The Rupture - Is Pax Americana ending?

Politics & Current Affairs
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Times are truly changing.

Just to show how things are changing, here are two speaches, the first by the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the latter by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. First some quotes from both of them to show just how much the discourse has changed.

First, here’s a quote from the Carney speech at Davos:

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful. And American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

This bargain no longer works.

Let me be direct: We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration.

But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

You cannot “live within the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.

(the Carney speech transcript here )

Then the German Chancellor opening the Munich security conference only few weeks later gave a similar speech, which the most important points emphasized from the official German government website are the following:

  • New world disorder: “The international order, which was based on rights and rules”, said Federal Chancellor Merz, “no longer exists”. With the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, if not before, “a new phase of open wars and conflicts has begun”. The struggle for spheres of influence, dependencies and allegiance sometimes pushes democratically constituted states to the very limits of their ability to act, Merz said.

  • Transatlantic relations: According to the Chancellor, a rift has opened up with the USA, and the United States’ claim to leadership is being challenged. On some issues, he said, Europe and the administration in Washington would come to different conclusions. But despite all the difficulties in the partnership, it still has potential, according to Merz. NATO, he said, is the shared competitive advantage – for Europe and for the USA.

  • Europe’s new role: The Chancellor also emphasised that Europe must preserve its interests and values and focus on its own strengths. Europe’s freedom, he said, is predominant and is made possible by security and economic strength. With a programme of freedom, said Merz, Europe should be stronger and more sovereign in the future.*

(the Merz speech here )

Two leaders of major Western countries declaring the international order isn’t any more just shows that something big has happened. And I would argue that this will change not only politics, but also political theory and perhaps even political philosophy in the long run. The post-WW2 system has come to an end, even if we would hope it wouldn’t have come.

Unfortunately many American commentators and experts don’t seem to fathom this, as it seems to be all just about the ever changing things Trump does: declares high tariffs, wants to annex Greenland, kidnaps the Venezuelan leader, starts a war for regime change in Iran and creates a regional war. And also tries to get away from the Epstein scandal by making the Justice Department and the FBI to hide his role. Now as Trump has started a war with Iran, some even laugh about the whole Greenland issue, which actually was a bigger shock than it looked.

But this actually isn’t about Trump. Trump, even if a great populist showman, is an old senile man and his term will end in a few years. Yet Europe won’t just wait for his term will end and hope things will change then for the better. It did so earlier, but not anymore. The real issue is that Americans have now twice elected Trump as President. That means that they truly wanted this and are at least very favourable to the populist siren song. Hence it’s totally possible, perhaps even likely, that in the future they will vote for a similar populist who will be hostile against Europe/EU as Trump’s administration publicly and formally is. These Americans don’t see any worth in the system the US created for itself and the West accepted after WW2.

So even if the next president and administration after Trump would want to mend the relations with it’s Western allies and obviously the Europeans would be happy about this, there is now the fear that Americans will turn again to be as hostile towards the EU as they are now. There is now a probability for this to happen in the future, that should be taken into account.

Hence the change in security policy and the rapid attempt to get trade agreements with other parts of the World. Even if the West would be happy if the US would continue the system that worked for 75-years, the damage has already been done.

And it seems that many Americans do not see how damaging this is to them. Likely because many eagerly accept the idea that they (Americans) have been here the one’s who have had pay everything and Europe has just freeloaded all the time. Actually the defense expenditure hasn’t been so different in the long run and Europe was a huge client for American weapons. Above all, the US has been against “strategic autonomy” that France has been long calling for.

Then many people forget just why the dollar has the of being the reserve currency. It is not because the US is the largest economy, it is basically because of political relations, the security treaties and the role the US has played in the Western alliance. Keynes and the Brits would have wanted Bancor in Bretton Woods in 1944, but the Americans pushed for the dollar to be the reserve currency (the dollar being linked to gold and all currencies then to the dollar) and they could do it, because of the unipolar moment in the end of WW2. Basically by then nearly bankrupt UK had to agree with the Americans.

