All language subtitles for While.The.Rest.Of.Us.Die.S01E06.1080p.WEB.h264-BAE.ENG

-Former Vice President
Joseph R. Biden

is projected to win
the state of Pennsylvania

and will become the 46th
president of the United States.

-This is a fraud
on the American public.

This is an embarrassment
to our country.

We were getting ready
to win this election.

Frankly, we did win
this election.

-How did we get here...

-It's legal for them to count
votes in Pennsylvania

two days after the election
on November 3rd?

- Yes.
- You're wrong. Go.

I don't even want
to talk to you.

- where counting ballots as a
battle between good and evil...

-This is now our greatest fight
since the civil war,

the battle of righteousness
versus Satan.

-The Wuhan outbreak...
Bill Gates did this.

- where science is met
with righteous ignorance...

-You literally cannot mandate
somebody to wear a mask

knowing that that mask
is killing people.

It literally is killing people.

- where Americans
are so divided,

we can't agree
on fundamental truths?

This is a legacy of decades
of lies by the richest

and most powerful members
of our society,

lies to mask the real threats...

-[ Crying ] Put your masks on.

Don't go out if you don't have
to.

- lies to justify
putting Americans in harm's way,

lies designed to enrich
and protect those in power

while the rest of us die.

[ Cheers and applause ]

For over 70 years,
our leaders have told us

one thing
under the bright lights.

-The protection of the lives
and property of Americans

is the responsibility
of all public officials.

-I care. We're trying.

-And it is my first duty
as president

to protect the American people.

-We have it
so well under control.

-But America's shadow government
has spent trillions of dollars

on secret plans
that serve one premise...

When the shit really
hits the fan, we're on our own.

-I have nothing. Nothing.

-And while the government
sold us lie after lie,

now truth itself
is under attack.

-We will not cower down to evil!
We're Americans!

♪♪

♪♪

[ Alarm blaring ]

-That signal means to stop
whatever you are doing

and get to the nearest
safe place fast.

-During
the Cuban Missile Crisis,

my high school
had an air-raid drill,

and only the headmaster
knew it was a drill,

so it was pretty dramatic.

I could tell the teachers
were scared.

There had just been a speech
by the president

saying we might go to war.

-It shall be the policy
of this nation

to regard any nuclear missile
launched from Cuba

against any nation
in the Western Hemisphere

as an attack by the Soviet Union
on the United States,

requiring a full retaliatory
response upon the Soviet Union.

-And so we did what we were
supposed to do.

We went into the basement
of the high school,

turned away from any windows
any glass,

and prepared
for the blast to occur.

I thought there's a chance
it's real,

and I don't really want to die
in my high-school basement.

So can I make it if I bolt?

Can I make it to the subway,
and can I make it home in time?

And I did the math
and I couldn't.

And there was no way
I could get home

on the subway in half an hour.

So at 12 years old,
I was deciding

where I wanted to die
during a nuclear war.

-Your survival chances against
dangerous fallout are excellent

if you take suitable shelter.

-As the Cold War
reaches a boiling point

in the Cuban Missile Crisis,

Richard Clarke and his
classmates are fed a double dose

of terror and deception...

-An attack could come
without warning.

- sold on the fear
of an imminent Soviet attack

and the lie that citizens
in American cities

could survive a direct hit.

By the early '60s,

the advent of thermonuclear
warheads up to 1,000 times

more powerful than the bomb
dropped on Hiroshima

means civil defense drills

are becoming
increasingly meaningless.

-This was a massive,
massive propaganda effort

that bore almost no relationship
to reality whatsoever.

-In a pinch, dig a foxhole

and make a cover
of branches or board.

Don't let radioactive dust
talk to your skin.

-There was something called
Operation Alert

that would happen every year.

Everyone would have
to find shelter

and it was all done
to persuade people

there was something
they could do,

that they could be active,

they would be okay,
they would be safe.

-And while Americans
are distracted

by civil-defense drills,

the government
and military contractors

get busy acquiring
the real power and wealth

that comes from manufacturing

tens of thousands
of nuclear weapons

and the missiles, submarines
and bombers to deliver them.

-And all these civil
defense programs

were really a form
of emotional management.

It was to maintain support

for our nuclear-weapon
strategy and programs.

-The deception goes deeper

into the secret massive
underground complexes

built to actually withstand
a nuclear apocalypse,

facilities meant only
for America's most powerful,

those at the highest
reaches of government.

