Please excuse this much longer-than-usual post. I am seeking to explain something that has appeared almost inexplicable - which is Trump's assault on the USA. I should not have begun thinking about this on a Saturday afternoon, but this is what flowed when I did, starting with an explanation as to why I began to even address the issue.
I am three weeks or so into my so-called retirement from employment, which, as you will have noticed, has had precisely no impact at all on what I'm doing on this blog or on my YouTube channel, but I have to say that things are not going that well.
I stress that this has very little to do with the way in which I am now choosing to work. That said, I have, I admit, found it slightly unsettling to realise that I now have the option to try to do things really well rather than just get things done on time to meet deadlines. This has meant, for example, that I have had the chance to sit back, think, draft, edit, and reflect more before publishing anything whilst also learning new techniques along the way. This is something that I am enjoying, and I am hoping that over time, the benefits will become obvious. However, this is not the issue that I am referring to.
The reality is that, for better or for worse, I decided to retire from employment before Donald Trump was elected to a second term as president of the USA, and even in my worst nightmare, I would not have imagined that he would be as bad as it turns out he very obviously intends to be. What is not going well in life right now is that Trump is intent on systemic destruction. I have hinted at this in some recent videos, but the dawning realisation is that this is not some sort of fad but might represent the whole plan for his presidency. This now requires that I tackle the issue head-on.
There are exceptionally perverse factors to what Trump is up to. Like just about every arch-neoliberal or neo-fascist – and there now appears to be little difference between the two – Trump has always made clear he hates government. However, even during his first term in office, he behaved like all other politicians of this type have done when they have reached positions of power, which is to administer the state in ways that are both broadly predictable and very largely consistent with precedent, the odd bit of madness (such as the massive tax cuts for the wealthy that Trump delivered) apart.
As if to confirm the normality of this behaviour, just recall all those Tory leaders in the UK who have echoed the sentiments of the Tufton Street think tanks whilst in opposition, saying as a consequence that the government is the enemy of the people and that when they got into office they will dismantle a very large part of it, and then – with the exception of Liz Truss - who proved herself too incompetent to do anything – they never try to do so. Nor do they ever find any of the inefficiency or waste that they claimed existed before they reached the higher echelons of power because it is not there to be found. So it was with Trump the first time around.
Except not this time. With four years to prepare after the failed coup of 6 January 2021, and with a massive grudge to drive him, he listened to the Heritage Foundation and its partners and set out to deliver the type of reform that no one imagined anyone might ever try, because no one imagined that anyone would ever be stupid enough to do so. Trump does, however, fit that bill.
So, what is it that Trump is trying to do? It is, obviously, difficult to predict precisely what Trump is up to. A person as unstable as he is, with someone as erratic as Musk advising him, is not someone who is totally predictable, at least when it comes to the minutiae of what he might do. However, it is not the detail that I'm worried about here. What concerns me is the grand scheme of what he is trying to do.
As I see it, Trump has a series of objectives that he, or those around him, are seeking to fulfil. What, however, characterises them all is that they are not about creating systemic risk within the existing processes of government by undertaking significant reform to those structures, which is what most administrations seek to do.
For example, many governments might want to make changes to the ways in which universities operate, maybe by changing their system of funding, or governance, or by bringing them closer to, or further from the influence of central government as a result. Changes that might, however, question whether those institutions that we recognise as universities should even exist do not arise. Nor is it suggested that what we now call universities should cease to have the right to determine what it is they might teach, or what ideas they might promote, or how they might examine this, and what they might research. That is because to do so would challenge the existence of what we call universities, but that is what Trump is doing.
Likewise, whilst we can see the UK government is more than willing to make changes to the social security system, whether for better or worse, they do continue to claim that they are committed to its perpetuation. The same cannot be said to be true for Trump. It would seem as if his administration is quite willing to turn the social security system off, apparently having no conscience about doing so.
Trump has already closed down USAid.
He wishes to do the same for the federal education department.
His contempt for the US legal system is apparent. He would, very obviously, rather do away with it.
There are also significant question marks over his intentions with regard to the continued provision of medical support for the tens of millions of people in the USA - including one-quarter of all children - who are dependent upon the federal government to supply that service.
And now that Musk has discovered, as he claims to have done, that there are fourteen computers within the US government that are capable of creating money out of nothing – of which capability he has claimed himself to be previously unaware – we can only presume that he might soon wish to close down this federal government capacity to create the US dollar, which he claims to be out of control and the source of unreliable data on government finances supplied to Congress and others.
