Think bigger. Russian-US conspiracy is more insidious yet lacking in self-awareness. Why? Because it’s seamlessly woven into fabric of today’s conservative movement by a master Kremlin tailor. Putin’s using KGB-Chekists tradecraft to manipulate Conservative groups & leaders 1/7
Vast conspiracies are notoriously hard & almost never work—they require a secrecy & loyalty that is rare-too many leaks & cold feet. But manipulating dozens of mini plots unbeknownst to each other is very effective—particularly if part of vast pliable & greedy infrastructure. 2/7
Getting disparate US orgs to push in same direction required Russia to patiently $incentivize GOP & @FoxNews to weave over past decades a combustible combination of religious zealotry, greed & fanatical nationalism into a “whole” more dangerous than the sum of its parts 3/7
Groups like RNC, NRA, Federalists & Citizens United may not be fully aware they’re pawns being used by Putin to dismantle our democracy. Few have thought through the implications to our Gov system if all checks & balances disappear & each radical alt-right group gets its way. 4/7
We, the left, #TheResistance are also being played. I’m guilty—we all are. But we can’t afford blind rage when rational strategizing is needed. We need to see big picture, several moves out and we have to expose the Game. To do that we must recruit more rational conservatives 5/7
Many conservatives have left GOP or are working from within. But we need more effort into showing everyday Conservatives the dry hard facts of how Putin operates & how he has worked his way into the conservative ecosystem, perverting it just enough to change its trajectory. 6/7
Putin & his army of billionaires are waiting for more disparate forces to unite—each group separately playing part in dismantling our democracy. We can slow it down by exposing The Game & how dozens of tweaks to the levers of Gov will turn our democracy into a dictatorship. 7/7
