This year 2020 CNN had a special report on the conspiracy theories of the president of the United States. That might seem incredible, but it’s true. It was hosted by Fareed Zakaria who asked the main question right at the outset of the show, “Why does the President of the United States of America live in a world of dark sinister conspiracies?” As one pundit explained, “He gravitates instinctively to conspiratorial understandings of the world.” Or as another said, “the world actually makes sense if you look behind a curtain. There are dark malevolent forces behind the curtain.” As Zakaria said, “behind that curtain he sees political enemies”

Trump  said Joseph Biden and his son were corrupt. Hillary Clinton was a total liar. The election (that he won in 2016) was rigged. It was, as Jeffrey Goldberg said, “it’s all totally nuts. This is the first time I have the fear that a sitting president won’t leave if he loses a free and fair election.”

Fareed Zakaria said “the subject is urgent because the conspiracy theories circulating now are dangerous and the president of the United States is trafficking in them.”

It seems impossible; it is not. The President of the United States with the largest combined intelligence services in the world by a landslide, turns instead to the Internet and Fox News and other unreliable sources for information he relies on to govern the richest and most powerful country in the world. I think he does that because that dark world of conspiracy theories is the world in which he thrives. That is deeply troubling; that is scary.

Some think ‘the adults in the room’ will save us. Trump has already demonstrated over and over again, that the adults are either sycophants or weak or are not adults. We have no protection from anyone.

Some think the constitutional system of checks and balances will protect America and the world. Again, Trump has demonstrated over and over again that he can effortlessly fly over those checks and balances. We have no protection from them either. Even far away in Canada.

Frankly, we are naked to the world in front of the most dangerous man in the world. And that is no conspiracy theory.

As Zakaria said,

“When Donald Trump tells us elections are rigged, Obamagate is the biggest scandal in history, some know these ideas are wholly false, but others are less certain, especially when they hear a story full of details that seems to explain everything. Polls show that up to 50% of Americans have believed at least one of these conspiracy theories. This is a story about just how destructive they have become. Not just to the people they target, but also to the very foundations of our democracy.”

I have said this many times, but I will repeat it. I actually don’t care about Trump. He is hopeless. What I do care about, is that millions of Americans, and Canadians, support Trump. I keep asking how can that be?