To put this another way, the threats that Trump is now creating are not located within the US system of government. The threats are, instead, to the US system government. My suggestion is that Trump has, in other words, become president so that he can destroy precisely what it is that he is in charge of.
It is important to note that there is a profound paradox within this policy. The more that Trump destroys the government, the less his power is.
The more that he destroys the rule of law, the less his ability to influence outcomes within the state.
In fact, the more that he questions the very existence of the USA as it is, not least by undermining its entire foreign policy whilst simultaneously questioning the nature of its borders, the more that he makes whatever it is that he thinks he rules over ungovernable precisely because the unknown cannot be controlled.
This does, however, then make clear just how great the threat that Trump has created really is. If government is usually about a process of mitigating risk, Trump is doing the exact opposite. He is deliberately creating risk.
What is more, the risks that he is creating are not small but are instead on what might be described as being on a previously almost unimaginable scale. And I reiterate, because the point is so important, that the risk is not within the government, but to the existence of the government of the USA, and so even to the existence of that country. He is asking not just if the USA need exist, but whether it should exist.
As a result, he is asking the question beloved of so many right-wingers over the last century or so, which question we thought to have been resolved by the American Civil War, which is whether or not any form of federal organisation is actually required in North America.
It would seem that it is his desire to devolve power to the individual states, even though it is very likely that this will be profoundly harmful to the majority of those who voted him into office because most of the states where they reside are to be found in middle America, which is much poorer overall than the US east and west coasts. I cannot imagine that he will worry about the consequences of that, partly for reasons I will note below.
Such a move achieves another goal of the American far right. It threatens the existence of the human construct, which has, above all else, given the USA its power, which is the US dollar, the power of which currency is based in turn upon the power of the US federal government to tax income, in particular.
The far-right wing in the USA has challenged both the existence of the Federal Reserve and the right of the federal government to charge a federal income tax for more than a century. It would seem that Trump is now seeking to deliver on the promise to dissolve both, but with the consequence that the dollar as we know it then ceases to exist.
In turn, so too will the US internal market in goods and services, which is based on a monetary union, as well as much of US economic power, US financial markets, and much of the world order of trade. And all this might happen as, simultaneously, the US ceases to be a world power, leaving a void in the international political order.
There are three questions to ask. First, why is Trump doing this? Second, who gains from what Trump is doing? Third, what are the consequences?
The answer to these questions too, upon reflection, appear fairly straightforward to me, although of course I might be wrong. I stress I have looked for the glaringly obvious reasons when offering the explanations that follow. In my experience, simple solutions are usually the right ones.
Firstly, what Trump and his cohort are doing is entirely logical if you put themselves in their position. They are immensely wealthy people or are the servants of such people or believe in the absolute right of such people to govern. What they are intensely aware of is the fact that when there was last a similarly powerful group of people within the USA, in the very early years of the 20th century, steps were taken to control the power of such people through the passing of legislation at a federal level that cut that power.
President Theodore Roosevelt used anti-trust legislation at that time to bring legal action against forty-three of the largest companies inside the USA to constrain their power by requiring them to be broken up into smaller, more competitive companies. As a consequence, he simultaneously constrained the power of those who owned such companies to exercise control over the US economy. Their wings were clipped.
When we are now in a situation where an even smaller number of companies exercise even more power over the US economy than did those that Teddy Roosevelt challenged during the course of his presidency, then the threat that Musk, Zuckerberg and others now feel to their wellbeing is what, almost certainly, motivates their actions. Trump's opinion of his status aligns with those of this group, and I suggest that all their actions are motivated by the desire to prevent the revival of anti-trust legislation that they perceive threatens their positions and wealth via the challenge it represents to the companies that they control.
To ensure this threat cannot be raised, it is my suggestion that:
- They are seeking to both capture and neuter the power of the US legal system.
- They are, likewise, seeking to both capture and neuter the power of the US federal government.
- In the process, they are trying to devolve the power of the federal government to the individual states of the USA, none of which they believe could pose a threat to them because at least some of those states would support the continuation of their monopolistic power in exchange for license fees and other types of incentive. They can be sure of this as they know that state capture by corporate interests is entirely possible because it has happened in tax havens around the world.
What they are undertaking, in that case, is a direct assault on the USA as a country, as a judiciary, and as a power. This is being pursued by Trump, and all of it in plain sight, whilst it is being funded by, motivated and intellectually driven by those who wish to maintain their monopolistic power in the world.