The workers who maintain the
bunkers are told their families

will be safe back home
in their basement shelters,

so they'll follow orders
even though their loved ones

will be left out on their own
when the bombs drop.

-One of the things that bothered
me about this whole process

was that we had planned out what
you'd need at the facility...

It had to have water,

it had their beds,
it had to have food.

But at some point, someone
needed to have thought through,

"Are these people going to be
fully attentive

to the very trying jobs
they're going to be asked to do

if their families are
under the fallout cloud?"

-Even President Eisenhower
came to believe that,

if there were ever
a nuclear war,

millions would die, even
with civil-defense planning.

-But President Eisenhower
knew privately

that this was all bullshit.

In the Eisenhower era,

there was a phrase
that was used to describe

what would be
after a nuclear attack,

and the phrase was
"a smoking, radiating ruin."

-But for Eisenhower,
it wasn't just nuclear war.

It was the arms race itself
that was leading to the rise

of something that could
threaten American democracy.

So in his farewell address...
- We have been compelled

to create a permanent armaments
industry of vast proportions.

- Ike says the quiet part
out loud,

that Cold War planning
is secretly transferring

previously unimaginable power
into a very few hands,

all unaccountable to the people.

-We must guard against
the acquisition

of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought,

by the military
industrial complex.

The potential for the disastrous
rise of misplaced power exists

and will persist.

We must never let the weight
of this combination

endanger our liberties
or democratic processes.

-But we do.

The newly formed Central
Intelligence Agency is tasked

with containing and rolling
back communist expansion.

But despite
Eisenhower's warnings,

the CIA will often act
as the secret army

of the military
industrial complex

using any means necessary.

This top-secret CIA report
lays out the plan...

Commence aggressive covert
operations across the globe

in which the rules of normal
human conduct don't apply.

War would now be fought
in the shadows.

The CIA teams up
with drug traffickers,

torturers, murderers.

Often their operations
end up serving

America's corporate interests
and undermining democracy.

The CIA orchestrated coups
and assassinations in Guatemala

to protect
the United Fruit Company

and in defense of big oil
in Iran and Indonesia.

♪♪

While Norman Rockwell paints

Boy Scouts as the essence of
America's decency and democracy,

America's shadow warriors
leave the streets

of the so-called
Third World red with blood.

-It corroded the soul of America
in totality.

It led to a situation

where the idea of freedom
and liberty and human dignity

was cast aside in the pursuit
of power and influence.

-And yet, for the elite
to maintain control,

it's crucial Americans
are considered the good guys.

So deception is essential.

Cold War strategist
Hans Morgenthau

calls this schizophrenic
reality the dual state,

a democratic state
that operates in the open

and an amoral security state
which exercises secret control

and a veto
over democracy itself.

-We know that the American
government has engaged

in the covert overthrow

of democratically elected
leaders across the world.

We know that the government
has engaged

in the forced
sterilization of prisoners,

medical experimentation
on children in state care,

CIA agents setting up brothels
in San Francisco

to test the effects of acid

and other drugs
on unsuspecting Johns.

-The CIA tries to bury the dirty
tricks under a blanket of lies

and engages in a massive project
to influence popular culture.

The agency places editors
at major newspapers

across Western Europe

and secretly funds
prominent literary magazines

in Europe and Latin America.

Gabriel Garcia Márquez,

Ernest Hemingway,
and even James Baldwin

are unwittingly writing

on behalf of
America's shadow government.

Major European exhibitions
of America's most famous artists

are secretly funded
by American spies.

The world's arts and culture

becomes a psyops battleground.

Back home,
it's the FBI's mission

to preserve
the rigid social order

that protects
America's ruling class.

The bureau spies
not only on communists,

but on activists of all kinds
and even rock stars,

sometimes they're blackmailed
and even killed by police.

-COINTELPRO,
started by the FBI in 1956,

its first targets
are American communists,

the American Communist Party,

and then very quickly added
into that are African-American

civil rights organizations.

J. Edgar Hoover picks out
Martin Luther King

to infiltrate and disrupt

the efforts of
the civil rights movement.

-The Vietnam War is the military
industrial elite's

most extensive project,

and it's built upon
two fictions...

That Southeast Asia is essential
to American security

and that we're defending
the Vietnamese people.

-After almost three weeks

of some of the war's toughest
fighting, the end is in sight.

