“Just because he speaks a little guilty, that don’t make him innocent….”

                                                  Orson Welles as the corrupt sheriff in “Touch of Evil”

The question seems outrageous at first blush, but on further consideration not so much. In any case, Sen. Jeffrey Merkley posed it during a recent Senate committee confirmation hearing: “Is Donald Trump a Russian asset?”

Merkley said he had been asked that question by constituents, and so he was asking two individuals seeking confirmation to be ambassadors if they agreed with it. Merkley cited five activities by Donald Trump in support of the query:

• Trump’s repeating Russian propaganda asserting that Ukraine had started the war with Russia, and that he had called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator”.
• Trump’s stopping shipment of U.S. arms to Ukraine.
• Trump’s giving away negotiating positions before even beginning talks with Russia to stop the war.
• Undermining the Western Alliance, a long-term goal of Vladimir Putin.
• In coordination with Vice President Vance, publicly ambushing Zelenskyy during a White House visit.

 “I can’t imagine that if he was a Russian asset, he could be doing anything more favorable than these five points,” Merkley said. “…what else could a Russian asset do that Trump hasn’t done yet?”

We can add to Merkley’s points, with examples both foreign and domestic that, calculated or not, leave the United States in a weakend position at home and abroad:

Trump’s “peace proposal” to end Russia’s aggression into Ukraine—-leaving Russia with all the territory it now occupies, including Crimea, and prohibiting Ukraine from joining NATO—essentially terms of surrender for Ukraine and a victory for Vladimir Putin. Trump has consistently, publicly, taken positions favorable to Russia. Most recently, and for the first time, the United States voting with Russia, Belarus and North Korea against a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia for the war with Ukraine.

The attempted shuttering of the Voice of America, which reached 420 million listeners abroad, in 100 different countries and 63 languages. The VOA for many of the listeners, including those living in dictatorships, is the only reliable source of information. The agency also told the American story in a factual, non-partisan way, and was considered an invaluable tool of soft diplomacy.

The closing of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with its $41 billion budget—cheap at twice the price—that buys goodwill  around the world, not to mention feeding millions, providing life-saving vaccines to millions of children and saving lives for millions more through a variety of programs. USAID is a prime example of developing soft power, a development that we now have apparently ceded to China and Russia.

We can also add the haphazard, willy-nilly dismantling of government agencies in general, firing thousands of experienced and promising government workers with no apparent plan or system determining who should be discharged. The actions have left critical agencies, some involved in national security, incapable of performing their vital missions.

The global imposition of tariffs, especially on our closest allies and trading partners, in some cases in violation of agreements negotiated by Trump during his previous term in office. Attacking Canada, America’s closest partner and levying heavy tariffs on its goods and services, refueling inflation domestically and potentially crippling our economy and the rest of world as well.

Aside from publicly supporting Russia and snubbing our noses at our allies, look at the domestic actions taken in the Trump administration’s first 100 days:

• Firing most of the inspectors general (probably illegal), essentially preventing any investigation of corruption, conflict of interest or other criminal activity within the agencies involved.
• Bypassing and emasculating Congress—with the Republican leadership’s apparent blessing—usurping its constitutional rights and powers. 
• Appointing an unqualified, inexperienced Trump loyalist to run the Defense Department (whose inspector general has been cashiered) opening the door to incompetence, ineffectiveness and the much condemned (orally at least) waste, fraud and abuse.
• Appointing an unqualified, inexperienced anti-vaxxer to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Appointing an unqualified, inexperienced loyalist as head of the FBI in order to direct investigations of personal enemies and critics and block any attempts to investigate fraud and corruption in the administration. Attempting to appoint a disgraced totally unqualified congressman as head of the Justice Department, and, when that failed, appointing a loyalist who vowed to end the “weaponization” of that department, before suggesting a weaponization of her own—politically motivated investigations of Trump adversaries.
• Pardoning virtually all the convicted criminals who participated in the January 6, 2021, insurrection outside and inside the Capitol, including those who attacked police trying to protect the building and its inhabitants.
• Giving an unqualified billionaire license to fire thousands of federal employees without any expertise, study or apparent plan in the name of “efficiency,” and without consultation with the putative department heads.
• Attacking prestigious universities for supposed tolerance of antisemitism on campus or promotion of DEI programs. The concern for Jewish students is dubious; in fact, antisemitism provides the administration yet another club to use against colleges and universities. An added, potential benefit for the administration may be the provoking of attacks on Jews who will get the blame for the administration’s actions.
• The extortion of prominent law firms that effectively bars them from taking on clients opposed to administration programs or policy and discourages other law firms from doing so.

What are we to make of these activities? How can we reconcile these actions with America’s national interest?

It’s discomforting to be abandoning historic allies to join forces with adversaries whose interests don’t align with ours, whose values we don’t share and whose vision for the future is not ours.

Those are some of the immediate activities that suggest that we have swapped historic friends and allies for questionable partners. Treating former friends like adversaries though—-Canada, Mexico, Europe to name only a few—-is incomprehensible.

We can only speculate about where all of this is going. Trump’s economic moves and threats against Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, have shaken faith in the reliability of the United States as the most economically stable country in the world. The stock and bond markets plummeted, the dollar was weakened by sell-offs although they all have since recovered somewhat. Consumer confidence is at a three-year low. Economists are predicting both inflation and recession resulting from the tariffs.

Our European allies have made clear that they can no longer rely on America’s support or leadership. We can only speculate, because of recent scandals involving the security of communication of classified material, what the impact will be on intelligence sharing with longtime friends.

All of these actions are against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s ruling giving all presidents—past, present and future—absolute immunity for any and all official acts, regardless of motive.

Merkley is correct. It doesn’t matter whether Trump is a Russian asset or not. The chaos, confusion and disarray all these actions have caused are clearly in Russia’s interest and fail any definition of putting America first.

Given all these examples—which are only a partial list—one doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to pose Merkley’s question about Trump. The conventional explanation is that Trump admires autocratic leaders and Putin fills the bill. That analysis couples with the theory that Trump thrives on chaos.

Viewed from a different perspective, however, the chaos, the wanton destruction of programs that buy support and affection around the globe, the dismantling of federal government agencies and programs, the deliberate alienating of close allies, the cozying up to Russia and other authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, the attacks on universities, the extortion of law firms, throwing a grenade into the American economy and on and on—all of that and more can be reasonably interpreted as a concerted effort to weaken and subjugate opposition, leaving the country in disarray while subverting federal investigators and keeping law enforcement  from acting and, as a consequence,  setting us on the road to authoritarian, undemocratic rule.

If the shoe fits….