The second question that I asked was, who gains from this? The pattern of what is happening makes clear who that will be, but there is a twist in this tale. When Teddy Roosevelt was in power, the basis for the wealth of the corporations that he challenged was their control of the physical infrastructure of the USA, coupled with their control of the finance that underpinned that control.
Now, the basis of the power of the corporations that are supporting Trump's assault on the USA is their control of the data infrastructure of that country - and, in many ways, of other countries as well. What they do, however, know is that there is extensive federal legislation that has sought to constrain that power and to ensure that it might be exercised, at least to some extent, for the common good. This, too, is seen by these companies as an assault on their wellbeing.
The gain to these companies from the assault on the existence of US federal power is, then, that the threat from anti-trust legislation and from legislation that seeks to control their use of data for corporate gain is removed. If, simultaneously, they can, as Musk is obviously doing, also capture some, if not all, of the data belonging to the federal government in a form that enables them to use it, then they not only remove the threat to their power, but they considerably extend it. In fact, if they can capture that data whilst at the same time destroying the power of the federal government to use it, they create a new monopoly for themselves because they can then, in turn, license that data to the individual states who will need that information to operate whatever vestige of government might remain in North America after the collapse of the USA.
Who gains from this assault on the structure of the USA? It is those who control the most data in the USA - who we can see are behind this unprecedented power grab on that country. Given that data is now power, they are seeking to ensure that there are no state rivals to their power by capturing state data for their own profit, whether by legitimate means or otherwise. What they also know is that their window of opportunity to do so is limited, hence the speed with which Musk is moving.
I suggest that everything else that Trump is doing is peripheral to these goals or is intended to clear the way for the removal of the US federal government. This is, for example, why Trump is withdrawing the USA from engagement in the world, because he expects there to be no USA to continue with this role fairly shortly. This is also why he wishes to close down federal programmes, because his intention is that if there are to be programmes with regard to education, social security and medical support, for example, then they will be provided at a state level, where in many cases they will be entirely unaffordable.
Who gains from this strategy? That is very obviously those who Trump made so prominent at his inauguration - who are the new oligarchs in the USA. He was sending out a signal for us all to see. We just needed to pick up on it. There is no more, and no less, to his strategy than this.
Who will lose out? At a superficial level, it will be everyone who is dependent on the support provided by the US federal government, from the armed forces, to veterans, to those most vulnerable in the USA. They are the obvious losers.
But so too will those oligarchs be losers - unless, of course, they have alternative currencies to use when the dollar ceases to be all-powerful, which is precisely why Trump and this cohort are so keen on cryptocurrencies. These are, very clearly, integral to their plans. Privately created, so-called currencies suit their purposes very well, they think. That they cannot survive or even be of use without the power to tax has not probably occurred to them as yet. Or rather, if it has, then taxes might come in a very different form - for example, transaction levies for the right to use the currencies they create to buy the assets they control.
I stress what I am offering here is an idea. Call it a theory if you wish. It's more obviously an evidence-based explanation of what I can see happening, which has appeared to be confusing to date precisely because it has taken us so far, and so quickly, into unknown space. I suspect I will want to revise it. I could be entirely wrong. But as far as I can see, this explanation has coherence to it and even explains motivations and their consequences, which have been hard to spot.
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As usual well thought through. Whilst reading the article a couple of thoughts occured. There is little we can do re USM(ango) , Mango is a tool for others who have worked out which of his buttons to push. Musk has latched on to the Mango project sensing power. The cheerleaders/thoughtleaders on the “let’s destroy the USA” project include the Heritage Foundation etc. These US orgs have off-shoots/ mini-mes/excretions in the UK often based in Tufton St.
It is 1984 & the IRA decides to set up an office in Tufton St. Why would any gov’ in its right mind, allow enemies of the UK state, to set up offices & lobby groups in the UK, let alone near parliament. The events in the USA show what these groups want (destruction of the state), why then allow them (or their excretions) to set up in the UK to do the same? Demonstrably, they do not have the interests of any readers of this blog or UK citizens at heart – this is state-takeover. This needs to be recognised and action taken, closure and the expulsion of Americans connected with such lobby groups. The IRA was treated & pursued as a criminal org – orgs supporting events in the USA are, arguably worse than the IRA (which wanted negotiation for a united Ireland) in that they want the destruction of the state as we know it. Time we recognised this.
“One reason the western Roman empire fell in 476, while the Byzantine, or eastern Roman empire, survived, was because the “1%” of the western Roman empire grew so powerful that they did not need a state to function… We have reached a very late Roman western state where the 1% does not need the state to survive.” – Michael Kulikowski, a Penn State University classics professor.
