IN JANUARY 1933, after months of rebuffs, the American poet Ezra Pound finally secured a meeting with Benito Mussolini, his idol, in Rome. Flicking through his admirer’s poems—and possibly distracted by the presence of a pretty young English teacher—Mussolini politely described them as divertente, or amusing. Pound chose to interpret this nicety as evidence of il Duce’s genius and appreciation of his own; his ruinous devotion to him intensified. In perhaps the weirdest subplot of America’s wild presidential election, an offhand comment by Vladimir Putin seems to have had a similar effect on Donald Trump.

This is a season of conspiracy theories. In certain corners of the internet it is an item of faith that Hillary Clinton enabled the attack on Benghazi, to cover up illicit arms sales to terrorists. Analysis of Mr Trump’s attitude to Mr Putin can veer into the thrilleresque too. Yet there is a pattern in his remarks that, as polling day nears, deserves scrutiny. Tracing it lays bare his slipshod policymaking, even if his motives remain opaque.

The “bromance”, to use Barack Obama’s term, was fuelled by Mr Putin’s reference, in December, to Mr Trump as yarki, or colourful, which he mistranslates as “brilliant”. But Mr Trump’s obeisances began even before this imaginary compliment. In a stark example of his habit of disparaging America, he compares Mr Putin’s strength and leadership favourably with Mr Obama’s, deflecting complaints about Russia’s human-rights record with the gibe that “our country does plenty of killing also.” Recently, he said that, should he win the election, he might fix a meeting with Mr Putin before his inauguration. (That would evidently be their first, despite his intimations that they have talked before. For example, after the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013, Mr Trump claimed Mr Putin “could not have been nicer.”)

Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg, one of his national-security advisers, optimistically describes this approach to Mr Putin as “Reaganesque”: “You can’t talk down to him,” he says. Major-General Bert Mizusawa, another adviser, maintains that Mr Trump’s praise for the Russian president’s strength “doesn’t mean he agrees with all of his policies”. If his warmth were confined to generalities, that rationale might seem plausible. The trouble is that—even allowing for his ignorance and incoherence, as when he seemed to imply that Russia had not invaded Ukraine—his statements have touched on specific, vital issues, often alarmingly.

Such as NATO, probably Mr Putin’s greatest bugbear. To remind, Mr Trump has said the alliance is “obsolete”, upsetting Europeans by casting doubt on its mutual-defence commitment. It might depend, he has said, on an embattled nation’s defence expenditure. Or consider his record on Ukraine, another of Mr Putin’s preoccupations. Mr Trump has countenanced the idea of easing the sanctions imposed after Russia’s illegal seizure of Crimea, an annexation he has indicated he may recognise. He denies any role in the machinations at the Republican National Convention that blocked a pledge to provide weapons to Ukraine from the party platform; but, says Rachel Hoff, a delegate who was at the relevant meeting, members of his team were “absolutely” responsible.

According to Lieut-General Kellogg, Mr Trump “wants to leave his options open” on Ukraine, considering it unwise “to start from an adversarial position”: his much-vaunted negotiating prowess is a catch-all excuse for otherwise indefensible pronouncements. The fanciful goal is to “make a great deal for our country”, in Mr Trump’s words, in which old enmities will be buried and Russia helps see off Islamic State. (Bilateral deals are Mr Putin’s favourite form of engagement; doing them with Western businessmen-politicians is one of his specialities.) If that is his purpose, Mr Trump is being uncharacteristically selfless, because his chumminess has no obvious electoral benefit. Unlike some of his other unorthodox views, such as his protectionism, beyond a few extreme nationalists who misguidedly revere Mr Putin there are far more votes to be lost than won by cosying up to him.

Indeed, the risks for Mr Trump have risen as the campaign progressed, and even as he has finessed other awkward commitments. After Mike Pence said that “provocations by Russia [in Syria] need to be met with American strength,” Mr Trump disagreed—preferring to slap down his running-mate rather than rebuke Mr Putin for his barbarities in Aleppo. Astonishingly, he appeared to invite Russia to raid his opponent’s e-mails (“dry humour”, says Major-General Mizusawa). Yet he disputes the judgment of American intelligence agencies that Russian hackers, authorised by the country’s “senior-most officials”, were behind the intrusion into the Democratic National Committee’s servers. “Our country has no idea,” he insists.

All this led a former overseer of the CIA to label Mr Trump an “unwitting agent” of the Kremlin. Madeleine Albright, a former secretary of state, chose Lenin’s phrase: she called him a “useful idiot.”

Cui bono?

What is going on? A popular view is that Mr Putin, whose aversion to Mrs Clinton is plain, is trying to lever Mr Trump into the White House, just as he supports isolationists in Europe. Witness the strategically timed publication of hacked e-mails by WikiLeaks and others. That may overstate the Kremlin’s ambition, assigning it greater clout than it wields: “We’re making them ten feet tall”, worries Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institution. Rather than altering the election’s outcome, reckons an American administration official, the aim may be to spread uncertainty about the process. That would avenge American criticism of Russian elections, discredit future admonishments and sully democracy itself. This race, Dmitry Kiselev, Mr Putin’s chief propagandist, recently assured his TV audience, “can’t be called free and democratic”.

So much for Mr Putin; how about Mr Trump? He may feel a natural affinity for a fellow authoritarian, who shares his indifference to truth and his tastes for earthy language and humiliation as a political tool. His conciliations have also been linked to the alleged leanings of his staff. Some of those connections turned out to be flimsy, such as the Kremlin-friendly unknown named as an adviser by Mr Trump but soon disavowed by his campaign. One was substantial: Paul Manafort, the campaign manager who quit in August amid controversy over his ties to Viktor Yanukovych, the disgraced ex-president of Ukraine who has been given refuge in Russia.