The relationship of Trump to Russia has been reported on, and the activity to change the Republican platform happened openly, and Trump's support for Russian policy - Russia's views of Europe and its views of NATO - have been stated. So it's not like this is secret.

Like wealth, or health, political freedom may simply be something that people don't value if they've always had it.

At times when people fear death, they go along with measures that they believe, rightly or wrongly, will save them - even if that means a loss of freedom. Such measures have been popular in the past.

Sometimes the point isn't to make people believe a lie - it's to make people fear the liar.

The relationship of Trump to Russia has been reported on, and the activity to change the Republican platform happened openly, and Trump's support for Russian policy - Russia's views of Europe and its views of NATO - have been stated. So it's not like this is secret.

Five years after the Chernobyl disaster, in the summer of 1991, the last summer the Soviet Union was still in existence, I visited Ukraine. I trekked out to the 20-mile exclusion zone - it had been cleared of all people after the accident - together with some local environmental activists.