Correct
If I summarise correctly you’re saying that Trump, Musk and the oligarchs are looking to dismantle as much as they can of what holds them back from establishing their ‘new power order’ before Americans realise what’s going on and (try to) stop them.
Trump is arguably a ‘useful idiot’ in this process, but will nevertheless come out on the winning side in a better position than before his second term.
My questions then are how long before the US wakes up to this, and when and what can it do to take Trump & Musk off the board? What then comes after in terms of establishing some stability and getting things back on a more even keel?? Given the obvious pace of destruction I suspect it could take years, by which I mean more than one new presidential term.
That’s an issue I will get to
I still see brexit as the test run for all this but you are right, the USA is heading for a new United Fiefdoms of Corporate where people sign up to a life services provider (Google, amazon etc) , pay via crypto and consume (education, power etc). Taxes become profits and the population become serfs in a static caste system.
I see starlink is being installed across US government which means foi bypass to keep things hidden.
I’ve read a couple of other posts and articles recently that suggest Trump’s administration and his tech bros are aligned to varying degrees with the Dark Elightenment movement. Many of their actions also appear to support this idea.
This a hopefully helpful bit of proofreading:
There’s a “would would” (which I think probably should be “so would”) in the text.
Thanks
Tim
Thanks
Corrected
Mistakes happen, I began at 5.30
‘Worth writing about for sure.
Anyone who has read Nancy MacLean’s ‘Democracy in Chains’ (2017) can see that the Civil War in America never really finished. The crucible of libertarian and Neo-lib thought was in those southern based universities. It is directly descended from those who who saw slavery and racism as a legitimate process of capitalism; who saw wealth as a basis for absolute rule.
We talk about Putin and his long-run revenge on the West but what about the Confederacy’s revenge on the Union within the states itself?
Your thesis is credible.
America faces huge constraints in rapacious expansionism – it’s costly for a start (unless there are weak states like Britain that can be rolled over). It could very well be that Trump and his group thinks its all over – but why go after Canada, Panama, Greenland then?
Will Trump let the dollar go down in value? Will he withdraw it from the oil markets, world bank loans. A weak dollar will not help Americans living in America surely? There could be a reckoning there. This is the trickiest thing to handle of all.
I think that you are right about the crypto-currency issues. Currently the U.S. government makes you settle your accounts in dollars, making other foreign states hold dollars to do so (again, helping the dollar’s value). Imagine if they made nation states hold crypto reserves!! Ugh!! It could happen.
I think that it would suit the corporations and the billionaires to de-federalise the states, because each state could be snatched up as fiefdoms by the rich and exploited. Many Americans of all colours are just slaves anyway – a perverse sort of equality I know. But this is not a ‘letting go’ of power is it as someone has suggested somewhere else; it’s about reconfiguring who has the power. It is about Donald being a King and allocating states to America’s new Earls and Dukes for fealty.
Trump and Co do not want wars – they are expensive and the consequences plain awkward (all those voters with dead relatives) – unless of course someone else is spending and I’m sure the military industrial complex in America will provide for the world’s needs and even ferment wars as it has always done to its advantage.
Trump’s America is going to be about making money – not spending it unless it is going buy Greenland and Canada.
This America if realised is a nightmare – it’s nothing but sclerotic – it is an extreme, hardened version of what in reality American capitalism already is. It’s also stupid because as they sense that their pre-eminence is now being challenged, they are just going to double down on the things that have made them loose prestige in the first place? Obviously Trump thinks he has a non-aggression pact now with Putin which leaves Europe very exposed as we know.
Some may think that this benefits everyone else because the U.S. under Trump will lose interest in the world. But I do not think that that is correct. And I still cannot discern what America is going to do about China. Will it withdraw from South China sea?
We are on a wavelength
Looks like a coherent analysis to me, a rolling back of the clock to the days of the individual states, before the Civil War, to the days of slavery.
It begins to make sense of the cryptocurrency issue too – and the clincher for me was what you said about the “power to impose taxes” (ie. How the digital oligarchs require us to buy the digital services on which we depend).
