Let's Play A Game Where We Pretend We're Russian Intelligence

By Lord Castleton | Politics | May 30, 2017 |

By Lord Castleton | Politics | May 30, 2017 |

Shall we play a game?

Let’s jump right in with a few basic thoughts. First, I don’t know if there’s any connection between Trump and Russia. It certainly seems that way, but everyone is innocent until proven guilty, so let’s say Trump and Russia is, in fact, not a real thing.

Okay. Good. Whew!

Thank goodness, because that would pretty much be the biggest political event/coup in American history. That would be a Russian operation so far-reaching and impressive that it would have taken years - nay, decades - to pull off. The perfect patsy. The perfect read on the American Right. The perfect read on the American Left. Turning high-ranking American military personnel. Rendering the system of checks and balances null and void? My god! It’s too big. You would have to have started turning the patsy like thirty years ago to pull off a long con like this. Like, for example, during the Reagan Administration, when Donald Trump was an eager beaver who was dying to meet Gorbachev and arranged a personal interview with a Nobel Prize winning cardiologist who had met him.

Could he have been turned or somehow leveraged by Russian Intelligence all the way back then? Could have have somehow gotten in bed with America’s biggest enemy of the last hundred years? I don’t know. Does he ever do stupid shit that might be seen as embarrassing?

It doesn’t matter.

Because we’ve already established, for the purposes of this conversation, that there is no Trump/Russia anything.

That’s baloney. Fake news. Thank goodness.

You can’t have a President in the pocket of an enemy! That’s insane. A substantive, multi-year, issues-based campaign process would surely sniff out a Russian puppet! I mean, a campaign of that magnitude would have to be like 90% fluff or nonsense to make “Are You A Russian Spy” not be the topic of conversation, you know?

His opponent would certainly not be fooled. She’d probably be like, “you’re a puppet” and the American people, a vast percentage of whom lived through the cold war and saw the devastation of it, would pump the brakes and say, “whoa! We better look elsewhere, just in case.”

I mean, it’s not like you have a shocking, mind-numbing amount of American politicians with insane, judgement-absent amount of money invested in Russia. Even in companies under sanction. It’s not like they have personal connections to former KGB director and current dictator Vladimir Putin’s inner circle!

Because, as we said, this whole thing is bunk. Straight up nonsense.

And let’s just explain why.

Because imagine a world where that was possible. Imagine that there was the technology to just jump into someone’s personal secrets and be able, through nothing more than using a computer, have the ability to end their career or marriage or bankrupt them. Luckily that’s not the case.

But let’s say, just to beat this horse to death, that the Russians landed a spy in the Oval Office.

Ridiculous, I know. But let’s play the feud. What would that look like?

Well, let’s say you start out with an American Fool. With a capital F. A Wannabe. A simple-minded idiot who was born on third base but thinks he hit a triple. He has a crippling knowledge that even though his father has money, he himself has no class. He’s a braying donkey in a stable of pure thoroughbreds and he knows — with every fiber of his being — that he’s less than. That he doesn’t fit in. That he’ll never be as smart or connected or respected as the old money he so passionately craves the approval of.

It doesn’t take a genius to see the angle there, and ‘we’ — for the purposes of this silly game — are an enterprising KGB officer at the time. Obviously we see the merit of trying to leverage any American with wealth and holdings. And this young man, the Wannabe? Well, he’s fairly ripe for the picking.

Monied people know no borders. They know no territory. That’s a very old secret that most people don’t know. Money only respects other money. You were born in a chalet in Aspen instead of Gstaad, so you’re ‘American’ as opposed to ‘Swiss’ - whatever the hell that means, so you have a technical affiliation with a geographic region between some imaginary lines, but a sizable amount of people with true generational wealth think of that affiliation as, at best, quaint.

So you have this needy, lost Wannabe, and he’s full of self-loathing and doubt, but he desperately wants to be a player.

So, we, the KGB, send in a big gun. Someone we own from a European country because that would still be ‘safe’ during the Cold War. Someone wealthy beyond all knowing. Someone royal perhaps. Ooooh yes. There are few things wealthy people crave more than the birthright of rule and the opulence of a crown.