-The war has been raging
for years

when a top-secret
Pentagon report is leaked,

revealing perhaps the biggest

and certainly
the deadliest lie...

Few of the military planners
actually believe

the war can be won,

but the war won't end
for four more years,

and when it does,
the U.S. will have lost.

♪♪

-We paid the price of 58,000
dead American servicemen

and women with hundreds
of thousands wounded

and with PTSD, with nations
in Southeast Asia destroyed.

-And along with the many dead,
many Americans'

confidence in their government
begins to die, as well.

The loss of trust leads to
a flourishing

of conspiracy theories
about the JFK assassination,

Area 51, even the moon landing.

-A plane has crashed into
one of the towers

of the World Trade Center.

These remain fringe ideas.

But a quarter of a century
after the Vietnam War ends,

there'll be a chance
to unify the country

and win back the trust
of the American people.

-For whatever reason, and there
are lots of theories about why,

the Bush administration
was intent on invading

and occupying Iraq,

even though it had nothing to do
with the war on terrorism.

♪♪

-I was at a shooting range
in San Diego,

and I was at one end
of the range

and these two Saudis were at
the other end of the range,

and they had
a .22 caliber silver pistol.

And I'm shooting my gun
with aimed fire slowly.

I hear this pistol go, "Bang,
bang, bang, bang, bang,

bang, bang, bang, bang, bang."

I thought, "Who's down there?

Who's the idiot
who's just shooting that pistol

like a machine gun?"

After the 9/11 hijackings,

I looked at the images,
and I realized

they were the hijackers
from the San Diego cell.

-Former intelligence officer
Malcolm Nance

believes the 9/11 hijackers

were able to infiltrate America
so easily

because of where they came from.

-It showed that they could come
to the United States,

operate like the Saudis,

and that green passport would
give us an elite blind spot,

because when we think
of Saudi Arabians,

we think of money...
Very, very large,

vast amounts
of Gulf state oil money.

And that is the blind spot

that allows people
to exploit our system.

♪♪

[ Sirens wailing ]

-10 months after Nance's citing,

Americans are united
in their horror and grief

and quickly realize
that, despite the trillions

invested
in protecting the nation,

those defenses have failed,

notably in the months
leading up to the 9/11 attack.

-We began to receive lots of
intelligence indications

that there was going to be
a major terrorist strike

by Al-Qaeda,
by bin Laden's organization

against the United States/

-On 9/11, Richard Clarke is
working in the White House.

His job... advise the president
about terrorist threats.

-The Bush administration
did very little in response

to that intelligence.

Despite the CIA director
telling him repeatedly

that there was
a major attack coming,

despite my warnings,

the Bush administration didn't
try to find Al-Qaeda people

in the United States,
didn't ask all the agencies

to do their maximum,

didn't try to preempt the attack

by going after bin Laden
in Afghanistan.

-Why Clarke's warnings to Bush
were ignored

has never fully been explained,

but some believe it had to do
with the fact

that 15 of the 19 hijackers
came from one country,

America's oil-rich ally,
Saudi Arabia.

For years, the Saudi royals had
been playing a dangerous game,

funding a strain
of radical Islam

that inspired the son of one

of the country's
richest construction tycoons

to become a terrorist leader
while cozying up

to powerful American political
dynasties like the Bushes,

an oil family that produced
two presidents.

-The Saudis have always wanted
a president

who could play by their rules.

"Let's just keep pumping oil.
Let's get things stable."

-By some estimates
over the decades,

the Saudis move over a billion
dollars to the Bush family

and its allied companies
and institutions.

-These people essentially
are Bond villains

who are running countries.

They don't believe in democracy,

and bin Laden knew
Saudi Arabians

were treated well
in the United States

and they could just walk
right into the country

and learn whatever they wanted

and the Americans
would worship them.

-After 9/11, rather than allow
an open investigation,

the Bush White House demands
the congressional committees

redact 28 pages
of their 9/11 report

related to the question
of whether the Saudi government

was involved in the attacks.

When the pages
are finally released in 2012,

they detailed extensive links
between men

the FBI thinks could be
Saudi intelligence officers

and the hijackers, including the
two men Nance saw in San Diego.

But the report stopped short
of finding conclusive proof

of a connection between
the Saudi government and 9/11.

And rather than own up to the
immense intelligence failure

that allowed 9/11 to happen.