That bit about the link between taxation and currency is explained well by Steph Kelton in “Finding the Money” with illustrations from the colonial era in North America.
https://findingmoneyfilm.com/
At an individual level, citizens need to be making every attempt to disengage from the digital oligarchs as much as we can, while it is still possible, leaving their social media platforms (yes, just do it!), adopting open source software, preparing means of safe encrypted communication, shunning their products and markets (Tesla, Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, TalkTalk, BT, Virgin Media, the big banks, etc etc) developing ways of trading and existing that shun huge corporations, building community energy projects, sharing food, and material goods in a way that releases people from the fear of, and the experience of the slavery of consumer debt. We need to become “preppers” in a political and social and financial sense, preparing for a huge change and much destruction – but not selfishly retreating into well stocked bunkers, rather reaching out to others and building something better and bigger, but distributed not centralised, compassionate and caring, not greedy and selfish.
It will be costly, and dangerous, but doing nothing will be worse.
Trump is enacting a plan of destruction, as you explain. He will, like all tyrants, self-destruct. He is doomed. What will come next?
This side of the pond, we have a little time (but not much), for a creative, imaginative, distributed, innovative “revolution of love” (Martin Luther-King Jnr) that helps as many people as possible survive the chaos of evil, and be around to build something better.
Trump and his evil army are doomed. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. (The above should help explain what I mean by “meek”).
KUTGW!
“His contempt for the US legal system is apparent. He would, very obviously, rather do away with it.”
He can’t though; he doesn’t have that power. The Judiciary being a co-equal branch of the US Government, along with Congress and the Executive, neither branch has the power to do away with either, or both, of the other two branches.
The federal judges are still doing their jobs. Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News on 19 March that over 160 lawsuits had been filed against the federal government since Trump was inaugurated.
Two examples in the last week.
A federal judge, US District Judge Chuang, in Maryland on 18 March, issued a preliminary injunction blocking Elon Musk and DOGE from taking any further action to dismantle USAID. He ordered that steps be taken to allow the agency to reoccupy its Washington DC HQ until there’s a final ruling.
A federal judge, US District Judge Hollander, in Maryland on 20 March, temporarily blocked DOGE from access to Social Security Administration systems that hold personal data on millions of Americans. DOGE was ordered to delete any personally identifiable data DOGE may have already obtained.
There’s also been rulings ordering the reinstatement of thousands of federal workers.
Laura Ingraham, Fox news, interviewed Trump in the Oval Office last week and asked him whether he would defy Court orders. This was the exchange:
Trump: “Well I think that, number one, nobody’s been through more courts than I have. I think nobody knows the courts better than I have … and what they’ve done to me — I’ve had the worst judges. I’ve had crooked judges”
Ingraham: “But going forward would you defy a court order? ”
Trump: “I never did defy a court order.”
Ingraham: “And you wouldn’t in the future?”
Trump: “No, you can’t do that. However, we have bad judges. We have very bad judges. These are judges that shouldn’t be allowed. I think at a certain point, you have to look at what do you do when you have a rogue judge.”
So far so good.
Trump lies
Trump will most definitely ignore the courts and sack the judges
Oh, I know he lies every time he opens his mouth but there’s a constraint on him.
It’s believed to be Rupert Murdoch and his Fox news, Wall Street Journal and New York Post. Through various editorials, Trump has been warned (threatened?) against defying Court orders.
If it gets bad enough, the Supreme Court could revoke his immunity from prosecution which it never should have granted to him in the first place. Chief Justice Roberts must now realise his mistake and regret it.
He has been ignoring the judges. Many of them he can’t sack – he just does not have the power. They could be impeached but I suspect that would not get through Congress. He could claim to have the power to sack them but no one would believe it.
We are approaching a critical point where US judges may start to take action against those who ignore or breach court orders. There could be findings of contempt with criminal sanctions. There will be appeals, and of course Trump could pardon. At which point the rule of law collapses.
I think he will challenge them to fight him
This reminds me of Moscow in 1991-1993.
The attempted coup of 1991, and the mirror image in the bloody battle of 1993.
In 1991 the tanks encircled the parliament facing outwards to support Yeltsin and protect glasnost against a hardline coup. In 1993 they fired AT the parlliament on Yeltsin’s orders, to support a different sort of coup, and give Yeltsin absolute presidential power. .
In the USA at present, who has the most tanks?
Who will the tank commanders listen to and follow?
In Moscow, on both occasions, it wasn’t to do with courts and judges, and the rule of law, it was decided by brute force, & money, at home and abroad. The drunkard Yeltsin was a “hero” in 91 and a demagogue in 93.
Money and brute force won both battles and most players were hypocrites. And now we have Putin, Trump and little Starmer.
That’s politics for you. Depressing isn’t it?
“Or rather, if it has, then taxes might come in a very different form – for example, transaction levies for the right to use the currencies they create to buy the assets they control.”