This Duke, this key person, meets with our Wannabe and shows real interest. He says “I know you feel like you’re less than, but I know that you’re actually more than. And the one thing that every American wants is money. Forget those people you admire. The Du Ponts and the Rockefellers and the Carnegies. I’m going to make them wish they were you. I’m going to make you a billionaire.”

That was still rare enough in the 80’s. Now the Wannabe goes back to America, but he has a little cockiness to him. Because he has one of the biggest names in the entire world behind him — albeit secretly — to watch his back. Secret is important, the Duke explains, because when you have a victory (and you’ll have so many you’ll get tired of it), the world has to perceive it as your victory, not mine. That you have the Midas touch. Everything you touch turns to gold.”

So the Wannabe launches himself forward, propelled by this all-consuming desire to show up all the old money scum that think they’re better than him. He buys real estate and golf courses and yachts. He gets featured in magazines that show off his wealth. No matter what he does, no matter how little he knows about anything, he always comes out smelling like a rose. He has this unseen hand behind him, correcting everything. He’s the only person he knows who can go bankrupt and somehow make money. People in his circle wonder how a know-nothing, pontificating windbag can not only stay in business but thrive. He can buy anything he wants. He can have sex with any woman. He can have sex with children. He can do any drug. He can punish any man. Through the first fifteen years, The Duke walks him through many situations. He trusts the Duke and everything always comes out amazing. He hires the people the Duke tells him to hire. He invests in the things the Duke tells him to invest in. It’s too good. It’s too fast and amazing. And everything he does is heralded publicly to increase his brand of unmitigated success.

Now we need to make him ours, completely. At the tail end of one night of coke-addled parting in a private casino in Asia or some misty Black Sea dacha, The Duke confesses that there’s no thrill like killing someone. That’s the thing the normals would never understand. The Duke nods and his security team brings in a two people with bags over their heads. The Duke kills one of them.

“Try it.” The Duke says. “It’s the best rush in the world.”

The Wannabe, full of his own importance and blindly trusting of his mentor, kills the other person. Like always, the Duke was right. What a rush! He can truly do anything.

We, Russian Intelligence, capture it on video. It’s pretty standard. We do this shit all the time. This fool isn’t special.

Now we have this man’s life in our hands. But nothing changes. The Duke continues to “suggest” people to hire and things to buy and even furnishes the Wannabe’s personal security team. The Wannabe thrives. There’s a huge, I mean huge network of money laundering and bribery we set up through questionable banks in places like Cyprus and Central America. But all they do is make money. Hand over fist. Eventually, after many years, the promise is achieved. The Wannabe is a billionaire. He’s the face of American success. He can have anything in the world, but what he’s always wanted, really, is for everyone to know how awesome he is.

The best way to do that? A show on television. But not just any show. A show where they bring people in and he sits there, in his throne, and fires them. What could be more American than that?

The ratings are through the roof.

We, the patient handlers over at Russian Intelligence, are thrilled.

Not only do we have a worldwide chain of hotels, resorts and golf courses that we control completely and are bugged to catch bigger fish and co-opt them, but now we have this idiot, this empty suit who thinks he’s a demigod, and he’s starting to have a percentage of the population who idolize him. We decide to take this puppy for a spin and see what it can do.

“You know what America needs?” The Duke says. “A king.”

And that really, really makes sense to the Wannabe. Of course it does. Narcissism is a simple thing to parse. The Wannabe believes this is his destiny. Because honestly, everything he does turns to gold. Yes, perhaps The Duke and all of his friends (who by now the Wannabe knows are Russian) have played some small part in his meteoric rise to stardom, but the real reason is that he’s unique. The wannabe was born to be a king.

“They love to see you sitting in that throne there, like a king, with your heirs on either side of you, delivering punishment. It’s what America wants, even if they don’t know it yet.”

The Wannabe agrees, because from an early age, he always knew that he was special. That he was somehow better. People had been trying to keep him down for his whole life, but look at him: he’s probably the most popular American in history after George Washington and if he decides to be President, he knew he can be.

