re: #86 The Ghost of a Flea

Guys, I’m going to keep saying this:

The idea there’s a grand unifying Russian “op” that explains a bunch of shit going on is a conspiracy theory, and like most other conspiracy theories it steps over the open, obvious Shit Going Wrong in favor an occult explanation in which there is a singular operator.

Putin is a basic-ass dictator and wasn’t even a notably good KGB agent and he’s not doing four-dimensional chess any more than Trump is. Never, ever believe any claim that one super smart dude is pulling all the strings.
….

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^this

it’s spy novel stuff
easy to understand
and woefully not what’s ever actually happened

there arent a lot of actual machiavelli’s out there