There is a historical precedent. The company towns where workers are paid in company coupons that can only be redeemed at the company store.
That may be where I got the idea from
I can just see it happening
Texas county approves holding election to make SpaceX’s Starbase its own city.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/mcallen-texas-elon-musk-spacex-tesla-b2697267.html
The novel ‘Jennifer Government’ is worth reading for a scenario remarkably like this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Government
In the first Trump administration , the Heritage Foundation claimed they had written two-thirds of the legislative program. Reading some of the legislation, I think they were probably right. They also wrote much of Project 2025.
Power is by-passing much of the Constitutional state.
> The IRA was treated & pursued as a criminal org – orgs supporting events in the USA are, arguably worse than the IRA (which wanted negotiation for a united Ireland) in that they want the destruction of the state as we know it.
Most independence movements that resisted British colonialism — that wanted the destruction of the state or empire as it was known — were resisted with state violence carried out by people who granted themselves and their agents impunity. Equating the actions of a people subjected to oppression by a larger neighbour — that of the Ukrainians today or the Irish in the past — with the destruction of a democracy by billionaires and the forces they control is absurd. A better analogy would be the East India Tea Company taking over the state by any means it considered necessary and breaking it so that it could never challenge its power.
This analysis makes a lot of sense, but at the same time I am struggling to see how it aligns with the Trump administration’s territorial ambitions (Canada, Greenland, Panama), as well as its apparent alignment with Russia to divide the world up into spheres of influence. How could such an expansionist vision be realised in the absence of a functioning federal state in the USA?
It’s all about control of assets asap
Its all been quite explicit – by the Heritage Foundation , in ‘Project 2025’ – summarised in Wikipedia:…………………
” …. Project 2025 (also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project)[3] is a political initiative to reshape the federal government of the United States and consolidate executive power in favor of right-wing policies. The plan was published in April 2023 by The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank, in anticipation of Donald Trump winning the 2024 presidential election.[4][5]
The ninth iteration of the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership series, Project 2025 is based on a controversial interpretation of the unitary executive theory that states that the entire executive branch is under the complete control of the president.[6][7] The project’s proponents say it would dismantle a government bureaucracy they say is unaccountable and mostly liberal.[8] Critics have called it an authoritarian, Christian nationalist plan[9][10][11] that would steer the U.S. toward autocracy.[12] Legal experts say it would undermine the rule of law,[13] separation of powers,[5] separation of church and state,[12] and civil liberties.[5][13][14]
The project calls for merit-based federal civil service workers to be replaced by people loyal to Trump, to take partisan control of key government agencies, including the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Commerce (DOC), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC).[15] Other agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Education (ED), would be dismantled or abolished.[16]”…
There is also the supra national ‘post democracy’ internal regime favoured by the tech-bros – ruled by a mafia of a few globe-striding oligarchs out of reach of any tax raising institutions while nation states are dismantled from within by freeports and special enterprise zones.
But as you say Richard – there are internal contradictions in all this dismantling of the state. Who knows how it will manifest…… desperate times.
Anyone remember the Project for the New American Century? (PNAC)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
They destroyed the Middle East eventually with the help of that great Labour hero,Tony Blair. Gave us the Taliban, ISIS/Daesh, Al Qaeda, Netanyahu, and lots of lovely planet-destroying oil. Sort of…
Plus ca change…
Trump attacks the US government because it takes money away from the private sector. Classic neoliberal misunderstanding and greed.
Thank you for this explanation and all that has gone into producing it. It is certainly the best coherent explanation available that I’ve seen.
But, there is much I still cannot fathom, so this is really just my imagination working overtime. I start simply from the fact that whatever the plan is, it must have, what they believe is a stable end state.
As things are, in just over 18 months there will be the midterms and Democrats come to power – big bust up in the courts – then a gradual return to Federal rule.
So, I surmise there will be no midterms. As soon as it becomes obvious that the midterms won’t happen, there will then be, for the USA, a period of maximum danger.
What follows? – Civil unrest – certainly. Or more horrifically – civil war.
It is this hump in the road for what is to come that I cannot get over.
The Democratic states would surely allow protest, probably quite a lot of it. Many voters in the 7 swing states are probably now suffering from ‘buyers remorse’. I also wonder how many republican voters would support the vision of the future for the US that Trump et al have. I may be wrong, but quiet acquiescence I just don’t see as being possible across much of the USA.
So I just don’t see how they get to a stable future.
(But then, perhaps I’m missing something obvious).
