I’ve come to the conclusion that except for an unproductive meeting between Trump Junior and a Russian lawyer, neither Trump nor anyone in his campaign actively colluded with Russia. Furthermore I don’t think that Russia has any blackmail leverage on Trump. If the infamous “peepee tape” actually exists I doubt that it would really do any more damage than the rumors of its existence have already done.

I reached these two conclusions based on the simple fact that neither of them were necessary.

The entire Trump campaign was poorly managed. There was no need for cooperation with Russia because Russia’s efforts were already so sophisticated and organized that it needed no coordination with the Trump organization itself. I think those of us who are sitting around waiting on Mueller to come up with a smoking gun that proves collusion occurred are going to be sorely disappointed. There just wasn’t any collusion because there didn’t need to be. Why would Russia risk it? Like I said, they were already way more organized and effective than the campaign itself.

After Trump’s despicable behavior yesterday at the Helsinki press conference with Putin, the pundits are all saying “Why would Trump behave this way if they didn’t have something on him?” That’s a kind of the psychological transference. Those who assume that Trump is being blackmailed, do so by presuming that Trump shares their own value system. They asked themselves “Why?” and try to put themselves in his shoes in order to understand his behavior. One would say to themselves “The only way I would turn my back on my own country and snuggle up to a brutal Russian dictator is if they had something on me.” People with active empathy operate that way. It’s natural when attempting to understand someone else to put themselves in that position. The flaw in that logic is that Trump’s value system is vastly different from the ordinary, logical, ethical adult human being.

I admit that I am definitely an amateur psychologist but I have had lots of training and study of human behavior under the guidance of people who are experts in the field. I understand the psychology of threat and defense. I’ve seen firsthand the way that perceived threats can mold and motivate our behavior. I also understand that because people with different personality types have varied self images, they perceive threats to that self image differently based upon their personality type. To understand someone’s motivation you have to understand their self image and then look at what can threaten that self-image. What are the “I am…” statements that are key to one’s self-image?

In the case of Trump, his self-image revolves around the idea that “I am a winner”. Every time Trump perceives a threat, his go to response is to remind you that he beat Hillary Clinton. He brings up that topic in the most out of context situations you can imagine. He did it yesterday during the press conference. Nobody asked him “Did you beat Hillary Clinton?” But he found it necessary to raise the topic.

So let’s say for the sake of argument there was no collusion. Let’s further fantasize that no one was suggesting there was collusion. Or suppose we get to that day in the near future when Mueller concludes his investigation and there is no evidence of collusion. Trump will continue to deny that Russia had any effect on the election not because he’s being blackmailed but because it would indicate that his victory was tainted by their interference. It attacks his self image of “I am a winner”.

You don’t get to the position that Putin got to in the KGB without being a skilled manipulator and without having a deep understanding of how to motivate someone. Putin takes advantage of Trump’s malleability to trick him into behaving as he did yesterday. Look at the way that Trump answered the question about who do you trust more… your own intelligence people or Putin? Trump replied that Putin made very strong denials. He didn’t say Putin showed me a bunch of evidence. It was the power of Putin’s personality that led Trump to trust him. Trump said “Why would they do it?” It takes no imagination to hear those words coming from Putin himself in an attempt to deny the activity.

Trump has demonstrated his malleability of opinion before. He tends to believe the last thing that he heard. (Such as what he hears on Fox News.) Case in point the roundtable discussion that he had with congressional leadership a few months ago on immigration especially the dreamer situation. He was ready to accept many of the proposals that Pelosi and other Democrats made at that meeting. Immediately afterwards his own people had to talk him down from those commitments that were significantly contrary to the standard Republican positions on the issue. Without even trying to manipulate him, Pelosi and the Democrats got him to briefly agree to all sorts of concessions. They weren’t trying to trick him into anything. They were just stating their positions and he was ready to agree to it. If they had a written statement prepared for him to sign at that moment he might have signed it.

Now take that demonstrated malleability and put it in the hands of a skilled manipulator like Putin. It completely explains everything we saw yesterday.

We are also seeing that Trump has a strong Messiah complex. He not only has a self-image of “I am a winner” but he also sees himself in the statement “I am a Savior”.

He was totally unprepared for the responsibilities of the office. He’s made repeated statements on various topics such as “nobody knew it was this complicated”. He appears to be overwhelmed by the weight of responsibility. Even the skilled, experienced, well educated, political and diplomatic experts have that feeling so one can only imagine the effect that has on someone who is none of those things.

Yesterday Trump repeatedly made reference to the fact that the US and Russia are nuclear powers and cited that between the two us we have 90% of the nuclear capability on the planet. He said that he would sacrifice political expediency if it meant better relations with Russia. I don’t think he’s scared of some secrets that Russia is holding over him personally to blackmail him. I think he’s scared of nuclear war with Russia. Liberal pundits worry that an incompetent person like Trump has access to the nuclear launch codes. I don’t think we have to worry about that. I think he is scared to death that there will be a war while he’s president. Listen carefully to what he said yesterday. He is willing to sacrifice anything to have a good relationship with Russia because they represent a nuclear threat. He said so in the press conference if you really listen to what he said.

It also explains his behavior with North Korea a few weeks ago. Upon return from that meeting with Kim Jung Un he tweeted that we could all sleep better now that the nuclear threat was over. He was even asked why he would be so accommodating towards North Korea and he justified it by saying that he had made peace with them and eased the tension that was an existential threat.

I can’t prove anything that I’ve said here is true. It’s just a hypothesis. But I believe it is a hypothesis that fits the facts. And if we are to apply Occam’s Razor that the simplest explanation is probably true, then the simplest explanation is that Russia didn’t need cooperation with the Trump campaign to do what it did. And it doesn’t need compromising material in order to manipulate Trump to do its bidding.

There was no collusion. There is no blackmail. Because they didn’t need it.