FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
Malcolm Nance explains how conspiracy theories, racism and increasing hostility toward democracy have all contributed to the rise of what he calls a “Trump Insurgency in the U.S.” From the July 19, 2022, program “Malcolm Nance: Behind the Ideology of the Trump Insurgency.” MALCOLM NANCE, Retired Intelligence Officer; Author, They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency In Conversation with PAT THURSTON, Host, “The Pat Thurston Show,” KGO-AM
MALCOLM NANCE PAT THURSTON: Malcolm Nance is a former senior chief petty officer specializing in naval cryptology. Most recently, he spent the last four months fighting in Ukraine as part of the International Legion. Malcolm, welcome back to The Commonwealth Club. MALCOLM NANCE: Thank you very much. THURSTON: Ukraine is something every one of us really cares about. You’ve been there. You’ve been on the ground. You’ve been helping them in all manner of things in Ukraine for the months that you spent there. You were there on the front lines. A couple of questions. One is, at the beginning, when the Russians were amassing all this stuff and our intelligence services were telling us they’re preparing for an invasion—we knew what they were doing. We knew whether Ukrainians knew that they were planning an invasion. It always seemed as if the United States wanted to stop the invasion from happening, to truly help the Ukrainians, that would have been the place to do it. Could we have done that? NANCE: Well, that depends on what you view the word stop as. I mean, could we have gone and carried out airstrikes or could we have done something diplomatically or politically? Let me tell you something. In fact, I’ve been in Ukraine since the last week of January. So actually I’ve spent almost seven months in Ukraine. I came home for 10 days to get all my combat equipment at the end
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THE COMMO N WE AL TH | August/September 2022
PHOTO BY SARAH GONZALEZ/PEOPLETOGRAPHY
INSURGENT IDEOLOGY