The Bush administration executes
what is perhaps

the 21st century's
greatest feat of misdirection.

They shift blame
from the actual perpetrator

to a completely
unrelated target,

Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein.

-George W. Bush was guided
by George Herbert Walker Bush's

defense secretary, Dick Cheney.

They wanted to liberate Iraq for
the sake of liberating the oil,

which would assist the Saudis,

not liberate Iraq for the sake
of liberating Iraqis.

-And just as it had
with Vietnam,

the government creates
the illusion

that vital American interests
are at stake and goes further,

suggesting that Iraq is a dire
threat to the United States.

One of the most trusted figures
in American society

is rolled out
to level the accusation

that Iraq has been hiding
weapons of mass destruction

and is prepared to use them.

-The facts and Iraq's behavior
show that Saddam Hussein

and his regime
are concealing their efforts

to produce more weapons
of mass destruction.

-And in addition to the threat,
Americans are told

that the Iraqi people

want us to invade their country.

-Do you think the American
people are prepared for a long,

costly, and bloody battle?

-I don't think it's likely
to unfold that way, Tim,

because I really do believe
we will be

greeted as liberators.

-But these are lies
on a massive scale

and will lead
to countless deaths

and kill faith in government

for a new generation
of Americans.

-Iraq had nothing to do
with the attack on 9/11,

but for whatever reason,
and there are lots of theories

about why,
the Bush administration

was intent on invading
and occupying Iraq,

even though it had nothing to do
with the war on terrorism.

-As the U.S. rolls into Iraq,
weapons of mass destruction

are never found and another
false promise is exposed.

[ All chanting
in native language ]

Instead of being greeted
as liberators,

American soldiers are seen
as an occupying army.

- Go away! Go away!
- Go away! Go away!

-We moved hundreds of thousands
of American targets

closer to people with guns
and bombs

who could have terrorist
attacks against them,

and that's what
happened in Iraq.

[ Gunfire ]
- Watch out!

[ Indistinct shouting ]

-You had a political leadership

that was largely dominated
by chicken hawks,

people who had never
served themselves.

They're sending other
people's kids off to war.

They're not sending
their own kids.

[ Gunfire ]

-The Saudi oil ties,
the intelligence failure,

the inability to find weapons
of mass destruction,

some take these strands
and weave

a wild conspiracy theory
that Bush and his cronies

orchestrated 9/11
to justify the Iraq invasion.

-September 11th was not
just a terrible tragedy

that took the lives
of thousands of innocent people.

It was a violent and aggressive
seizure of power

and a transformation of both
foreign and domestic policy.

It was an American coup.

-Despite a mountain of evidence
to the contrary,

the 9/11 conspiracy theorists
make the bizarre claim

that no planes were actually
hijacked,

and it was planted bombs

that destroyed the Pentagon
and Trade Center.

Not seeing the irony, they would
call themselves 9/11 truthers.

-[ Speaks indistinctly ]

-What had been
only on the fringes

is now a new kind of movement,
people who believe

everything they're being
told by authority is a lie.

-It was the head of CIA!
FBI! Homeland Security!

-Their views are amplified

by the Internet
and seep into the mainstream.

-The Tower 7 one is
the weirdest one of all,

'cause if that... if it's...
[stammering]

when you watch that one,
I was like,

"Why does that collapse
like that?"

Like, it's just strange.

-And I'm sure you've seen
the BBC reporter

who was speaking on camera

and World Trade Center 7
is behind her,

and she says, "World Trade
Center 7 has just fallen.

It has fallen.

It is the third building..."
and it's still standing.

-The truth is, delusion paints
the attack as a false flag,

a covert government op

designed to look like the work
of someone else.

And suddenly false flags
are seen everywhere.

-Can you imagine being a parent
of a little child

who saw this scene that
you're looking at right now?

-In a grotesque twist,
even school shootings

are labeled hoaxes perpetrated
by the government to justify

taking away Americans' guns.

-This is not just
the 17 poor, dead young people

that had their lives
taken from them.

This is the globalist
crime syndicate

that has funded the radical
Islamic takeover of North Africa

and much of the Middle East.

-The price is high.

Instead of trying to figure out
how to avoid future tragedies,

we're drawn into a debate
over paranoid fantasies.

-Do you see the "666"
right here?

Do you see all of
the subliminal messages?

-Now anything is possible.

Like the racist falsehood

that the Hawaiian-born
African-American president

was really born in Kenya.

