At the same time, Trump's personal debt to Russia dovetails with a preexisting far-right fondness for Russia's "Christian" autocracy -- for a place where political opponents are assassinated and ordinary dissenters imprisoned; where a sadistic war of conquest against a neighboring country is seen as a natural right; and where a new statue of Stalin is blessed by an Orthodox priest.

Trumpites who publicly rail against the "Russia hoax" and the Mueller investigation may privately be thinking: "It's actually a good thing that Russia helped Trump."