Really the rot set in with the pardons of Nixon and Oliver North.
It's not like a blackmail ring is that easy to set up, it seems to have taken a lot of heavy lifting to get this one going.
Their actions are the foundation for everything that came after.
If the American government continues to perform actions that are blatantly against the interests of America and Americans, the impact of that on Americans is going to be (and may be already) massively massively worse than the person to person level crimes we are focusing on.
Does it just feel so bad thinking about it that a lot of people have a hard time even going there mentally? I really don’t get it.
I know it's conspiratorial, and I hate that, but it's one of the only things that makes any of the actions of the US in the last year make any semblance of sense.
I don't like to think that, bit it remains, for me, a valid scenario.