The role of the reserve currency of the dollar has been very beneficial for the US, even if there is the Triffin dilemma

When there isn’t that international order backed up by the US, when there aren’t those close alliances anymore, then the obvious question is what really happens to the reserve currency role of the dollar?

Saudi Arabia is already accepting the Yuan as a payment for oil and the petrodollar link is also crumbling (also a system based that was based on security guarantees, not economic reasons). Some might see attacking Venezuela and Iran as way of trying to reinstate the petrodollar dominance, but I wouldn’t be so sure.

And if the reserve currency role of the dollar goes, that is a real disaster for Americans. The debt spiral is rapidly going out control and the idea that the AI revolution and all those databases will create new growth or that with managed inflation the situation can be managed is questionable. And if/when a dollar crisis does happen, who are there for the American politicians to blamed? Of course, it’s the evil foreigners. And a time for a new wave of populism and nativism could take place.

Turning to political theory and philosophy, when the old international order isn’t anymore, political thinking has to change also. We start to view the last 75-years as a passing era, not something that we ground our political theories in. What will then be the new political theories and explanations? The Fukuyaman “End of History” era has surely passed and we need a new reasoning to make sense of the new situation.

But I’m interested to hear what you think. Can we turn the tide? Is the situation as dire as I represented it? Do we need a new way of reasoning the present? Will we see a new political philosophy this century after the post-WW2 era has ended?

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… followed by…

Says it all.

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Meant to write more but hit reply instead of my phone’s keyboard. Then the 15 min mandatory delay…

Anyway…

The point I was going to make was to look at real world data, rather than the shock rhetoric preferred by the new ‘Crisis Capitalism’.

Poverty continues its downward, but levelling off, trend.

Inequality continues its steady rise.

Preventable deaths continue to low stagnate.

Wars continue a steady rise (with a trend toward non-state warfare).

Fatalities from war have obviously been affected by the war in Ukraine, but are overwhelmed in the data by earlier genocide.

I’m not sure what data you’d use as your preferred metric, but nothing seems to have dramatically changed in the last few years…

… except the rhetoric politicians find works. It used to be about ‘building the economy’, now it’s all “look at the scary man over there”.

The policies remain the same. The only thing that changes is the rhetoric used to quell any actual dissent that they might encounter.

I mean… We’ve literally just had an attack announced on a middle eastern country to bring about regime change on account of the ‘very real’ threat posed to the West.

Does that really sound new to you?

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There was never a Pax Americana. The US has been at war continuously for decades on end - pulverizing once-prosperous nations into dust because they posed the slightest threat to its dominance.

I think if you add it all up you’ll find the US has been one of the most destructive forces in history.

The Carney speech hits the nail on the head: ‘the West’ isn’t angry because of how the US is behaving - they already KNEW it was all a charade and they willingly made themselves complicit! They are angry because the grift is no longer benefitting them!

My problem with your post is that despite the explicit admission of that fact, you still maintain that the Americans act the way they do out of ignorance, and that if only they would heed the advice of their enlightened vassals, they would see how profitable the grift was and be motivated to reinstate it.

Do you really not see how this turns logic on its head?

Do you think Washington is impressed? I’m willing to bet good money they’re laughing to themselves, already planning on how to cripple Europe as they decouple from it. The sheep are wagging their finger at the tiger.

It’s way fucking worse, but not in the way you imagine it. It’s the vassals that are completely helpless and seemingly still too arrogant and/or delusional to admit it.

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Thinking, in general, has to change

Perhaps the philosophy best applied to the current American situation is “idiots with power and those manipulated by them.” At the highest reaches of American government, there are leaders who feel untouchable, are overconfident, and not careful. They are not hampered by historical lessons, have no foresight for consequences, and operate in a brew of hypocrisy and incompetence, each operating from self-interest.

