The Reagan Revolution ignited a culture of “greed is good," alongside the rise of Christian nationalism. Democrats, for their part, embraced this shift, allowing unions to weaken and newsrooms to erode, all in the name of boosting corporate profits. As a result, Trump and Manafort’s brand of corruption thrived in plain sight. Throughout American history, progress for Black people has been met with violent white rage, and Trump’s birtherism was the inevitable response to the first Black president. Meanwhile, Russia's support for Trump wasn’t just about sowing chaos in U.S. politics; it was part of a broader geopolitical strategy to lift sanctions and advance their long-standing imperial ambitions, which have been unfolding since Russia invaded Georgia. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is merely the latest chapter of rising Russian imperialism. All of this is compounded by the deep, structural misogyny and racism in America, a nation built on genocide that persists to this day with the prison industrial complex and the epidemic of violence against Native American women. These forces are not isolated—they are interconnected, fueling each other in a dangerous cycle. The gasoline on that fire is unchecked social media as well as Silicon Valley greed. What's left of newsrooms are populated by white men who aren't sensitive to most of these issues since they're blinded by their own privilege.