-Barack Obama has usurped
the presidency, and in so doing

is now on the fast track
to destroy America.

-Into the sea
of suspicion and doubt,

fueled in part by decades
of government lies

wades a real-estate mogul
and reality-TV star

who becomes the champion
of the Obama birther movement.

-I think it's a terrible pale
that's hanging over him.

He should show
his birth certificate.

-And, again,
Americans are distracted

from real political debates

about real problems,
like growing economic inequality

as the country struggles to
recover from the 2008 recession.

And when Donald Trump
runs for president himself,

he leverages the mistrust
accrued from the falsehoods

of Democrats
and Republicans alike.

-They lie. They said there were
weapons of mass destruction.

There were none,
and they knew there were none.

-Trump goes further, enrobing
himself in aggrievement

the sense not only that American
greatness has been lost,

but that it's been stolen.

-The establishment
protected itself

but not the citizens
of our country.

-And shortly after Trump
becomes president,

in a dark corner
of the Internet,

another online conspiracy erupts
with Trump at the center,

they savior battling
a cabal inside government.

The dual state is rebranded
the deep state,

and Trump discovers that
decades of lies and mistrust

can be very useful indeed.

-It's not that surprising,
because if you actually believe

the theories that are espoused
by QAnon as reality,

they would probably warrant
some pretty dramatic responses.

-I want to tell you
that this marks the start

of the second
American Revolution.

[ People cheer,
chant "freedom" ]

-Decades of Cold War, living on
a constant war footing,

under the looming cloud

of seemingly imminent
nuclear annihilation,

all of it has a profound effect
on the American mind.

-America is going under
leftist martial law,

and if the communist
Chinese agent Joe Biden

is able to get in there,

he will put America under
permanent lock-down,

siege until we're brought
to our knees.

-In the last 50 years,
we've pretty much always existed

at the brink of some kind
of existential threat,

usually a self-made one,

you know,
often a military aggression,

and so in those times,
people develop belief systems

that help them cope,
help them maintain,

and one of those is to tell
yourself that, you know,

you are part of a battle
between good and evil

and that, ultimately,
good will prevail.

-One communist on the faculty
of one university

is one communist too many.

[ People cheer ]

-During the Cold War,
the government masters

the art of misdirection.

The damage control when official
lies come to light...

Blame the Soviets
and other internal enemies.

-Every war that we've ever lost,

every pandemic
that we have failed to fight,

it is somehow or another
the result of traitors.

-In the '80s, Rambo embodies
the country's rage over the lies

and the loss of Vietnam,

but he transfers blame
from the government

that orchestrated the war to
the protesters who opposed it.

-But somebody
wouldn't let us win.

And I come back to the world,

and I see all those maggots
at the airport,

protesting me, spitting,
calling me "baby killer"

and all kinds of vile crap.

-It's a result of columns
within the country

who are obsessed
with destroying America.

They are themselves evil.

And so when you start believing
in these conspiracy theories,

you come to believe that America
itself has been infected

with corruption
and traitors and evil

so much
that democracy is untenable.

♪♪

-Fueled partly by the mistrust

that comes with decades
of government lies,

conspiracy movements
proliferate after 9/11

and in Donald Trump,
they have found their champion.

Even a Fox News ally wonders
if he's gone off the rails.

-Who do you think is pulling
Biden's strings?

Is it former Obama officials?

-People that you've
never heard of,

people that are in the dark
shadows, people that...

-What does that mean? That
sounds like conspiracy theory.

Dark shadows?
What is that?

-No, people that you
haven't heard of.

They're people
that are on the streets.

They're people that are
controlling the streets.

-The most extreme
conspiracy movement,

which gains by far the most
followers, is called QAnon.

It begins with a series of posts
on an Internet bulletin board

starting in October 2017.

-This mysterious person
who called themselves Q

was claiming that Donald Trump
was engaged in a secret war

against a variety of enemies,

mostly members of
the so-called deep state,

and that soon Donald Trump's
enemies would be arrested

or put to death.

-Are you kidding me?!
We will not cower down to evil!

We're Americans!

-QAnon is a far-right conspiracy
based on blood libel,

which is an ancient
anti-Semitic concept

that Jewish people
are eating Christian babies.

In this case, they've changed
that a little bit.

-QAnon's version of the blood
libel has Donald Trump at war

with a deep-state cabal
that's abducting children

and drinking their blood.