The current American situation calls to mind Plato’s “Ship of Fools” allegory –

Plato asks us to imagine that there is a ship in which each member of the crew is continually vying for the helm. The captain is himself not much good as a pilot. Loyalty among the mutinous crew is determined sheerly in terms of self-interest. When the crew does take command of the ship, they use up the supplies liberally and fail to prosecute the most basic elements of good seamanship. The allegory ends with Plato observing that, on such a ship, one who wanted to focus not on his own personal gain, but on implementing the various practices which would, in fact, allow the ship to function smoothly, would be seen as perverse and feckless by his crewmates.

Power can be maintained as long as supporters abdicate their own critical thinking, are motivated by group conformity (“groupthink”) rather than independence, and are resistant to facts – in a word, are stupid, according to philosopher Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his formulation of his theory of stupidity. (Bonhoeffer was a German theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was imprisoned and eventually executed for his role in the plot to assassinate Hitler.)

The result is a “self-imposed blindness (that) makes the stupid person a perfect instrument for those in power”

Quoted from Bonhoeffer’s writings –

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil, it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.

But – Bonhoeffer argues that stupidity is not an intellectual defect, but a political/social/moral issue.

For him, the liberation of the people under the “spell of power” requires the collapse of the external power that has captured the person.

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Well, in the US, they need to get religion out of state.

Trump has cursed the Democrats as the “THE PARTY OF HATE, EVIL, AND SATAN.”

At the highest reaches of the Pentagon, the Secretary of Defense infuses Evangelical Christianity into all he does.

At Charlie Kirk’s memorial, Hegseth declared that the U.S. is in the midst of a “spiritual war” – He said, "My charge to all of you: live worthy of Charlie Kirk’s sacrifice, and put Christ at the center of your life as he advocated for giving his.”

Hegseth’s weekly White House Bible study is led by a preacher who says God commands America to support Isreal. (The Bible teaches that God still blesses Israel’s allies and curses Israel’s enemies.)

Should Bible verses mix with war plans?

Should faith be intertwined with militarism?

During the Venezuelan operation, Hegseth read Psalm 144 at a Christian worship service held at the Pentagon. (He described the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as a mission carried out under prayer and reliance on God.)

Psalm 144

1 Praise be to the Lord my Rock,
who trains my hands for war,
my fingers for battle.
2 He is my loving God and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I take refuge,
who subdues peoples[a] under me.

3 Lord, what are human beings that you care for them,
mere mortals that you think of them?
4 They are like a breath;
their days are like a fleeting shadow.

5 Part your heavens, Lord, and come down;
touch the mountains, so that they smoke.
6 Send forth lightning and scatter the enemy;
shoot your arrows and rout them.
7 Reach down your hand from on high;
deliver me and rescue me
from the mighty waters,
from the hands of foreigners
8 whose mouths are full of lies,
whose right hands are deceitful.

9 I will sing a new song to you, my God;
on the ten-stringed lyre I will make music to you,
10 to the One who gives victory to kings,
who delivers his servant David.

From the deadly sword 11 deliver me;
rescue me from the hands of foreigners
whose mouths are full of lies,
whose right hands are deceitful.

12 Then our sons in their youth
will be like well-nurtured plants,
and our daughters will be like pillars
carved to adorn a palace.
13 Our barns will be filled
with every kind of provision.
Our sheep will increase by thousands,
by tens of thousands in our fields;
14 our oxen will draw heavy loads.[b]
There will be no breaching of walls,
no going into captivity,
no cry of distress in our streets.
15 Blessed is the people of whom this is true;
blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.

And now they use religion to forward a war of oil and distraction.

Since the war in Iran has begun, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has received approximately 110 complaints about commanders, from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, spreading controversial religious messages.

According to one complaint, a combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.”

