GOP Senator Gets Desperate And Claims Trump Is Too Incompetent to Collude with Russia

Guys, you can all take a break from vigilantly checking to see if you need to fly the Russian flag now or not, because Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and a former senior Trump campaign official say Trump couldn’t have colluded with Russia because he doesn’t even collude with his own staff.

It’s a pretty basic attempt at an incompetence defense:

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The thing is, being used by the Russians doesn’t require an ability to collude on Trump’s part.

Also, collusion as deal-making is not the same thing as leading a team effectively. To equate these two is a pretty thin attempt at a weak defense. Deal-making/colluding gets something for Trump, as does pitting his own team against one another for a survival of the fittest game of pleasing the boss.

What’s really going on here is Republicans are trying to justify why they aren’t all kinds of alarmed about the confirmation that the Russian military hacked into the voter registration information in the 2016 election, and why they haven’t given proper resources to an investigation into Trump Russia.

The definition of collude is “to come to a secret understanding for a harmful purpose; conspire.”

The way Graham is using it is incorrect, unless he thinks that Trump’s goal in his White House is to come to a secret understanding with his staff in order to implement a harmful purpose. This subtle conflation of meanings is an old tactic, it’s a desperate tactic, but it will probably work for a while because the media loves a good Republican talking point.

“Is Trump too incompetent to conspire with his own staff!?” This question is a red herring. It seems like it might fit since Trump is obviously incompetent at his job, but that is only when people apply their definition of what a President should be doing. Trump’s definition is obviously different – he’s using the presidency to make a lot of money and a lot of deals, for one thing. And he hasn’t been so incompetent at violating ethics rules. Somehow the bungler in chief manages just fine when it comes to pocketing some profit.

The real question here is if Trump is so incompetent that Republicans don’t think he could collude with the Russians, when he actually did so IN PUBLIC when he told them to hack Hillary Clinton during a speech and passed on messages to praise their response to then President Obama’s increased sanctions, then why are Republicans enabling Trump to continue on as President?

If he can’t “collude” with the Russians because he can’t “collude” with anyone the way Graham is using it, why is he in the White House.

Don’t fall for the Trump is an idiot defense, or the attempts to blame all of the various people around him. The poison is coming from the top, and while Trump is wildly incompetent at the job of being a statesman and an adult man, he is really good as a con artist and showman.

Don’t fall for the easy parody of Trump as the idiot or underestimate his abilities and his ruthlessness. This excuse is complete rubbish, and Graham knows better.

Sarah Jones

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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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