Vladimir Lenin is said to have described Western pawns that worked with the Soviet Union to betray their own governments as "useful idiots." Since many of those minor league traitors were at least marginally successful, I suppose we would have to term the late Sen. Ted Kennedy a "useless idiot" because even the KGB didn’t want to work with him.

The one element the presidencies of my father and Donald Trump have in common is that when the left says it will stop at nothing to prevent them from succeeding, they aren’t speaking metaphorically.

The Daily Signal reminds us that in 1983 there was collusion with the Russians to influence the U.S. presidential race only this time the collusion wasn’t imaginary. It was Democrat Sen. Ted Kennedy offering to work with the KGB to defeat Ronald Reagan.

Kennedy believed the popularly elected president of the United States was a greater threat to the world than a Communist regime that had murdered up to 160 million people and enslaved millions of others.

In a secret letter written to Soviet General Sec. Yuri Andropov, Kennedy said he was eager to "counter the militaristic policies" of Reagan and "undermine his prospects for re-election in 1984." His plan had everything. Fake news, a pliant opposition media, and a cutout to keep him from direct contact with the KGB.

Kennedy said he could work with the American big three news networks to engineer positive new coverage for Andropov and other Soviet officials. Kennedy was so confident of having the media in his pocket that he said he could persuade then nationally known anchors Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters to travel to Moscow to do softball interviews with the Soviet premier.

The idea was to contrast the peace-loving Soviets with the war-mongering Reagan and persuade the American people to believe the fake news and vote Democrat.

Kennedy was thinking about running himself in 1984, so he sent his former law school roommate and one-term Senator John Tunney to Russia to do the in-person negotiating. Tunney eventually made a total of 15 trips to the Soviet Union as Kennedy’s errand boy.

Kennedy’s traitorous behavior — there is no other word for it — became public knowledge when the Soviet Union collapsed and KGB files were briefly opened to the rest of the world. The public investigation of his conduct and the subsequent trial and imprisonment rocked D.C. and permanently damaged the Democratic Party.

Wait! What am I thinking? There was no investigation of Kennedy. No trial. No public humiliation. He got more bad press for drunkenly chasing coeds in Florida than he did for attempting to subvert a presidential election.

You know I don’t often agree with President Trump. But I do think he’s right when he talks about a "rigged" system in Washington, D.C.

Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker’s bureau. Read more reports from Michael Reagan — Go Here Now.