The satanic group is vast
and includes Hillary Clinton,

Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama,
and Joe Biden,

billionaires George Soros
and Bill Gates

and even entertainers like Tom
Hanks, Ellen, and Oprah Winfrey.

-The first event predicted
by Q...

Claiming that Hillary Clinton
was going to be arrested

within 48 hours of the post.

That was obviously false,

but this did not stop QAnon
in any way.

-People who believe
the disinformation,

misinformation
that they are promulgating,

we've seen, will do
some pretty extreme things.

And it's not that surprising
because if you actually believe

the theories that are espoused
by QAnon as reality,

they would probably warrant
some pretty dramatic responses

-Since that first post in 2017,

purveyors of the patently false
QAnon conspiracy theory

have attracted
millions of new adherents

with online videos full of
quasi-religious prophecies

about a coming storm
and a great awakening.

-What if I told you
it was done on purpose?

What if I told you that those
who were corrupting the world,

poisoning our food, and igniting
conflict were themselves about

to be permanently
eradicated from the Earth?

-As the conspiracy cult grows,

its narrative expands with
increasingly outlandish claims.

-One person claims that
there are 20,000 children

being kept beneath
the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Another claims instead
that these "mole children"

are being held
beneath Central Park.

QAnon believers take typos

and even the act
of the president

drinking a bottle of FIJI Water
as messages that are coded

and being sent to them
across the airwaves for them

to figure out on their own time.

-The QAnon lie
about a deep state cabal

is the legacy of decades
of official lies.

At the same time,
QAnon serves the purposes

of the current government elite.

If you paint your opponents

as Satan-worshiping drinkers
of children's blood,

any action against them
is justified.

-Then we end up in an
"every man for himself,"

"survival of the fittest"

kind of prepper jungle, right?

It's a way of bringing
about the apocalypse now.

That's why they call it
the Great Awakening.

They want to bring it on.
Let's get there.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Even when Trump
is no longer president,

the post-truth world
may be his legacy,

thanks in part to decades
of lies by leaders before him.

And without a set of truths
to unite us,

we may remain divided
and find that stamping out

hateful conspiracies
is like fighting shadows.

-The Cold War was the first time

that the American
intelligence state

launched into a full-scale
psychological operation

designed to modify human
behavior and human reaction

to American power.

The result of this large-scale
psychological operation

is QAnon.

In a way,
we developed an A.I.

that we thought
would fight our enemy,

but it came back home
and consumed us.

[ Both shouting indistinctly ]

-We have forgotten
what to expect from a president,

especially in moments
of disaster,

and we are neck deep in it.

-2020.

How do I characterize 2020?

-A horror story.
Plain and simple.

-It seems like everything
just keeps getting worse,

just worse and worse
all the time.

-2020 is the year disaster
struck and threatens Americans

in every part of the country,

and not only have the nation's
defenses proved inadequate,

the president hasn't even
pretended to protect us.

-It's going to disappear
one day.

It's like a miracle.
It will disappear.

-A stress test for the system,
and we have largely failed it.

-We really reached

a kind of maximum brittleness
as a society.

-The lie that the government
is there

to defend us is laid bare.

Other falsehoods designed

to reinforce the president's
power accelerate.

-2020 is bad.

The only question is,
will 2021 be worse?

♪♪

-The way that Donald Trump
has faced the pandemic

or failed to face the pandemic

is the greatest national
security blunder

we've ever seen
in American history.

It dwarfs Vietnam.

It dwarfs the Iraq war.

It's killing our citizens.

It's occupying our military.
It's eroding our economy.

The pandemic is hurting America

in ways that Osama bin Laden
could have only dreamed of.

-As the pandemic first bears
down on the country...

-The Democrats want us
to fail so badly...

-...Donald Trump sees
the virus

as a political ploy
by Democrats...

-...and this is their new hoax.

- and when COVID spread
is impossible to ignore,

Trump attempts to gaslight
the nation with false optimism.

-Now, the virus that we're
talking about having to do,

you know, a lot of people think
that goes away in April

with the heat
as the heat comes in.

Typically, that will
go away in April.

We're in great shape, though.

-But the U.S.
is in the worst shape.

Could a reason we make up only
4% of the world's population

but account
for over 20% of the deaths

be that so many Americans
don't trust authority,

the legacy of decades
of government lies?

