Sidney “Kraken” Powell. Conspiracy theories about the 2020 election that her “Kraken” never showed up with promised “biblical cases” to prove. But I digress. Except for the conspiracy theory part.

There are Russia-Trump conspiracies and then there are Russia-Trump conspiracy theories.

I’m talking about full-metal fantastical conspiracy theories that make wingnuts like Alex Jones and Mike Lindell (relax, those so-affected; I’m just messin’ with you about the MyPillow loon guy) look like pikers. 

Our story begins with one “word”: MSNBC.

Or PMSNBC, as the late great Rush Limbaugh “affectionately” referred to the hopelessly left-wing network of misfit journalist-wannabes like Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid. And, hoo-boy. This time, the loons of MSNBC might have outdone themselves — no small feat indeed.

So here’s the scoop.

As reported by Fox News, Sarah Kendzior, who bills herself as an author, anthropologist, researcher, and scholar, and is co-host of the equally-loony Gaslit Nation podcast, trotted into a ridiculous MSNBC segment just in time to declare that Donald Trump was “installed” into the presidency by Vladimir Putin in 2016.

Kendzior made the silly claim during a Saturday appearance on MSNBC’s “The Cross Connection.”

Trump was installed as the president of the United States in order to weaken the alliances that were preventing Putin from achieving his goals. Alliances like NATO, our relationship with our European partners… with Ukraine.

Trump was put in as a bulldozer — and he was also put in as a bulldozer to the Constitution, to our system of checks and balances, to our system of institutional trust — and the unwillingness of people in the United States to confront the brokenness of those institutions, whether through financial corruption in recent years or age-old systemic problems like the endemic racism that holds our country up has contributed to that …

And Fox News, in this sense, is just an extension of the longrunning destructive pattern.

So how does one — a sane one — even begin to attempt to have an intelligent conversation with a wingnut like this? A sane one doesn’t. No more so than trying to intelligently converse with wingnut attorney Lin Wood, who in late December 2020 predicted then-Vice President Mike Pence would be arrested for treason and executed by firing squad. Pence’s unforgivable sin, of course, was adherence to the U.S. Constitution.

The point: Loons gonna loon.

Sarah Kendzior: "Trump was installed as the president of the United States in order to weaken the alliances that were preventing Putin from achieving his goals. Alliances like NATO, our relationship with our European partners…with Ukraine." https://t.co/NNbYfcd8j8 pic.twitter.com/v2NS19oBSS

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) February 27, 2022

Kendzior didn’t go into detail about how Trump was “installed” or what “proof” she possesses that he was; conspiracy loons are always short on truth and long on conspiracy theory. And “shockingly,” host Tifanny Cross “forgot” to challenge Kendzior’s ridiculous claims.

I’m always amused by the conviction and seriousness with which these lunatics present their “cases.” Let alone the “sources” and “information” they possess. From Alex Jones to Lin Wood and Sidney “Kraken” Powell, to this lunatic, they and they alone are the arbiters of conspiratorial wisdom.

And, of course, the equally loony lemmings who follow them off the cliff. Every damn time.