I think those in power are using religion as a tool – “opiate of the masses” – and some people are stupid enough (in the sense put forward by Bonhoeffer – lack of critical thinking, group conformity, resistance to facts) to fall for it.

But I never will understand why some people think God is on their side, but not on the side of other human beings.

Yes, both of these are at play

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Thank’s for the replies, I’ll try to answer them one at a time, but then due to the present system, I’ll have to make (in order not to make extremely long responses).

OK. Here is some data: In 2021 Europe (European NATO + EU) was making about 300 000 artillery rounds annually. In 2024 that figure had jumped to 1 300 000 rounds. In 2021 European NATO and the EU was spending on defense about 270 billion euros. In 2024, it was 470 billion with the majority of European NATO members now meeting the 2% benchmark. Europe has started a huge rearmament program and rearming itself for a large, prolonged war. Poland is arming itself at a rapid pace. This is the response of Putin’s attack on Ukraine, but Trump’s latest actions have only made this even more of a priority.

That wasn’t what was happening in prior years.

And notice during the first Trump presidency, Trump chose generals that were basically came from the old-school US foreign policy that the armed forces has been for ages (which likely hasn’t yet changed). Hence for example the old National Security Strategy of the first Trump Presidency, made basically by national security advisor general H.R. McMaster, was quite conventional and emphasized the importance of the US-European alliance. Now with the 2025 NSS, it’s totally different. This is simply because Trump has now chosen lackeys totally dependent on him, not professionals that simply take away from the desk the most outrageous proposals (as literally happened in the first term of Trump). The ideological views are totally present as is the influence of Stephen Miller.

So starting from things like that I say that a lot has changed.

I would disagree. Trump really is different. When you read the NSS of 2025, it really is totally different from anything else. Never have any US administration taken an public and overt position of being openly against the EU. Trump has wrecked his own trade deals from his first term himself, not because of actions of others. The politics aren’t the same. And as I’ve tried to explain, so is also different the security environment in Europe.

Perhaps there is the rhetorical argument to be made that now US policy is just clear for everybody to see with Trump, but in truth the US has worked within the established organizations that itself it had made, even if naturally quite selectively. I agree that the change to unipolar actions started after the fall of the Soviet Union, especially with the response of the neocons to 9/11 during the Bush years. Prior to this the US was far more cautious, because it always had to anticipate the counteractions of the Soviet Union. Yet, just compare how Bush got the Congress to go with the Iraqi invasion to Trump’s war with Iran now. Bush made an effort to gather allies, got famously Blair and the UK to go with him. Now it’s different. Has Trump truly even stated his objectives here? Did he prepare his base or Americans in general for a war with Iran? How is this “regime change” to be done from the air? It’s all just rambling thoughts that come to Donalds mind.

Or perhaps you were referring to something else.

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First of all, we are here talking about the Trump administration. Just like @questioner wrote above, this isn’t an ordinary administration like Obama, Bush’s or Clinton had. This is a quite revolutionary administration with quite radical ideas.

First of all, there’s Trump’s idea that high tariffs will help to bring back US manufacturing and will be paid by foreigners. Or his idea that the EU and European integration happened “because Europe wanted to fuck the US”. Might go well with the nativist MAGA cult, but isn’t close to reality. For starters the protective tariffs argument, proposed first by German economists in the 19th Century, doesn’t go this way. The objective of protective tariffs is to reach a level competitiveness, that the domestic industry can compete in the global market. The whole idea is to take off the tariffs when you have that manufacturing base which is competitive. And many Asian countries have used this system to first join and then to gain the position to be leaders in international trade and the global market. When the idea of protective tariffs is understood wrongly, then it creates a domestic industry that simply cannot compete in the global market, but enjoys it’s share in the domestic market because of tariffs themselves. There are many examples of this, usually in African states or Western countries, that haven’t had then such economic growth.

And let’s take a short reminder of the basics here.

