I believe they are there. It could have been a lot worse. Moves and counter moves.

Could have been we don't know but I feel sure they do.
Time to tell people the truth I think, imo, humans need the chance to decide for themselves instead of only knowing what someone at the top decides we can or can not handle.
I think we are getting closer to that reality. .

We are way past the time where people should have been told the truth.

Credibility is at stake, IMHO.

How do we know who to trust these days?

For some of us we are but for some that are just waking up or newbies they have to catch up.
I know it has been hard on everyone awake and can not even imagine how some that have been working on this for literally decades have managed to stay sane, but we had to have the 80+% to some degree of awake to avoid civil war.

My understanding from information from both sides seeing the future with Project Looking Glass, the only way we would lose is by going to civil war.
So it has always been all or nothing from what I have seen. Even without Looking Glass, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that we all would lose going into a civil war.
But that is just my opinion.