So, nudged in that direction by all of our operatives on his ‘team’, he decides to run, and of course, being the ultimate picture of success, he easily crushes the losers in the Republican Party. Bunch of losers. It’s so crazy that they thought they had a chance against him. Are they insane?

Now all of us over at Russian Intelligence are giddy, because we never thought this fool could be so effective. Everything he says is gold. Everything -literally everything out of his mouth is a lie and a complete fabrication, and he has basically a fourth grader’s knowledge of the world, but the American people eat him up. And, get this: as if a gift from the gods, the Democrats decide to run a woman against him. Americans hate women. And they hate smart, unfuckable women the most.

My god, we think. We might actually pull this off. This cannot be happening. It’s shocking.

Of course the entire campaign staff is all our people, completely owned by Russian Intelligence. People who have been doing the FSB’s (formerly known as the KGB) work for years and years. Americans are the easiest people in the world to turn because they love nothing more than money. Every time they stay in a Trump resort, they’re being filmed and recorded. It’s the simplest thing in the world to turn a man when you have his secrets on video. So we have hundreds of people in the American government. Hundreds. But we’ve never been this close to having our man in the actual White House.

We can’t believe that no one has figured out what’s going on. This is a huge operation spanning three decades. Where is American Intelligence? There’s a nuisance in London, but thankfully, no one is listening to him.

By this time, with the election fast approaching we are spending millions and millions of dollars every day flooding the American media with lies about the woman candidate. It’s ridiculously simple. Republicans hate Liberals more vehemently than Jews and Arabs. And they don’t care to be bothered by things like proof or facts. They just want a story that reinforces how they already feel. That’s where we come in, making up fake news, seeding the far right with lies that they willingly publish is the easiest thing in the world. Hundreds of outlets publish specific smear campaigns and outright lies that are dreamed up in the halls of Russian Intelligence.

And the big joke here in Moscow is that no lie is insane enough that ignorant, uneducated Americans won’t believe it. Our Russian agents snort-laugh as they say that the woman candidate has a child sex ring out of a pizza place and people believe it. Oh dear god it’s too easy.

But who to pick as a running mate?

We’d want someone male and white, obviously. We’d have to pick some hayseed, podunk, double-digit I.Q. moron from the American midwest who is too stupid to know that we’re running the campaign. Like a fundamentalist Christian, maybe. They love the practical simplicity of a higher law. The Pope himself has come out against our guy, but evangelicals are polling the highest in American history in favor of him! Best to get another religious extremist to solidify that bloc. We wince as we make the pick, but the other shoe never drops. Okay good. The American people go for it. Because he’s male and white.

But we also realize that it’s getting insanely hard to give The Wannabe orders or as we’ve always called them, “suggestions” to coddle his fragile ego. Because unlike before where you could meet him in his private office or at various golf clubs or somewhere as simple as his private plane, now there are Secret Service and surveillance teams and FBI and CIA and NSA. What to do?

First, let’s see if we can get a line of communication going through a private third-party organization that considers itself above borders and hires itself out the the highest bidder. Can’t have the Wannabe himself set up the communications protocol, so maybe we get a member of his family. Americans never look very deeply at any of that. With luck, we’ll find a way to circumvent the American Intelligence apparatus. Such a bunch of bumblers.

Second, we’d surround him with more of our people. People who appear American, but have been either turned or compromised by Russian Intelligence. Americans have already forgotten that both the Democratic and Republican party HQ’s were hacked, but only the Democratic stuff got leaked. Democrats, insufferable and obnoxious as they are, are like choir boys next to the Republicans. There was so so so so much actionable blackmail on the Republican servers. How can people be this stupid? And the Republicans are in complete control of the Legislative branch. Best to keep that Intel secret and use it to influence people behind the scenes. Because if we lose this thing, why waste all that leverage on one operation?

But first things first. We have to hurt the opponent. Possibly disgrace her. Let’s doctor a very specific lie that puts the head of the FBI in a moral quandary. With luck, he’ll be forced to say something that makes her look bad right before the election.

By god, he took the bait! Her numbers tank. Americans hate women even more than we hoped.

