“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”

Henry Kissinger pronounced these words at a June 1970 meeting of the CIA’s 40 Committee, which spent up to $6.5 million trying to turn that fall’s Chilean election against socialist Salvador Allende. It didn’t work, and Allende won anyway, so the CIA began working to remove him through strikes, internal subversion and ultimately, military force.

The United Kingdom isn’t about to suffer a coup. But it seems that the week after Donald Trump made his state visit to London, our countries’ “special relationship” doesn’t include much respect for British democracy. When Trump picked out Boris Johnson as his favored candidate to succeed Theresa May, at least he’d been asked to do it. In fact, the Tory leadership candidates were positively queuing up to seek the Donald’s support, as they tried to appeal to their party’s hard-right base.