Sit Down and Think About It: Trump Is a Literal Russian Asset
- john raymond
- Jun 29
- 3 min read
There are times when our language fails us—when words like “traitor,” “agent,” and “asset” feel too dramatic, too weighty to bring into a conversation about American politics. We’ve been trained to view those words as the province of novels, espionage thrillers, and old Cold War paranoia. To say them aloud, let alone believe them, seems conspiratorial, or worse, uncivil.
But I’d like to ask you to do something today that might feel unfamiliar in the rush of headlines and partisan clamor: sit down and think.
Not scroll. Not retweet. Not argue.
Just… think.
About what it means that Donald Trump’s actions—over the span of decades—have repeatedly, consistently, and consequentially aligned with the interests of a hostile foreign power.
This Isn’t a Game Anymore
Let’s not talk about vibes. Let’s talk about pattern and record.
Trump publicly invited Russian interference in the 2016 election. He celebrated Wikileaks while his campaign had repeated contacts with Russian agents. He denied the findings of his own intelligence agencies while standing beside Vladimir Putin on live television in Helsinki. He slow-walked military aid to Ukraine and withheld it in exchange for political favors. He disrupted NATO. He praised Orban, attacked Germany, and undercut democratic unity.
He’s done more to rupture the Western alliance than any U.S. president in history—and he’s done so with a kind of instinctive precision. His disruptions are not random. They serve a logic. A strategy.
And that strategy does not come from Foggy Bottom. It comes from the Kremlin.
What Makes a Person an Asset?
We often imagine spies when we hear that word—someone wearing a wire, being handed envelopes under park benches. But that’s not how modern influence works. Today, an asset is a person who realizes the full extent of the role they’re playing.
They are someone whose behavior reliably furthers the goals of a foreign adversary.
Sometimes for money. Sometimes for protection. Sometimes for power. Sometimes because the incentives line up too well to resist. And sometimes for all these reasons at the same time, just like we see with Trump.
Trump has financial entanglements with Russian-linked oligarchs that go back decades. He has refused to divest. Refused to disclose. Refused to criticize Putin, even in the face of war crimes, assassinations, and civilian massacres.
At every juncture, he has chosen—without fail—to serve the strategic interests of Vladimir Putin.
That is not a coincidence. That is not “just his style.”That is what an asset looks like—especially in a world shaped by asymmetric warfare, legal manipulation, and information dominance.
So Sit with It: What Does That Mean for Us?
We are not at war in the traditional sense. There are no bombs falling on Washington. But the battlefield is real. It is informational. It is institutional. It is psychological. And in this war, the most powerful weapon the Russian regime ever deployed was not malware or missiles—it was a man installed into the American presidency, who tore at its foundations while half the country watched.
That’s not alarmism. It’s chronology. It’s documentation.
We must ask ourselves:
Why does it feel so uncomfortable to say the word traitor out loud?
Why do we demand a higher standard of evidence for betrayal than we do for war?
Why are we still pretending this is a matter of partisan perspective, rather than national survival?
The answer is emotional. It hurts to admit. Because if Trump is a Russian asset—literal and functional—then we are no longer just a country in crisis.
We are a country that has already been breached.
And many would prefer the comfort of denial to the burden of truth.
But Truth Has Always Been the First Act of Repair
We are taught to believe that treason is rare. That it happens with sirens blaring, red flags waving. But treason in the 21st century is quiet. It’s couched in legal filings and Twitter meltdowns. It moves through courtrooms, algorithms, and trade deals. It wears a flag pin while undermining everything that pin is supposed to represent.
Donald Trump is a Russian asset.
In code, and in deed. By command, and by consequence. By confession, and by pattern.
And the longer we resist saying so, the more fragile we become.
So Please. Sit with It. Speak it. And Then Act.
Don’t let yourself be bullied by the fear of sounding shrill. Don’t let yourself be silenced by those who say it’s “too much.” Don’t let yourself forget what you already know.
Because this story won’t resolve itself. Democracy doesn’t survive on wishful thinking.
It survives when people name the danger before it becomes irreversible.
So name it. Trump is a Russian asset, as well as a traitor to this country.
And let the truth begin its long, slow, necessary work.
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