I believe the Oman 8s no mid terms, no federal law, maybe a defence union, paid for maybe with tariffs. That’s it. But no elections, definitely.
They see this as stable.
I do not.
What do they not understand? Consent. It has not occurred to them that this is required.
“What follows? – Civil unrest – certainly. Or more horrifically – civil war.”
I can’t help thinking that this would actually be better for the rest of us. While they are tied up in an internal conflict they would be less likely to invade Greenland or escalate the trade war.
I don’t wish it on them but I’m feeling uncomfortably ambivalent about it.
War is never a good outcome.
If they get to the stage of internal open conflict, the rest of the world needs to be ready. A country with internal strife may well start an external conflict to act as a distraction in an effort to try to unite their divided nation against a common foe.
We really don’t want to go there.
PM Starmer talking to New York Times:
The prime minister told the newspaper about his rapport with Trump, saying: “On a person-to-person basis, I think we have a good relationship.” He added: “I like and respect him. I understand what he’s trying to achieve.”
Pray tell us all PM – what aspects of Trump’s character and behaviour do you like and respect? We’re all – but most especially women – just dying to know what there is to respect in such a monster. Is it his “romantic” overtures such as “grabbing women by the *****”
What do you see that the majority of us don’t even if we squint really hard, you pillock!
I am sorry to say, much to agree with.
Perhaps Starmer likes it when Trump mocks disability?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34930042
After all Starmer and Reeves do seem to be rather focussed on helping kill off the disabled, just like Trump. They clearly have a lot in common.
Or, maybe its Trump’s racism and misogyny? Starmer has treated some female MPs appallingly (Begum, Abbott, Sultana).
Or perhaps it’s Trump’s lies that Starmer admires, his ability to break promise after promise? Starmer has plenty of form there.
Or maybe they understand each other because they are both puppets controlled by others?
They do have so much in common. Of course Starmer admires Trump.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/16/project-2025-paul-dans-qa-00228890
What Trump has done so far is “beyond the wildest dreams” of one of Project 2025’s authors.
Worrying
And thank you
Revenge. Trump is not very bright, certainly not bright enough to come up with the complicated plot you suggest. However he does understand that if anyone pisses him off they ,must pay the price at all costs. This is revenge for November 2023 and January 2024. Everyone has to pay the price because, in his view, except for the January 2024 patriots, everyone pissed him off.
I never said he came up with he plot.
He is the face of the plotters.
This article was most interesting, as I do not have the ability to see so clearly what is transpiring since Trump became president. I have read all the comments as well, as they have also been well worth reading.
Trump is creating chaos and destroying the government, true. However, the rise of the global South, BRICS, and the dedollarization movement were already forces to contend with for the U.S. to retain its power as hegemon. The Heritage Foundation may think they are visionaries, but they clearly are not because none of these people have been part of the paradigm shift which is happening to greater caring for each other and our planet.
The nature of energy is for order to emerge out of chaos. Out of the chaos that Trump and the billlionaires are sowing to destroy the U.S. government, other better ways to shape the future may yet emerge. We may find resiliency in a different kind of economic system based on watershed divisions instead of states, for example.
We are seeing a mass movement against Elon Musk, who is rapidly descending from his status as cult hero to a despicable billionaire megalomaniac. This is a new development. All the wealthy people who are selling their Teslas are another feature of this anger at the wealthy. We are at a moment similar to Marie Antoninette saying, “Let them eat cake.” when she was confronted with the hunger of the people who did not have enough bread to sustain them.
However, I don’t see a violent revolution coming like the French revolution. I see a revolution happening that is based on a spiritual evolution, or at least that is what I would like to see prevail. Still the adoration and glorification of the wealthy is being massively undermined, and that is an important shift in perception.
Any kind of order, whether tyrannical or democrat, depends on the consent of the masses. Usually autocracies gain this through subjugation of people, intimidation, threats, violence, and bribes. However, it is impossible to subjugate people long-term who hold you in contempt. And the day of reckoning for Netanyahu is fast approaching, as more and more Israelis hold him in contempt. Actually, I see the empowerment of women and the Global South as major factors in what happens next. I do believe in the adage that the bigger you are, the harder you fall.
We’re all better off if we change our economic system so that billionaires no longer exist. And certainly every one of the billionaires we have in the world today have gotten that rich through economic crimes and unjust practices. All we have to do is find a way to transition to an economy that puts people and the planet first before profits. I have not figured out how we can do this. I welcome any and all ideas.
