The only way to interpret this embarassing little exchange is to go with the most obvious explanation that fits the facts.

Your "light poke" was a knee-jerk accusation and repetition of your usual dismissal of every inconvenient fact that crosses your mind, that it is the result of a cabal of evil liberal masterminds that is constantly seeking to invade your world and steal your stuff.

Every single thing you post here with a political bent is designed to discredit the Left, or to divert attentions from the contradictions and inconsistencies in your own politics.

You're a fanatic, TB. Your inability to concede an inch of ground, to compromise, to meet anyone half way, has become obvious to everyone here but you. Look at the other posters in this thread. You have lost all credibility, and you don't even seem to be aware of it, much less to consider re-examining your position and even partially re-evaluating your views. Look at all the other evidence presented in this thread, from a variety of sources, that shows there is some support, even from your own party, of Russian propaganda warfare and provocations both in the US and in Europe. This isn't about Macedonian hackers, you simply refuse to even consider any alternatives.

And you seem incapable of understanding that the intellectual, spiritual and moral failures of modern American Conservative thought not only make the barbarism and savagery of Donald Trump possible, they make it inevitable.

Paraphrasing George Smiley...

...you're a fanatic! I may have acted like a soft dolt, the very archetype of a flabby Western liberal but I'd rather be my kind of fool than yours. One day that lack of moderation will be your downfall.

You're a fanatic. And the fanatic is always concealing a secret doubt.

And if you can't see that, I haven't any hope of convincing you otherwise.