This has been confusing because if it's a grift, the playbook is to keep an equilibrium where the "threat" never gets solved, because its usefulness is its existence.

And if it's not a grift to him, if he's a true believer/victim of it, the people running the grift don't usually let those people all the way to the top to upset the equilibrium.

It's like we're a decade into watching the dog who caught the car.