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Comment by wongarsu | Hacker News Reader

Hypothetically, if a Russian agent became President of the USA, what would you expect him to do? Try to withdraw from as many international treaties as possible? Insult foreign heads of state and sabotage America's relationship with their allies? Refuse to enact sanctions against Russia?

I don't think Trump is a Russian agent, but I wouldn't call the idea crazy

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If the agent is known to be an agent, Congress can quickly impeach him. During an election, all parties are highly incentivized to find dirt on the others, which helps increase the likelihood of discovery. No system is perfect, but directly voting in an agent is generally unlikely.

But that only works if Congress has an incentive to vote to impeach. If we're in a hypothetical situation where we know the president to be a foreign agent, assuming that people in Congress are not similarly compromised, at the very least they are members of the same political party as the president. Impeaching one of their own would have political consequences, and Trump's approval rating still shows a pretty decent base who like him.

It would be basically political suicide for any Republican to vote to impeach because many Americans don't believe Trump is an agent, don't believe he did anything wrong, and still agree with his policies and agenda.

Congress has the ability to impeach, but not the will.

> If the agent is known to be an agent, Congress can quickly impeach him.

Of course, for members of his party concerned about the danger such public knowledge would do to their own personal political position and their party, the incentive if they know he is a foreign agent is to actively blur and distract from the issue to prevent the public from getting a clear understanding.

EDIT: This might result, say, in the bizarre spectacle of Congress members and of that party continuously attacking the credibility of individuals and institutions which have traditionally favored (or who are members of) that party simply because they are faithfully pursuing (or insufficiently sabotaging) an investigation of the operation in which the President is involved.

> Hypothetically, if a Russian agent became President of the USA, what would you expect him to do?

If a Russian agent became President of the USA, I would expect him to disarm american citizens and to reduce the power of the U.S. military.

e: if you're downvoting please explain why.

Why would disarming citizens make a difference?

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."

It seems like a no-brainer that an enemy force (Russia in this instance) would want to disarm the people they plan to attack/control.

The OP asked what I'd expect from a Russian Agent as President, and that's what I'd expect one of the first steps to be. I _wouldn't_ expect a russian agent who became president of the U.S. to fight for the 2nd Amendment/arming of citizens and to push for the EU to increase their military spending.

Sure, it could happen, but I wouldn't expect it.

You don't need to invade a country to conquer it.

And, moreover, you don't need to conquer it (with out without invasion) to destabilize it and reduce it's influence as a geopolitical rival.

I'm not convinced disarming citizens would be a good move for an agent. It would cost a lot of political capital to pull off, and the benefit only materialized in the unlikely event of physically occupying the US (which would be decades in the future). Keeping guns readily available also seems to come at a cost to health and safety of the population, benefitting the goals of a Russian agent.

Weakening the U.S. military sounds like a more worthwile goal. Reducing their budget would be one way to do that, but that's easily undone. I would go for more a more sublte approach to inflict better long-term damage. Try to restructure and reprioritise to get less done with more money. Try to get rid of important military installations abroad. Try to burn bridges with allies to make sure the US military has to take a larger burden in foreign interventions. If you're feeling really bold, try to establish entirely new arms of the military to further decrease effectiveness and increase spending. Try to do all of that in a way that's hard to undo by the next president.

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