And our candidate wins. My god! This boob, this inarticulate moron, who is only anything because we propped him up for three decades and bailed him out of financial disaster, is going to be president. We thought we’d only have a tool to use to steal trade secrets and the like, and now we own the most powerful man in America.

Shhhhhh! Comrade Dugin! I know this is old news to us, but the Americans still have no idea!!!

Now comes the hard part, because the Americans are sure to find out that he’s an imbecile. So we have a limited time to do the most amount of damage. How, first can we maximize the time he has in office?

We have to keep someone real close to him. Someone that you control completely. I don’t know how the American people would stand for it. How do we get our stooge next to our spy?

I know! You have the President appoint him! (Who thought catching that Constitutional Law Professor cheating on his wife at one of the Wannabe’s hotels would pay off like this!!)
We know the rules better than the Americans know the rules. The President can appoint whomever he wants. That’s one great loophole of the Presidency. Let’s use an American general that we completely own. Americans love men in uniform. They think they’re infallible. Let’s use their jingoistic stupidity against them. Make sure that our stooge has the wish list of everything we want. Where their spies are. Where their subs are. Encryption codes. Server IDs. Military R&D. The stooge has to get us all of this as fast as he can, before the American people find out what’s going on. Remember the days when the American Right was watching the border? We used to have to worry about them. Now they belong to us and the American Left just isn’t suited to the task. Conspiracy theorists, yes. War hawks, no. Lucky for us.

Let’s also make sure we have a military man as the Secretary of Defense, instead of a civilian. When the shit hits the fan we’ll need to have the military in lockstep doing our bidding.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, you get one of our people as the top legal officer in the land. That way, no matter what happens, we’ll always know which law enforcement agency is out to get us. And then whoever that person is? The president just fires them. It’s a mistake in the constitution, allowing the law to be under the Executive branch. Because whoever comes at the president? They get fired. FBI agents. NSA heads. Justice Department officials. If they hire a special prosecutor? Fine! Let him investigate for a while and then fire him and fire the man who appointed him. What can they do? Only the legislative branch can take action and we already own most of them.

Okay, so we have people in key spots. And we already own a huge chunk of the American economy.

But now we have our spy in the Oval Office. We have our stooge as his chief national security advisor. We have people that we’ve co-opted in positions of authority. Have to keep that mosquito-looking first lady out of the residence. She’s trouble. Instead, move in the daughter and son-in-law. We own both of them.

Make sure, in no uncertain terms, that the Republicans in the legislative branch understand that any act of speaking out against the Wannabe will be met with a dump of their email information. We control the leaders of the house and senate. Make sure they understand that. Zero tolerance. They are two gutless weasels who don’t have an ounce of patriotism between them.

First, we need to destabilize the country. For every cabinet position, make sure that the Wannabe nominates the worst possible person for the job. Like, people who are laughably incompetent.

Make sure the Republicans we own push the nominations through, no matter how much the citizens hate it. We want people enraged. We want people marching in the streets so that we can easily identify who the enemy is. In their rage, the liberals and idealists will take an altruistic position and we will chronicle every one of them for extermination or labor camps later on. We put a ton of agents in the field just snapping pictures of the faces in the crowd. Leverage for later when we break their spirit.

He will mock China. He will suggest that the United States will do whatever it wants with regard to Taiwan.

And more than anything, he will not agree to a mutual protection clause with NATO. That’s the most important thing. Because then they’ll be forced to dig into their coffers to raise their own defense forces and we can claim it’s a pretext for aggression. We’ll be able to mass on our border “for protection.”

Once all this is afoot, Americans will be enraged. Marching in the streets. Demanding justice. (Snap snap snap…shutter clicking as fast as possible to mark all of them).

If we haven’t opened an alternate line of communication to the Kremlin by that time? Hell, we’ll just send our people into the Oval Office itself! BAHAHAHAHA! Could it really be that easy? We’ll bar the American press as well, just to add insult to injury. Who’s to say who the President can and can’t have in his own office? This is criminal it’s so easy. By now, in the face of this obviousness, any other people would have stormed the White House and forcibly removed the President, but Americans had plans to binge Riverdale, so. Maybe afterward.

