Recent allegations that Trump is a Kremlin agent replicate classic conspiracy theories. (c) Evan Vucci / AP / Press Association Images All rights reserved.Put Russia and Vladimir Putin in a headline, especially if it’s about the KGB, propaganda or spy games, and you’ll increase the clickbait factor of an article tenfold. The coverage of the recent email leak from the Democratic National Committee, allegedly carried out by Russian hackers backed by Russian intelligence, is a case in point. The hackers then supplied the extracted emails to Wikileaks, whose motives and reputation as an impartial upholder of transparency have raised quite a few eyebrows in the recent months.
Over the past few days, the popular argument in the mainstream US media has been that Donald Trump — a controversial businessman, celebrity and the Republican party presidential candidate — enjoys the support of the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin personally. This argument goes further, saying that Trump is Vladimir Putin’s “Siberian candidate”, who has been injected into American politics to represent Kremlin interests or even to implode the US, thus undermining Russia’s major adversary.
Are Trump and Putin friendly? Sure. Are Trump’s positions beneficial to the Kremlin? Definitely. But the conspiratorial notion of Russia driving major domestic political events in the US is the result of a decade of campaigning to cast Vladimir Putin as the world’s leading “strongman”.