When you look at history from antiquity to the present, trade has been beneficial to the World and created prosperity. It hasn’t been that just one side benefits from trade while to others it’s harmful. Trade is a voluntary engagement, not a synonym for pillage or theft. That too we can find in history and in the present, and it simply isn’t as beneficial as trade, even in the long run for the robber.

The current (and historical) problem has been how the income from this trade has been distributed: have the gains gone to everyone engaged in trade and manufacturing or have the profits gone only to the pockets of a few? This is the perpetual political question of income distribution, taxes and transfer payments. Unfortunately international trade and the system this trade has created has many times seen itself as a reason for this inequality, which is more of a question for the society itself, not about trade itself.

When in history those trade routes have collapsed, then advanced societies have simply become less advance with specialization diminishing and cities getting smaller. Hence trade is very important.

If those supply routes, international trade is under threat, it doesn’t mean good times for a global economy that ought start contemplating with the idea that population growth isn’t going to be perpetual.

Then about that “grift” in the older US model. Here one thing stands out: the US treaty system like NATO was and is voluntary. And with the US being the leader of NATO, actually many Europeans countries were OK with this. The French, who opted out of the command structure for a while, coined the term “exorbitant privilege” for the dollars role. Yet other countries went along with it. Hence the “grift” of the US dollar being the reserve currency even after the de facto default by Nixon was universally accepted (and thanks to the Saudis the system was replaced by the petrodollar).

The big question here is if without the US being the backer of the security in Europe, is there really the acceptance for the dollar in it’s old role? That French idea of “strategic autonomy” sounds quite good now.

Let’s remember that NATO has and is a voluntary organization. It isn’t like it’s adversary, the Warsaw Pact was, which actually was very successful organization in keeping the members under the Russian boot and performing it’s brilliant “Special military Operation” of Operation Danube in 1968, the invasion of Czechoslovakia. What better military campaign where the Czech armed forces surrender and the Czechs suddenly find tanks on their streets? And it’s an international organization, hence many US presidents have become very disappointed in it. Doesn’t work like the Warsaw Pact.

When the US “alliance” hasn’t been voluntary, it never has worked. Just look at the relations that the US has with Iraq at the present.

That’s quite true. Although I’m not so sure just how confident they actually are. I think they are quite aware about what will happen to them if in the next elections the Democrats would win both houses. (Perhaps then as his last action, President Vance pardons former President Trump.) So obviously they fear the November elections so much that Trump has said would want to do away with them.

The manic behaviour of Trump tells something about this: wanting to annex Greenland (and Canada), kidnapping Maduro and then starting a war with Iran and building Triumphal (Trumpal?) Arches and creating a “Bored of Peace” organization where he is chairman for life just shows that he’s every way trying to get the focus off not only the Epstein scandal, but also the economy and trying to reach something that he will be remembered for.

For the GOP the “religious right” has been for a long time on cornerstone of their support base. This you can trace back many administrations. The firm link that the party has with the religious right can be seen from the ardent support Trump has enjoyed from them, even if Donald Trump isn’t the most religious president there has been.

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As always, SSU, your posts and arguments are supported with sources and references.

I watched Carney’s speech broadcast in Davos, and today he’s addressing the Australian Parliament. I said in a comment on a video about him yesterday, the new ‘leader of the free world’, the former one having abdicated the post.

It’s all Trump. Had he not been elected, none of these conversations would be happening. You elect a man who in plain view of the electorate and the world’s media attempted to overthrow an election, and this is what you get.

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OK. Here is some data: In 2021 Europe (European NATO + EU) was making about 300 000 artillery rounds annually. In 2024 that figure had jumped to 1 300 000 rounds. In 2021 European NATO and the EU was spending on defense about 270 billion euros. In 2024, it was 470 billion with the majority of European NATO members now meeting the 2% benchmark. Europe has started a huge rearmament program and rearming itself for a large, prolonged war. Poland is arming itself at a rapid pace. This is the response of Putin’s attack on Ukraine, but Trump’s latest actions have only made this even more of a priority.