-All Trump's assurances
about the coronavirus going away

and that it's just going
to disappear

and we're all going
to be just fine,

I think those efforts
are propaganda.

They're very similar
to the Eisenhower-era propaganda

that, you know,
we can survive a nuclear war,

you know, if you just get
in your basement.

If you just have detergent
down there,

you can scrub off
the radioactive fallout,

and your family could be okay.

-Behind closed doors
in conversations

with author Bob Woodward,

as the virus first
begins to spread,

Trump shows he understands
how deadly the threat is.

Meanwhile, misinformation
creeps into the mainstream.

QAnon followers claim the
pandemic is an elaborate ruse

to increase authoritarian
control over their lives

and to undermine
their fearless leader.

-The COVID hoax was in the works

years before the election
of Donald Trump,

but they started
fast-tracking it.

-As Trump pretends that America
has turned a corner,

he holds large
in-person rallies...

-I hear from your two great
senators and your governor

that we're doing very well
in Oklahoma. That's the word.

-...superspreader events
that a Stanford study

finds have led, at the time,

to more than 30,000 infections
and over 700 deaths.

-President Trump
was ridiculing the notion

of people wearing masks,

you see, is a pathological,

almost sociopathic lack
of compassion for other people,

not just the American people
as a whole,

but for the people he works with
in his own administration.

-When Trump contracts
COVID himself,

he receives care unavailable
to virtually any other American,

yet he takes his recovery
as proof

that taking steps to avoid COVID
is somehow a moral failure.

-Don't let it dominate you.
Don't be afraid of it.

-We have forgotten what to
expect from a president,

especially in moments
of disaster,

and we are neck deep in it.
- We're on our own...

-Supposing we hit the body
with a tremendous, uh,

whether it's ultraviolet
or just very powerful light.

-...but there's
this illusion

that there's someone
in charge...

-And then I see
the disinfectant.

- and that's the worst
of both worlds.

-And is there a way
we can do something like that

by injection inside or...
Or almost a cleaning?

♪♪

-The coronavirus crisis
is exposing failures

even deeper than a president
refusing to protect us.

-That's assault, ma'am.

-It reveals a mistrust
of authority so profound

that many won't wear the masks
necessary to curb the outbreak,

and it lays bare
the government's inability

to protect the vulnerable.

As the country teeters
on the abyss,

we're witnessing a loss of faith
in America itself.

-I was in the Soviet Union
when it collapsed back in 1992,

and when I came back
to the West,

I was shocked by how complacent
people were with

this presumption that history
only went in one direction,

because I've seen that history
can go into reverse.

And, unfortunately, when that
happens, it can be brutal.

-Americans are starting
to realize more and more

that they don't have
to be powerless,

and we can start to build
something real and true

and human and reject
this militarism of the Cold War.

-The RAND Corporation,
Palo Alto, 1950s.

A psychological experiment is
being conducted that will shape

the shadow government's
dark view of human nature.

The experiment,
which would guide

America's Cold War
military strategy,

takes the form of a game.
- Well, we got to win.

-Game theory was
a burgeoning study

that started with this game,
prisoner's dilemma,

in which two opponents
took each other on

with their moves
hidden behind a structure.

-Each prisoner has to decide
whether to rat out the other guy

in exchange
for a lighter sentence.

The way the game is structured,
the safe thing to do

is betray your fellow prisoner
because they may betray you.

-The strategy was to always act
in your own interests,

to always act in bad faith.

You had to always assume
that your opponent

was seeking to destroy you
and was going to lie

and not communicate
or negotiate.

-For the doomsday planners,

game theory is embodied
in the doctrine

called "mutually
assured destruction," or MAD.

-If the Russians try to nuke us,

we're going to nuke them
right back.

Our bombs are on autopilot.

♪♪

-The 1964 film
"Dr. Strangelove" parodies

the insanity
of mutual destruction

with a so-called doomsday
machine...

- Doomsday machine.
- That can't be stopped

once it's triggered.
- Doomsday machine?

What is that?
- A device which will destroy

all human and animal life
on Earth.

-All human and animal?

-Those guys, the opposites of
us, the ideology that we hate,

those guys are coming for us.

The threat is out there.
It's external.

-But what if that threat
isn't out there,

but within our own society,

in official lies
and misinformation, in division,

in the failure of
our own leaders to protect us?

-The opposite of mutually
assured destruction

is self-destruction.

That's the path we're on now.

