People who caught on died.

There were very powerful, very rich people who formed alliances and ended up being very successful at purging a lot of the patriots from the military.

Those patriots caught on to what was happening and managed to form an alliance in the dark. They had to work very hard to keep themselves secret, and gain as much information as possible to build a plan, then it took a long time to put that plan in motion. That plan needed someone in the white house they could trust to help them put patriots back into the military power structure and set up a trap.

The above is either true, or we are screwed.