That’s not data about a collapse in the world order. That’s data about arms industries cashing in on the very ‘Crisis Capitalism’ I was referring to, whipped up and bolstered by the sort of rhetoric the politicians you cite are giving examples of.

You’re begging the question.

If you’re asking - ‘is the previous (rules-based) world order collapsing?’, then you can’t cite the actions of the very politicians in charge of that world order (in increasing arms contracts) as evidence.

There are two possibilities;

  1. the international rules-based order is collapsing and politicians are correctly responding to that
  2. the international rules-based order is fine (or as fine as it ever was) and politicians are exaggerating

In order to judge between these two competing models you have to find some data independent of politicians’ direct activities since they themselves are the factor we’re trying to eliminate. It’s like testing for the effects of cigarette smoking but only using people who smoke.

Trump chose generals that were basically came from the old-school US foreign policy that the armed forces has been for ages (which likely hasn’t yet changed).

So what? Has anything actually happened as a result of this that wasn’t already happening?

More wars? No
More violence in the wars already being fought? No.

It doesn’t matter one jot who Trump chooses as generals unless it actually makes a difference to ordinary individuals suffering under the US’s continual bombardment of anything that won’t accept a McDonalds

When you read the NSS of 2025, it really is totally different from anything else.

… which is all rhetoric, unless you can point to something that’s actually changed. What effect has any of this actually had on anyone?

Perhaps there is the rhetorical argument to be made that now US policy is just clear for everybody to see with Trump, but in truth the US has worked within the established organizations that itself it had made, even if naturally quite selectively.

Exactly. You say yourself ‘even if quite selectively’. A rule is not a rule if you can choose when to apply it. The fact that previous administrations were smart enough to disguise some of their warmongering within institutional remits when it suited them is a testament to the idiocy of the current administration. It has nothing to do with policy direction.

Like with propaganda - a smart administration will hide their goals behind an international organisation whenever they can to give the veneer of legitimacy. The US’s previous stratgey was to use soft power to exert influence over NATO and the UN to use them as cover for their imperialism. When that didn’t work, as we saw in Iraq, they just shed the veneer of a ‘world order’ and invade unilaterally anyway.

What Iraq shows us is that the invasion, the regime change, was going to happen anyway. That’s the policy.

The aim was to get a veneer of legitimacy from the UN. That’s the politics.

Politics is what’s changed. It no longer suits the home audience to get a veneer of legitimacy, it plays better to be the maverick.

The policy hasn’t changed, the politics has.

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Good question, I think Pax Americana is rupturing, although whether this leads to its decline, or a new more powerful belligerent actor on the world stage, is less certain.
I would add another factor to the rupture of the post war settlement and close alliance with Europe, which you point out. That is the effects of globalisation and the outsourcing of production from the West to the Far East. The profound effect this has had on industry at home, profitability, productivity and consequently the cost of living across the whole of the Western world is an important factor in this rupture and the restlessness in populations who see affordability falling, a feeling of spreading poverty, a malaise in social provision, the breaking of the social contract in many places. With the development of a more toxic capitalism, prioritising profit over the welfare of workers. The effects of management gurus in work practices. The gig economy. The increase in the use of debt for day to day expenses and payday loans. The death of high streets etc.
All effects of this outsourcing. Which has hollowed out Western economies. Delivering a two tier system of the poor and the super rich with a shrinking middle class.
People like Trump are taking advantage of the fact that both tiers align when it comes to politics. They both want to move to the right. The rich, because it protects their wealth and reduces state control over their lives. The poor because it gives them hope (false hope) and promises to deliver them from problems caused by others and liberalisation (the woke).
Trump’s obsession with tariffs is a reaction to this globalisation. He wants to see the industries return home, the wealth (which he can see in China) to return home. This dovetails with the idea that immigrants are coming in to the West and taking our jobs, depressing wage growth etc. He has found that anti-immigration rhetoric is very persuasive, sticks and can radicalise an electorate. Leading to overtly racist ideology and policy. Throw in discrimination against vulnerable groups like the disabled, the mentally impaired and sexual and gender diversity. And we get shades of fascism creeping in.