This is a work in progress
@Ariel Ky
“The nature of energy is… ” NOT for “order to emerge out of chaos”.
As I recall it, the 2nd law of thermodynamics tells us that in a closed system, left to its own devices and without external inputs, entropy (disorder) increases.
In other words, unless the rest of the world actively intervenes, hopefully without war, chaos/entropy/disorder (ie: human suffering on a huge scale) WILL increase in the U SA and its sphere of influence (the planet earth).
Much to agree with – and something I have been thinking about for 50 years now. I was a nerdy sixth former, I admit.
For daily details of what Trump and his disciples are doing to America, I can recommend Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson. As an historian, she she not only provides evidence of the attack on the universities, the legal system and the government, but also places them in an historical context. You can get her letters on email for free from heathercoxrichardson@substack.com or on audio if you pay a small sub. Most of my ex-Labour Party friends have signed up.
I read it every day
Trump and co are playing a very dangerous game which as you and many commentators say may lead to civil unrest. Given there are more guns than people in the US, this could be very bloody indeed!
I think what Trump is doing is not complicated. he is after total control. He has set out to be a dictator. Enough of the corporate ruling class is willing to go along. As in Germany they think they can use Trump to increase their hideous wealth as their German counterparts thought they could use Hitler. He controls absolutely one of the two ruling parties. Through them, with the help of a feeble opposition party, he is achieving control of the legislative branch. He is gutting every area of independence in the federal government. If the military leadership goes along with them he will have immense force at his command to achieve control.
The courts are his next target. Judge Boasberg will find the government in contempt. We don’t yet know how far up the hierarchy he will pitch. Trump will certainly not accept any decision which would require him to restore the people he has kidnapped and sent to prison. Trump is restating Andrew Jackson’s supposed comment about a US court. “They have made their decision; let them enforce it.” Courts have no troops. Trump has replaced the previous leaders of the military with henchmen. Their power is overwhelming. We are that near to Trump’s success.
The only possible resistance is for millions of Americans to take to the streets. That is the significance of the success of Bernie Sanders nd AOC drawing huge crowds to their rallies.
It is very late but not over.
Thanks Larry
I do not disagree with some of your thesis. I am trying to work out why they think they need to do this and where they go next.
You are right, I am sure, about the fact they will ignore legal rulings and get rid of the judges.
You are right too about the need for millions to oppose. Good luck to Bernie and AOC. Where are the rest of the supine Dems?
If Brexit was a dry run for project 25 then it may be useful to consider that all started to fall apart for Johnson Cummings Rees-Mog etc. Presumably they were working to a script drafted in Tufton Street and training was provided by Bannon with a bit of logistical support from their man in Moscow. The only difference being that the best oligarchs they could muster were a pub landlord, a vacuum cleaner salesman and Mr JCB and they weren’t exactly keen on handing over much of their cash. More enlightened big business rolled its eyes reluctantly went along with it mainly due to threats of reprisals (Mogg) and is some cases fear of harm from the mob. Civil servants regulators went along with out of fear of sackings and anyone who knew anything just rolled their eyes and waited for the dust to settle.
Using my own industry as an example, there was absolutely no practical reason for leaving EASA. Safety regulation would always remain 99% aligned. The CAA knew this, industry and the brighter parts of government knew this but we went our own way purely for ideological reasons simply because one of the dark force operatives suddenly noticed that there was an E in EASA. May and even Shapps knew deep down that it was stupid. Remember when Shapps announced than to compensate or withdrawing from the EGNOS part of Galileo, we would launch our very own great British satellite system. That’s just aviation but similar stupidity applied across all sectors.
Scary times, but I am slightly optimistic that big business beyond the Tech Bros will have learnt from the Brexit fiasco and will start pushing back fairly quickly.
See today’s post
[…] is a brief follow-up to yesterday‘s blog post in which I sought to explain why, I think, Trump, Musk and the other big tech oligarchs are trying […]
RobertJ,
Our planet is hardly a closed system. I lay my bets on evolutionary expansion of consciousness taking us into an entirely different place.
You can bet as you wish
Informed people would bet you’re a fantasist
@Ariel Ky
My post does not anywhere say that the planet earth is a closed system so I have no idea what point you are tryig to make.
The rest of what you say is speculation, and irrelevant distraction. I hope you manage to get your feet back on the ground soon, and get to grips with the basics of thermodynamics, as your consciousness expansion takes you into a different place. Sweet dreams.
[…] have already suggested that Trump's grand plan is to end the US federal government – and so, in effect, the USA. It […]