Why Are They Trying to Destroy Trump?

At our current political juncture, in the midst of the ambient insanity, it is useful to have a clear headed assessment of what is going on. Last Friday Tucker Carlson invited Stephen Cohen to offer his perspective, and, at the least it was intelligent and engaging.

You see, Cohen is an emeritus Russian Studies Professor, but he is also a contributing editor at The Nation. You might not know it, but Cohen and Aaron Mate, count among the few men of the left who never bought the Russian collusion narrative. They are not Trump supporters but they maintain their intellectual integrity. Which is probably why you are most likely to see them on Fox News. 

For his part, Cohen is not drawing a hasty conclusion, but he is increasing believing that American and Russian intelligence agencies were working together to undermine the Trump candidacy and presidency. 

It began with the Steele dossier. Cohen explained:

Well, by the way, the first time we met on your program was two and a half years ago when the Steele dossier was published. I think it was January 2017. And we talked about it then.

And I said to you then, this is clearly something concocted probably by Intelligence agencies around the world. And that's what it has turned out to be.

Steele's premise, which got him attention was that he got all this from sources high in the Kremlin, correct? It was supposed to be Kremlin sources. But the story didn't make any sense because the dossier said Putin wanted to elect Trump. So why then we asked ourselves, would Putin's own agents, give Steele dirt on Trump to destroy his candidacy? The whole Steele document made very little sense.

By the way, we now know that Steele was more of a composer than a writer. A lot of people contributed to it, including the wife of a very high- ranking American F.B.I. agent, Louise (sic) Ohr. She said she researched for Steele, so I assume that's what it means.

It didn’t make sense. This implies, if I may, that Putin did not want to see Trump elected. Perhaps he had done so well under the Obama presidency that he would have been much happier to deal with an incompetent fraud like Hillary Clinton. 

But then, Cohen speculates that perhaps the Russian intelligence agencies had gone rogue, like their American counterparts. I find this dubious, but his knowledge here far exceeds mine:

So you've asked me to go someplace we can't go at length. Coming down here, I asked myself, have we ever had a presidential scandal like this in America? No, I can't think of one.

Then because I study the Soviet Union as a profession. I asked myself, did the Russian secret police, the KGB, run its own operations against Soviet leaders who pursued policies they didn't like? And the answer is yes. Particularly detente related policies.

Whether or not Putin was involved, we should ask the question that Cohen raises: why did these intelligence agencies set out to destroy Trump? He has already noted that it did not happen before. Why is it happening now?

So now I connect dots, and feel free to tell me I shouldn't connect these dots, that it's a crazy Russianist thinking, but all of this Russia- gate stuff seems to have originated and that's what Steele tells us with intelligence agencies, American and foreign.

What we don't know is why -- and we need to know this -- they set out to destroy Trump as a candidate in 2016, and then as a President. After all, other American Presidents had pursued cooperation with Russia. What was it about Trump that determined them to destroy him?

Of course, intelligence agencies in America and Russia might have had different reasons. It is worth underscoring that this is unprecedented and that Democratic politicians seem to have gone all in on destroying Trump. Are Schiff and Co. merely Russian stooges or are they stooges of both Russian and American intelligence agencies?

Questions worth raising. It is certainly a good thing that they are being raised by a man of the left, a man who is not pursuing a partisan agenda.