As I suggest, this could increase U.S. hegemony, through imperialist expansion. Trump wants to have total control over one hemisphere of the globe. Also to disrupt power across the world outside of his hemisphere. Resulting in a new stronger power flexing its muscles around the world.

This could be just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than a decline of the U.S.

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At the highest reaches of American government, there are leaders who feel untouchable, are overconfident, and not careful. They are not hampered by historical lessons, have no foresight for consequences, and operate in a brew of hypocrisy and incompetence

Being as charitable as possible, do you have a theory as to how the ‘incompetent’ gang of current leader managed to secure total and authoritative power in the world’s most influential nation?

Exactly how did this incompetent bunch outsmart the combined will of the major lobbying groups, the CEOs of every major corporation in the world, the global financial institutions, the global political elite, and the financial backers?

Follow up question - if it’s that easy to outplay the combined will of these previously powerful forces, then why don’t you just do it, and chuck these morons out?

Follow up, follow up question - how is it the aforementioned forces are still doing just fine under the new administration? Just got lucky?

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Same question as to the previous poster.

You give this excellent, exhaustive analysis of the crisis of global capitalism, and I’m thinking this is all good stuff, then you go and say…

How?

How on earth is a man who can’t even function an umbrella properly “taking advantage” of a global cabal of top level businessmen, bankers, politicians and the landed wealthy?

What has caused you to reject the far more straighforward explanation that they are taking advantage of him?

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That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that he took advantage to get elected. Now that he’s in office he’s smoozing with the business men and talking deals. Like I say, they are happy to lurch to the right along with Trump. He’s on the side of big money, just like them.

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That’s my point. The rich have done very well out of Trump, and the man’s clearly an idiot.

So what’s more likely;

  1. he took advantage of them to get elected, or
  2. they took advantage of him to get someone elected stupid enough to do exactly what they wanted him to do

To choose the first, you have to explain;

  1. how such an idiot managed to come up with and execute such a plan
  2. why, if it’s so easy, no one has done it before
  3. how, if Trump’s really in charge, the rich just keep getting exactly the circumstances they want anyway

To choose the second you have to explain nothing because it just posits that powerful people will use that power to their own ends.

Yet you choose the first, with all its attendant complications. I’m wondering what makes it so compelling a theory.

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It seems various people on this forum are fully committed to shifting the blame to Trump. I think as a means of exculpating the various complicit countries in America’s misdeeds, and as a coping mechanism - most people simply can’t seem to face the fact that they live in a thoroughly corrupt system.

I’ve long maintained that Trump’s function is that of a scapegoat and lightning rod. Everybody can pretend all the evils of the system stem from Trump, and when Trump is gone we’ll pretend to go back to ‘business as usual’ - the idyllic “Pax Americana”.

US and European mainstream media heavily supports this view, which is probably why people keep parroting the same nonsense here and seem incapable of asking even the most basic common sense questions.

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Bread and Circuses.

It’s astonishing people fall for a tactic coined in the second century.

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It wasn’t just the rich who elected Trump, it was mainly MAGA. He didn’t really take advantage of the rich to get elected. They just preferred his direction of travel to the alternative, where they supported him. (It’s a generalisation to say the rich voted for Trump, it’s more nuanced than that)

The two choices you present are too simplistic an analysis. Also I didn’t say Trump was taking advantage of the rich. He was taking advantage of the fact that their politics was tending in the same direction as the politics of the poor, when populism is introduced.

Also I would point out that there is one thing that Trump is good at, reality shows. He’s skilled at raising his profile in the media and selling a reality (show).

