HYPERTEXT MAGAZINE ASKED GREG OLEAR, AUTHOR OF DIRTY RUBLES: AN INTRODUCTION TO TRUMP/RUSSIA, “WHAT QUESTION DO YOU WISH YOU’D BEEN ASKED ABOUT YOUR WORK?”

BY GREG OLEAR

If Trump did not collude with Moscow, then why did Trump’s people have so many meetings with the Russians? Why did they lie about it? Why are they still lying about it?

Answer: This is a trick question, because there is no answer, because he did collude—as every single Trump/Russia development since 2016 has indicated.

The way that the Trumpists answer this question is to deflect. They bring up the tarmac meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch, for example, as if a former president meeting by chance with the current attorney general were remotely the same thing as the president’s son and son-in-law and campaign manager meeting with a team of KGB agents at Trump Tower with the express purpose of gathering dirt on their political opponent. Or they talk about her emails. Or the text messages between the two FBI agents who were both lovers and good enough at their jobs to recognize that Trump was a Fascist idiot who was a threat to the Republic. Or Obama and the Deep State, because it was Obama and the Deep State who colluded with the Russians to give Trump the presidency so they could undermine it, or some such nonsense.

Actually, I’ll ask the question again and answer it the way Trump does:

If Trump did not collude with Moscow, then why did Trump’s people have so many meetings with the Russians? Why did they lie about it? Why are they still lying about it?

WITCH HUNT!!!

You see, Trump is rubber, and you are glue, and whatever you say bounces off him and sticks to you. Also, I know you are but what am I.

If you come across a Trump supporter, ask him (it’s probably, hopefully, a him) that three-part question. It cannot be answered, because if it could, these geniuses would have crafted a halfway believable response by now. A good follow-up is: “Do you support the Trump Administration’s policy of separating refuge children from their parents?” They will deflect, they will engage in whataboutism…but that one is a simple yes or no answer.

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Greg Olear (@gregolear) is the founding editor of The Weeklings and the author of the novels Totally Killer and Fathermucker, an LA Times best seller. He has been on the Trump/Russia beat since January of 2017.

Pick up a copy of DIRTY RUBLES HERE.