46 minutes in and it has “the ring of truth” so far. I stopped to make this aside.
I remember Trump seeking the nomination. I think Graham was running also. Trump shocked me by saying that Graham just wanted endless wars. As a supporter of Reagan, I believed America should stand up to its enemies, communism at the time. So it was a bit of a shock to hear Trump, who I knew little about, speaking somewhat like a Democrat. Well, context is everything. In Reagan’s day the choice was to stand up to the Soviet Union, or slowly succumb.
I agree with Jeffrey Sachs that when the Soviets disbanded the Warsaw Pact, we should have disbanded NATO. Trump, seeking the nomination, asked “why do we have NATO?” If I recall right, Carlsen said a long time ago that his asking that question was critical. He asked a question that he was not supposed to ask. By asking that question, he became the enemy of the permanent state.
Parallels? JFK stated that he would break the CIA into a million pieces and scatter them to the wind. Nixon told the head of the CIA that he knew what really happened to Jack. The CIA is famous for its coups abroad. Could those same skills be used domestically?