-We are in the middle
of something that I am not sure

that we're going to get out of.

We are probably more divided

than we've ever been
in the United States.

We're in the grip of a pretty
devastating set of circumstances

that are going to
probably affect us

for [sighs] generations.

-We're scared, and it's very
difficult not to be.

But what we can do
is exercise our agency.

We have to make our choices.

We have to not only vote,
but we also have to be active.

We have to work essentially
in the spirit of, you know,

the late and great John Lewis,
to go out

and make good and
necessary trouble.

-As America mourns
and tears at itself,

maybe there's one upside
to the horrors of 2020.

We're finally facing the legacy
of lies that got us here.

-As these things
start to collapse,

Americans are starting
to realize more and more

that they don't have
to be powerless.

They do not have to accept
a world

in which they have to sacrifice
for the good of a state,

particularly when the state

doesn't hold up
its end of the bargain.

Americans are starting
to wake up from this mythology

that they have been taught
and realized that power can come

from grassroots organization
and solidarity,

and we can start to build
something real and true

and human and reject
this militarism of the Cold War.

-So what would real security
look like?

It would look like embracing

the general welfare
of the American people

and the general welfare
of the species.

-This is what democracy
looks like!

-That would involve cutting
all of the spending on warfare

and surveillance and policing

and redirecting it
towards meeting human needs,

and we need to be thinking
about all fantasies

of individual survival

in the face of some sort
of atomic apocalypse

or environmental apocalypse
are just that.

They're fantasies, and
they have no basis in reality.

I mean, we are... from our days
as hunter gatherers to today,

we are a group species.

We're all totally dependent
on each other.

And if we can't see that,
that's our greatest peril.

♪♪

-America thought... "thought"
it won the Cold War,

when, in fact, nobody did.
And as it thought that it then

began to build history's
most perfect killing machine.

But while America was building,
it neglected itself,

it didn't build any kinds
of public institutions,

no public health care
and pensions,

child care, decent jobs,
incomes, savings,

stability, nothing.

Communism was a disaster,

and 20 years later,
30 years later,

we have capitalism
collapsing America.

You know,
some people used to joke

that there were bread lines
in the Soviet Union.

Okay. There's lines
for basics in the states, too.

-Being poor and Black in America

is a lot like living
in a collapsed economy.

Being young in America
is a lot like living

in a collapsed economy.
You're getting paid, you know,

some ridiculously
low minimum wage,

you have to work two jobs
to afford a house,

and you can't afford
health insurance.

To all intents and purposes,
America has collapsed already.

The apocalypse is here.

It's just not
evenly distributed.

-This is what happens
when there is a shadow agenda,

a shadow America that benefits
one group of people

at the expense
of the greater good.

All they need is for you
not to pay attention,

all they need
is for you not to know

where America's sons
and daughters are dying

or how much money they spend
on a weapons system

or where they're
deploying troops.

They hope
you don't pay attention.

If you don't pay attention,
that's how this happens,

that's how billions
of dollars are spent,

that's how cities
are left vulnerable,

that's how pandemics spread.

♪♪

-QAnon is the most advanced

form of interactive fiction
I've seen.

It's kind of like a "Choose
Your Own Adventure" novel,

where what they do
is leave this hint,

that hint, this hint
and that hint,

and then you as
the audience member

have to find ways of connecting
these different things.

So it's like child abuse
and a government thing and COVID

and 5G cellular technology.

Go. Right?

So it's like an improv show
where you give them four things,

and they have to try to
connect them on stage at once.

And the great, beautiful thing
that the QAnon culture

has adopted
is the improv artists',

"Yes, and..." technique.

The whole idea in improv
is one person says something

and then you say, "Yes, and..."

-In the '60s, anti-government
fervor flourishes

on the counterculture left.

The right backs the military
and the anti-communist state.

But in this decade, much of this
has been turned upside down.

And a new right wing
mysticism summons

monsters from the last century
that we thought we defeated

the belief
in a secret cabal of Jews

and communists
inside government,

invisibly manipulating society,

preying on children
for their blood,

the invention
of an indispensable leader

to save the world
from the cabal.

-QAnon is the mystic fringe
of fascism,

the festering at the edge
where ideas become sublimated

into something more ethereal
or even cosmic.

Donald Trump is a kind of beacon

for those hoping
for a pure future,

for a sort of fascist utopia,
a return to values of the past

and a cleaning of the country's
undesirable elements.