Set the scene. A massive military presence halfway around the world. American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines on a wartime footing under a social media lockdown. Old and angry, the US President publicly threatens to "end" things for another country, and then does it.

In the proud tradition of another baby killer, Trump believes, as Madeleine Albright told Colin Powell 35 years ago, "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about, if we can't use it?"

Economic and military assaults on the integrity and sovereignty of other countries around the world is part of American history, and this has been normalized for most Americans. Boomers, born the two decades after World War II, grew up in an "inflation and war" period. It pumped their retirement portfolios with real assets paid off in depreciating dollars and "profitable" investments in state-subsidized military industries, technology and pharma. Obama, Trump 45, Biden, and Trump 47 each boasted the "highest stock market ever."

Boomers in particular have been reluctant to examine the US government's transformation into an opaque machine of billionaire elites and capital firms that pursue and shape US domestic and foreign policy.

Trump joked for ten years that he would "Make America Great Again." He meant America, Inc., but it's not all his fault. The imbalance between spending on what government requires (war, domestic surveillance, regulatory controls, and more of your paycheck) and what the people want and deserve (peace, privacy, liberty, and more of our earnings) has been growing for decades. Even 38% of the Boomers and the Silent generations recognize this – but the ruling class doesn't want to hear from those who oppose the war/inflation/murder cult. Instead, our modern Goldfinger says to a strapped American population desperately trying to be represented, "[I don't expect you to talk]...I expect you to die!"