It is very interesting following Adam Curtis down his research rabbit hole as each new series looks at the onion layer of philosophy below the layer of his previous work, as you can almost hear the conversations as the Gang Of Pirates tries to explain the underlying philosophy beneath the Philosophy he has just explained in the previous film.

In trying to scrupulously explain the right by allowing the actual leadership make their points, he gets ever closer to explaining the different universes that both left and right inhabit and trying to find a place that men of good will can agree and come together, and at the same time point out how the very existence of Ideology has blinded the Partisans to their errors, and created a much worse reality than was wanted or desired by any side. (I take issue with him here, as I think some from Stalin to Cheney are/were well aware of the weaknesses of their respective ideologies, but have used them to carve out a place for themselves, to the disaster of their civilizations).

What he does explain in
The Trap is how the beliefs often expressed here of a duality of how the world is either the Ender/Zorgon model or some form of Communism or the likely slide to it, and that another possibility that had nothing to do with either view was just a lack of understanding on our part. And since Communism failed utterly it proved that the only alternative was obviously superior.

Curtis traces back to Isaiah Berlin and his concept of "Positive Freedom" vs "Negative Freedom" where the Government imposes an equality, and is used by groups from the French Revolutionaries, to the Soviets, to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge to use Violence and terror and mass murder to impose a fantasy "State of Positive Freedom" and how a much superior "State of Negative Freedom" was that the Government just let folk do as they wished, and they would negotiate with each other to achieve a natural Utopia. This was the basis of the Libertarian and Randist Ideal.

Deeply tied to this second notion was the work of John Nash and the invention of Game Theory, where Nash had worked out this beautiful mathematics that described perfectly (sort of, but more on that later) how all of society was an interaction of thoughtful narcissists constantly maneuvering for personal advantage, calculating how to best make life easier and more luxurious for themselves. Built into this idea was that those who possessed greater spirit of effort and mental superiority would do better than those who lacked drive, or were mentally lacking (either lazy or stupid) and thus deserved their poverty.

By this thinking any attempt to alter this outcome not only worked against nature, stole from the deserving, wrecked the "negative freedom utopia" and was a part of the hated "positive freedom commies" that had failed so utterly, and thus been disproved. But as indicated by the name both turned out to be different sides of the same Authoritarian Trap, both opened a path for persons of Social Dominant Orientation (SDO) to gain power with devastating results.

While their agenda has moved in increments in the United States, committed Ideologs were dispatched to "help" Russia change overnight to a "free" economy, that drowned in Pirates, and fared much worse than it had under the Communists, and is now struggling to solvency, but is breaking away from concepts of freedom.

Thinking that the reason that Russia did not succeed was because Russians reasserted Russian control before (disaster was total) the reforms had had a chance to work, they looked for a place where they could run the experiment with much more control, and steered the American Ship of State into Iraq. (a rock).

This time they had total control, and this time they could make rules by fiat and this time the devastation was Total. There was a moment when Iraq could have been set on a path to real democracy, but instead of the caring and supportive approach, they took the Mad Scientist approach and started extreme experiments. And when the resulting monster got out of control, blamed the folk who noticed for causing the problem.

And as the US economy sinks ever deeper into the fen of its own corruption, the Gang Of Pirates dance about it spreading lipstick, perfume, and happy talk as Halliburton builds cages for those who wake up and decide that that smell is not roses.