re: For our more liberal friends: who is running the country

I think most of it’s barely controlled chaos and a system of putting out the worst fires and directing the majority of efforts to putting the best possible “face” on it for public observance. Some of it’s evolved into something so big and compartmentalized that it actually does sorta “run itself.” And then of course there are a select few areas where you will detect specific interest from the highest levels, and it’s those areas where the grifting is occurring and the accompanying efforts to conceal the grifting.

In other words, it’s far from a situation that allows for a clean and concise answer to your question. All just my personal opinion, of course.