The gloves came off this week in the United States as Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced she would sue Hillary Clinton for suggesting she was a ‘Russian asset.’ Clinton’s conspiracy theory that Gabbard was in the employ of the Russians went something like this: somewhere deep behind the walls of the Kremlin, the Russians, trembling at the prospect of having to play 4D chess against the likes of old Joe Biden, came to the conclusion that Donald Trump would never emerge victorious in 2020 without a third-party candidate to play spoiler.