The late, great Richard Condon was the grand master of the satiric, paranoid thriller. In books like “The Manchurian Candidate,” Condon suggested a Joe McCarthy type anti-communist extremist was actually a communist tool at the center of a plot to install him as president. In “Winter Kills,” Condon supposed a Kennedyesque president was assassinated on orders from his billionaire father who was disappointed because his son was insufficiently pliant and was turning out to be bad for business.

Where is Condon now when we need him? A Trump administration cries out for his mix of satire and paranoid suspicion. And in today’s atmosphere of partisan news channels, tweets, hacking and fake news, no plot is too far-fetched to imagine. And people will believe any fantasy, no matter how absurd, while rejecting fact-based reality if reported by the so-called lamestream media

So, “The Washington Post” announces that the CIA has concluded with “a high degree of confidence” that the Russian government hacked and released private communications by Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, and the DNC. And that, furthermore, the operation was authorized at the highest levels, that is by Comrade Putin, with the goal of electing Donald Trump a Potemkin President.

In a sane world, this would be the most shocking news since Watergate. Russia carrying out a successful plot to tip the scales of an American election. But Trump airily dismisses the news by mocking the CIA, “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.” And besides, “The election ended a long time ago.” A month actually, but who cares? His supporters don’t bat an eye. Who trusts the Post or the CIA?

Yet when viral nonsense appears online alleging Hillary Clinton is a child sex trafficker running her criminal activities out of a neighborhood pizza parlor in Washington, Comet Ping Pong, with lots of kid customers and friendly ping pong tables in the back (and hidden tunnels in the basement), it is taken as gospel by many including a gun-toting loon who shoots up the place while trying to reenact “Taxi Driver” with himself as the hero.

We are clearly through the looking glass, and perhaps the only way to make real news acceptable is to treat it like the work of Macedonian hackers or Breitbart and post it on line or in tabloid style.

Okay. So, what if we assume Trump is a tool of the FSB (the current name for the KGB)? It’s easy to imagine Kremlin operatives getting control of him and then conspiring to get him elected to the highest office.

Say they bailed him out of his bankruptcies through various fronts and have owned him ever since. Or suppose they had spied on him with wiretaps, video surveillance and the like and compiled material with which to blackmail him into playing along. It’s easy to imagine Trump as a Noah Cross-like figure from “Chinatown,” for example, having an unhealthy relationship with his daughter. He’s already hinted at it to Howard Stern. Trump demanded to see Obama’s birth certificate. What if Vlad the Blackmailer has got the audio and video to prove it? I Maybe we should demand the DNA of Ivanka’s children to see who their father really is.

A scenario in which Trump is an FSB asset explains many otherwise peculiar facts. Why has Trump declined the customary daily security briefings from the CIA? Because he already gets briefed by Moscow. Why is he so chummy with Putin, going out of his way to excuse the despot and admire his strength? He works for him.

Why has Trump surrounded himself with men who do business with Russia and its oligarchs like Paul Manafort, Rudy Giuliani, Gen. Flynn and Exxon/Mobil CEO and possible Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson whose buddy-buddy relationship with Putin goes back to the Gorbachev era when Putin was still KGB? Their friendship includes a $500 billion energy deal. Maybe they too are on the FSB payroll, or have been compromised by the spooks, or maybe self-interest trumps the national interest?

And what’s with these Warsaw Pact women — the alleged Czech Ivana Zelnickova and the supposedly Slovenian Melania Knavs? Obviously, they are Trump’s FSB handlers, sent to Trump from Russia with love. Why? To make him toe the line and to forward the plot to ruin America and aid Russia’s return to power.

That would explain much of Trump’s platform. He seeks a trade war with China which would badly damage the two largest economies in the world. Good for Russia, bad for us. Trump wants to confront Iran and bomb the hell out of Isis which would roil the waters in the Middle East and further inflame Sunni-Shia antagonism. Excellent, if it keeps the Pentagon busy and makes Russia’s role as a reliable supplier of energy more secure. Trump’s divisive rhetoric which sets Americans against Americans can also only give aid and comfort to Putin. A divided America is weak.

I could go on, but you can supply your own ways in which a Trump reign could be bad for our country and good for Putin’s. So, is this all just an accident? Ian Fleming in one of his Bond books, which are now looking like nonfiction, quotes an adage: “Once is circumstance, twice is happenstance, the third time is enemy action.”

And if this isn’t enough to convince you that Trump is Putin’s creature, why is Trump — unlike Putin — never photographed with his shirt off? Could it be because of his frak s ordenami, Russian criminal tattoos?
Yes, that’s right, he is adorned with “the thieves cross” on his torso and the “I kneel to no one” stars that Melania burned into him one night after she drugged him? He’s been on heroin ever since, provided by FSB connections in the Trans-Caucasus region. It’s why his medical records came from that ridiculously untrustworthy doctor.

Don’t believe it? Just ask him to remove his shirt.