That’s when the Wannabe will need the most important thing yet: a war. An actual war. The one thing that can keep a man in power indefinitely is the need to keep his own country ‘safe’.

Luckily Americans will believe anything. We control both America and North Korea. Let’s pit them against each other. By the time the Americans are ready to get rid of the Wannabe legally, they’ll already be at war, and The Wannabe’s poll numbers will automatically rise and the half of America that’s conservative will be saying we have to protect ourselves. Just like in Afghanistan.

With the exception of us, obviously, there has never been a true threat to America since World War II, but that hasn’t stopped them from starting trillion dollar wars all over the place. They don’t care about factual truth any more. They covet their fear more than anything. This time will be no different.

Hopefully, some liberal idiot will try to kill the Wannabe. Then he can declare martial law.

What we want, ultimately, is outright rebellion. We want the battle lines to be drawn thusly: the religious right + the government (& military) vs the left. Every single simulation has that being a very fast victory. Who wins: people with literally all the guns or people with no guns? It’s not even a contest.

With America in ruins, and unimaginable atrocities in every single town as the Right gets to finally kill snowflakes, (“here’s what I think of yer LGBQTVXYZ transgender bathrooms!” Blam Blam!) the Wannabe will install himself as dictator, trying unselfishly to steer America through her difficult time, but he’ll never actually give up power. We will control every media outlet and broadcast any story we choose. Like every other country that we’ve toppled, we’ll eliminate the entire educated class. Anyone with a college degree gets wiped out and we start fresh, making America great again with under-educated people who don’t question everything.

With the Wannabe firmly situated, we’ll have a line of succession in place. From one idiot child to the next. Gold toilets in the White House. True American royalty. King Trump the First. King Trump the Second.

And the EU will crumble, like it always does. We’ll continue to stoke the fires of nationalism in every country, inciting fear until they all choose to go it alone.

And then, one by one, we’ll take back the countries we lost in the 1990’s without so much as a shot being fired. It will take time, but the glory of the Soviet Union will rise again, and this time, America will be the brightest jewel in her crown. Long live the Soviet Union! Long live the FSB!

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But obviously, that’s all completely made up by me and just kind of a crazy story that could never come to pass. I’ve watched too many movies. I’m a liberal writer, after all. Darkest timelines are my bailiwick. But really, it’s just nuts. It couldn’t work.

Americans would have to be so corrupt and so deluded for it to work.

There would have to be actual traitors everywhere, in every branch of government.

You’d have to have a huge segment of the population that doesn’t believe factual evidence or the organized press.

You’d have to have political leaders who weren’t doing the basic parameters of their jobs and also didn’t have a good reason for not doing it.

You’d have to have a group of politicians who just outright stopped representing their constituents and even listening to them or showing up for meetings with them.

Maybe they’d go so far as to just shut off their phones so their constituents couldn’t call them.

You’d have to have people who would just play dumb whenever they got caught, like “I don’t know what under oath means” or “I just wanted a cool way to talk to the Kremlin” or “I forgot to register as a foreign agent! Oops!”

And you’d have to hope that a disturbing percentage of Americans believed them. That a general wouldn’t remember what a foreign agent is. That the highest legal official in the country wouldn’t know what a lie is. Stuff like that.

And you’d have to have a populace so fractured that they would actually take up arms against other Americans.

Lucky for us. That’s not the case. Our president is not a Russian operative! Even though his agenda to date seems sort of the ideal destabilization scenario that Russia could come up with, he’s not an operative. Why? Because we’re Americans, goddamnit. There’s no way we could get beaten on this level. Because we Americans have always had a sense that we’re somehow better. More important. That we’re destined for great things. Everything we touch turns to gold. Other countries just can’t understand. We’re special, and special people just win.

And it’s been a long time since we had a leader who understood us, and knew that we were great and showed us a way to the promised land where everything works out. Yes, every empire in history has fallen. But not us. Not ever. The future has great things in store for us. Tremendous things. Fantastic things. The best things that all the top experts agree on. Believe me. And all we have to do is keep being Americans. Keep watching Fox News. Because this is our world and we will win everything. Bigly.

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