was not the only one expecting such an outcome. There was another “playbook” predicting the very same thing. One could say that Trump was ‘singing’ (tweeting) from that very same “page” of that playbook …
[...]
A second institute document [from the the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies], drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency, the seven [U.S. Intelligence] officials said.
— Reuters, April 27, 2017
Putin-linked think tank drew up plan to sway 2016 US election - documents
Those were hard-copy Documents, acquired by U.S. Intelligence agencies. They detailed the Russian Think Tank’s high-level goals and tactics concerning the U.S. 2016 Election. And as is flatly stated in that article, the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies is definitely within Putin’s wheelhouse:
The institute is run by retired senior Russian foreign intelligence officials appointed by Putin’s office.
The first stage of the Think Tank hard-copy plan recommended that …
the Kremlin launch a propaganda campaign on social media and Russian state-backed global news outlets to encourage U.S. voters to elect a president who would take a softer line toward Russia [...]
And when it eventually became obvious that their “heir-apparent” (Trump) was going to lose, they switched their operation gears in October to 2016, to inflicting as much damage to Candidate Hillary Clinton, as surreptitiously possible (as outlined in the “Second Document” reference above). And the Billy Bush “locker-room guy”, was all too-happy to go along with the ruse, as it gave him “something else to talk about” for the next few humiliating weeks.
As Daily Kos writer Mark Sumner, so astutely noticed when he covered this Reuters news at the end of April 2017:
One interesting factor is that in October—previous to James Comey upending the election with the public release of his letter about Hillary Clinton's emails—the Russian observers concluded that Clinton was likely to win and that the focus of their effort should be on damaging the credibility of the election.
[emphasis added]
And Trump was actively going along with the Russian “Election Dis-crediting” effort (as the above Tweets show). The obvious question to be asked here is:
Was Trump knowingly following the Putin Playbook? Or was he just accidentally following Putin’s lead? — which somehow incredulously resulted in him becoming The Accidental President.
This outcome far exceeding anyone’s rationale expectations at the time (even Trump’s, even Putin’s), about the very likely outcome of America’s 2016 Election.
If not for Comey “upending the election” (and unexpectedly linking “Carlos Danger” to Hillary Clinton) at the last minute, America would have the President we deserve, and not the Apprentice we must endure.
Even Putin’s Think Tank knew that much.