20

So - to be clear - the theory you’re presenting here is that;

  1. we live in a functioning democracy where the will of the people is represented in government (you say “it was mainly MAGA”, not the rich who elected him, refer to ‘the politics of the poor’, and Trump’s ‘profile in the media’)

  2. Trump (again the man who can’t function an umbrella properly) came up with a plan to manipulate the existing grievances of the poor voters using his skills as a reality TV star to secure their vote in this functioning democracy and secure himself control of the most powerful nation on earth, because…

  3. the most powerful nation on earth, despite demonstrably being able to control who’s in power in several foreign countries, had absolutely no safeguards against a reality TV star just taking full control of it’s own seat of power

  4. all this just happens to favour the rich and powerful who just ‘got lucky’ that the man using his reality TV skills to get elected just so happens to want to instantiate policy which just so happen to perfectly match those they would have instantiated anyway if they had the power only…

  5. they don’t have the power because for some reason they were previously unable to come up with such a plan themselves.

That’s the theory you find more compelling than “the powerful exerted their power to further their own ends”?

21

Any answer to that is going to require a summary of American historical trends, but maybe one question we can start with is – “Why did the American people elect for their president a man so clearly unsuited to the job?”

We can point to the racist backlash against the election of a Black man to the presidency, to the misogyny of the American people preferring to vote for a crooked White man over a more capable Black woman. We can look to the way Trump cons the public, and dazzles them with ‘spectacle.’ We can look at the hate he has fomented against the “enemy” – like Democrats and immigrants.

But, during this past year, many American eyes have been opened to the con and the depth of Trump’s corruption, deceit, incompetence, and cruelty. He’s broken most of his promises, things he could not or would not do. According to the Economist, his approval rating sits at 38%

Let’s focus on his MAGA fans, who will never give up their support of the most self-absorbed man to ever hold the presidency. Loyalty to Trump is their core principle. How did this cult arise?

The MAGA Report by Jan Golbeck summarizes the content of various pro-Trump forums, providing insight into MAGA minds.

Not even the Epstein Files are a breaking point for them. “The rare mentions of them on the forums focus on the way Trump’s enemies are being caught up in them rather than believing Trump may have done something wrong.”

Not even Trump blatantly breaking his “No new wars” promise makes them turn on him. Here are some comments lifted from one MAGA forum –

• Retards criticizing Trump for “new wars” fail to see the enormous difference between Trump’s targeted strikes, which cost 0 American lives and almost zero extra military spend, vs previous entanglements from Obama/Bush/others which cost thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars.
This is the difference between a US President that wants to serve the war machine vs one that wants to serve America’s interests.
o ^^^^^^This one right here
o These panicans are retarded and can’t make distinctions, they think any military action is Iraq 2.0.
o Like we’re going to make stuff with a shelf life and never use it? And when we need to make more we are not setup to cause we didn’t use what we made.
Trump doing things the right way.
• Our military is insane, how they keep pulling this off is nuts.
• Great, now they can get started on Minnesota.
o I was thinking about some judges home.
Then 535 others.
• Our military without one arm tied behind their back like the Obama/Bush years.
o missiles on loan from God.

Any examination of Trump’s rise to power must be seen through the lens of his rhetorical demagoguery – the use of incendiary speech – “vermin” – “party of Satan” – “poisoning the blood” – “retribution” – “enemy of the people” – and the willingness of at least part of the American public to be susceptible to it.

The research suggests –

… that both leaders (Trump and Hitler) relied on assertions that positioned them as outsiders; and each boldly claimed, as outsiders, only they could fix a broken and corrupt government. Additionally, an explosion of misinformation and propaganda became paramount to maintaining power and control.

The result seems to have been that some MAGA have fused their identity with Trump’s, and their very psychology depends on continuing support.

Trump is in bed with the billionaires. The “dark money” - especially from oil and gas - has set records