Compelling essay Elisabeth, cheers!!! Rabbit holes indeed. Designed to keep everyone in fear and hate. Making reason itself suspect. It is no longer the core problem that the government lies a great deal and panders to plutocrats. But now the deep seated belief is that somehow the government is universally malevolent, completely corrupt, and hell bent on destroying us. If that were the case, it would be pretty hopeless. Plus, if someone truly believes this, why would they trust anyone, especially such a complete sociopath like Trump to replace the entire rotten system? Especially after he had 4 years and did virtually nothing to "drain the swamp", and boldly added his own brand of sleazy mega-corruption. Once you have fascist fake victims running against government corruption, and just adding more corruption, you have the endless cycle of tin pot dictators. This is the ultimate danger of our Colonel Jessup approach to government ("you can't handle the truth"), which by the way is now becoming our approach to history as well. As Voltaire said “Those who can get you to believe absurdities can get you to commit atrocities.”