And that’s why they have been so successful in knowing where to drive the wedges.

No, I’m not saying this guy is completely mistaken, I just think its a lot easier to see the delusions and obsessions of others than it is to understand your own.

Just consider this: If the Russians are so totally guided and controlled by their culture, how have they managed to become so insightful about ours? After all, they have figured out how to manipulate our national media and cultural organizations and environment to make the conditions for Trump’s rise to power possible, perhaps even inevitable. How have people who are so clueless and helpless about their own motives and ideology been able to so successfully evaluate and control those of others, and guide them so successfully?

I do not totally disagree with this analyst’s model of Russian culture and behavior, he may very well be right, at least to some extent. But I also think if you accept it without reservation, then you are refusing to see how perhaps our own behavior may be just as automatic and controlled as theirs is.

As my grandfather used to say; “Just because the Americans aren’t anywhere near as clever as they think they are doesn’t mean they’re such fools as we’ve convinced ourselves they are.” Its one of the advantages of a bicultural upbringing: you learn the superstitions of your tribe are not necessarily the laws of physics.