It’s an age-old strategy of a sociopathic thug to aggressively accuse his enemies of exactly what he is doing. Trump has done this repeatedly and no one has seemed to catch on. All the Russian abuses in the 2016 election he turns into Democratic abuses based in Ukraine. All his crimes are mirrored in his wanton allegations against his Democratic opponents.

“I didn’t do it, you did!” he exclaims, and has done it so often it would take a huge volume just to catalogue them.

The wrong answer to that claim is to say, “No, I didn’t!” That suddenly puts the burden of truth on you not him. Some form of “Prove it!” then comes from him, and the geometry of the battlefield shifts.

The right answer is some form of “You are full of s..t!” and to double down on the accusations against him, and to keep that up. It takes steel nerves to do this as he starts to blow up in anger.

Some Democratic politicians are beginning to figure this out. The media are the slowest to get it.

Otherwise, how can Trump’s totally groundless claims about Joe Biden and his son’s activities in Ukraine suddenly become a serious campaign election issue? It’s so bogus it doesn’t deserve a mention. But no, too many in the major media think it’s “news,” if only because it’s Trump who made the claim.

In reality, what Trump has been doing in Ukraine, through his surrogate Giuliani and others, is softening it up for a Russian takeover. That’s what Putin wants, and he’s getting it.

The claim that Trump was squeezing the Ukraine president in exchange for dirt on the Bidens is false, or at least only a sideshow.

Trump was withholding almost $400 million in military aid to Ukraine for months until it became public. That was a gift to Putin.

To say it was done as leverage to force the Ukraine president to cough up a contrived false report about the Bidens diverts attention from the fact that the military aid was cut off in the first place.

The scenario was to have Ukraine President V. Zelensky provide the false report, and then to say it was not good enough and demand still more, all the while the military aid is withheld.

At some point, Russia would invade and take over Ukraine, a very major objective for Putin. Now, has come a second front for Russian military aggression, and that is in Syria and who knows how much more of the Middle East.

So why has no one made the connection between withholding almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine and withdrawing the U.S. military presence in Syria? The two are part of the same operation by this Russian agent in the White House and his controller in Moscow.

U.S. foreign and military policy are now the consequence of some form of direct communication between Putin and Trump. The U.S. military and counterintelligence leadership is seen to this tandem not only as superfluous but as the enemy.

As long as the media and too many elected officials in both parties can be tied into knots by Trump’s “It’s not me, it’s you” form of calculated deception, the Trump-Putin operation will continue behind a smokescreen.

Of course, there are also Russian “agents” in the U.S. government and giant corporations, plants recruited by time-honored means (money, sex blackmail, ego), that are enabling and also providing cover for the Trump-Putin axis.

Slowly, through the process of the Congressional Democrats’ questioning of key figures in the process are replicating the same process that Mueller did earlier in compiling his report of grievous abuses, and will by that means come closer to the ugly truth, which will be more astonishing than most of them are anticipating.

The U.S. will be sorely weakened as this axis drives the U.S. out and the Russians in to key territories that are rapidly placing the entire western world in jeopardy. China awaits its turn.

The question of this millennium is: Are there sufficient American patriots in the right places to put a stop to this?

Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.