The secretive globalist group Bilderberg held its annual gathering at the five-star Torino Lingotto Congress resort in Turin, Italy, June 7-10. This writer and several activists from groups like We Are Change were actively covering the weekend confab, though anti-Bilderberg protests were nearly nonexistent and mainstream media coverage appears to have been the leanest it’s been in several years.

“I never heard any kind of demonstration group,” Swiss photographic correspondent Thomas Gasser, who reported from Turin. He added that the alternative media on hand, including We Are Change groups, Press for Truth, AFP, and a few others, constituted the only “resistance” outside the hotel where the Bilderbergers huddled.

The meeting was heavily attended by national security and military personnel, including former CIA chief David Petraeus. According to the independent “Truthstream Media” news website, their presence suggests that more aggressive policies toward Russia are being considered, running an ever-greater risk of a military standoff, provoked largely by NATO’s increasing movement of military assets toward the Russian border.

In terms of the American domestic connection, the attendance of Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) is of particular interest. While about 6,000 acres of Colorado forest land was being swallowed up by wildfires, threatening about 2,000 homes as Bilderberg 2018 began, the two-term Democrat opted to remain in Turin with the Bilderbergers.

Hickenlooper’s media representative, Shelby Wieman, responded to an inquiry from this AFP writer, stating: “Gov. Hickenlooper took personal time to travel to Bilderberg (at his own expense). The governor has shown leadership and interest throughout his years in public service on many of the topics the conference addressed, including workforce development and the future of international trade.”

What she didn’t mention was that Hickenlooper, a former Denver mayor, has considered running for president, which The Denver Post on March 12 announced with the headline, “Behind the scenes . . . Hickenlooper inches toward 2020 presidential race.”

Given the pervasive concern among the Bilderberg-affiliated intelligentsia that President Donald Trump is kicking the New World Order to the curb piece by piece—as evidenced by Trump thumbing his nose at the snooty G-7 and enacting certain tariffs to offset the massive trade deficits the U.S. has with Germany ($64 billion) and Italy ($32 billion)—the world managers who inhabit Bilderberg and its sibling groups should be expected to scan the horizon for a candidate to push against Trump in 2020.

The reason is simple: Trump has hampered NAFTA’s overhaul and firmly protested the U.S. paying way too much for NATO while member nations that run huge trade surpluses with the U.S. don’t even cover the benchmark 2%-of-GDP membership fee to be in the military alliance. He has also backed out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Paris climate accord. It’s clear the one-worlders don’t want to put up with Trump for two terms.

Therefore, all eyes should be on Hickenlooper and whether he will receive the coveted “Bilderberg boost” and suddenly become a shooting political star “destined” to stop populist Trump from serving until 2024.

More evidence of this comes from vaguely worded topics such as “the U.S. before the midterms” and “the U.S. world leadership,” which are on the official 2018 Bilderberg “discussion” list, allude to a focus on presidential politics.

It’s worth noting that Bilderberg’s official topics list has never been all-inclusive and the make-up of the meetings kicks the door wide open for individual discussions, planning, and deal-making, apart from group activities.

After all, sizing up top-tier “presidential material,” going back to Bill Clinton’s debut at the 1991 Bilderberg meeting in Germany just before he began occupying the White House, is sometimes part of Bilderberg’s function.