In my opinion

When trump first announced his bid for the presidency, it was hard to take him seriously. It's not like he had any experience, and I have no idea if he ever ran a successful business.

But he's a showman and an entertainer. So he said words, the best words, so many words. And he got people stirred up for an idyllic america. He bought his way onto the scene with a campaign that relied on donations and hat purchases.

And then he became a "serious" contender in the Republican Party for reasons that are hard to understand (but really it was about that buying his way up in exchange for particular endorsements).

I don't think he ever wanted to win. It's just an opinion. But I think he did it for a couple of reasons: ego, to buy some influence in international deals (or perhaps to reduce some debts), to drum up support for his own planned news network, and most importantly so he take any leftover campaign funds and transfer them to his charity - which he used as a piggy bank.

Then along comes Russia. Putin has plans on shaping world views. But the EU and the US were in his way. If he could help create some dissension in either, or both, he could exert his will and become the most powerful man - and set world policy.

He had hackers and trolls and disinformation at his disposal. He had analytics sites he could effectively buy to peddle influence.

He saw an opportunity with Britain to push the ideal he heard from several people (mostly notably Boris Johnson) to talk up British independence. A disinformation campaign there could help them achieve their own goal and would weaken both the EU and Britain.

And boy did it....

Meanwhile he saw Donald trump bumbling along. And Donald had reached out to Putin for "help" somewhat publicly. Donald was totally self absorbed and only wanted things for himself. What if putin helped him win the election, and told him he did, so he'd "owe Putin" and would go along with things. And besides Hillary was an adversary.

From Putin's perspective that would be a win and would allow him to get his world view shaped.

Donald wins. There's intelligence information gathered. Mueller is hired to investigate. MI6 in Britain has the goods too, but is too busy to deal with it.

And so however it goes down. Whether it was luck, a targeted disinformation campaign, or vote manipulation matters - but in this context doesn't. Putin has a mostly unwitting bozo who he can control in the Whitehouse.

The US is now going to be removed from the world stage for a while.

And we stumble in the dark for 3 years. I'm assuming there was some ... influence ... peddled to some key senators and congresspeople to do nothing. What that looks like, or perhaps it's just that they really don't care, I really don't know.

In any event, here we are in the next election year and there are questions about whether Russia (or another country) would help again to influence an election. We simply don't know. Most countries don't like trump. A few maybe would be willing to help; he asked china but my guess is they don't care if he wins or loses, though it's just a guess

But if you look at it from Putin's point of view, the damage is done. Trump is not a necessary pawn any longer. If he stays then perhaps there are issues because trump would believe himself to be king and may go mad with power (and perhaps may not be so easily manipulated); or then again maybe he continues to play along.

But if he goes, then surely the damage already done could easily last another decade to fix. Meaning america is no threat for now, anyway.

If you read the tea leaves, the information that came out yesterday about Putin paying bounties on American soldiers and trump knowing about it - but doing nothing - is pretty much why there's a treason provision. Why does that come out shortly before an election? To damage him and stirs more issues into the pot? That kind of thing would leave us infighting for a while...

And speaking of that, this info leaves the GOP in an impossible spot. They've hitched their wagons to trump. He is the GOP. His fate is their fate.

Will they do something about it? Do they care?

The way I see it, they have three options: (1) turn the same blind eye and do nothing. Which is hard under these circumstances and will cause them long term harm. (2) turn on Donald, and abandon him to save themselves. A difficult choice because that divorce would be messy and could be too late. Or (3) get him to "not seek re-election" in which case they could put forth a new candidate. The problem is that it's 4 months away from the election, and someone would have to come forward with enough of a clear message that separates from trump and has time to build. It's a tall task. And these things take a lot of time. Plus I don't think they'd ever agree on *who* that should be.

I think it won't be that easy, and they'll take a month to decide what they want to do, hemming and hawing until then. And suddenly, we're 3 months out.

And in between I firmly believe we'll see more dirt come out about trump. Whatever that may be. So it will be an impossible decision and the only choice left will be #2 to try and swim like rats off a sinking ship.

Stay tuned for the mayhem amid a pandemic.