What happens when politics dies in August? A flight of leaders to Washington that achieved nothing. Trump was flattered. Zelensky was patronised. And the rest? Ditherers. This is what neoliberalism has delivered us – a politics of paralysis.
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This is the transcript:
It's the middle of August. Politics is dead, or at least decidedly dormant, parliaments are not sitting, and it seems that eight world leaders needed to go to Washington to hold the hand of President Zelensky of Ukraine in case Donald Trump beat him up again.
What sort of world are we living in where the supposed leader of the free world, as we once used to term the president of the USA, is such a thug that we can't trust him to meet the president of a country that is suffering an invasion without the risk that he will actually abuse him in public.
Did this meeting achieve anything? It's not clear if it did.
Why is that? Because no one in the room seemed to have any idea what to do. They all knelt down and praised Donald Trump, in effect, because that is what they think they need to do.
Trump lapped up everything that people had to say about him, even though he's a man who can't even walk in a straight line down a red carpet anymore, as he proved quite convincingly in Anchorage, Alaska, last week.
Why did they all have to praise him? Because they wanted to persuade him that maybe he shouldn't be in the pocket of President Putin of Russia, the last man who used that ploy to get his way with Trump.
Trump is very obviously a man who remembers what he was told by the last person he was with. He obviously hasn't got the brain capacity to do more than that anymore, and as a consequence, he's even more dangerous than I once thought.
Trump is quite clearly suffering some form of onset of old age, whether it be dementia, whether it just be failing faculties, whether it be the inability to remember what he said last week, whatever it might be, it's clear that something is up.
He managed to knock Biden out of the presidential election in 2024 on the basis that it was very clear that Biden was suffering a form of degeneration with regard to his mental faculties, and at the age he was, that's not surprising, but Trump is only just behind him in age at 79, and the fact is he is very clearly no longer able to govern or to be relied upon in any way. And that's why we had this remarkable flight , and I mean the word, quite literally, flight of presidents, prime ministers and others to Washington to tell Trump what he might need to do, which included, don't beat up President Zelensky.
But the net outcome is absolutely uncertain.
We live in a world where none of these people can say for certain what they are willing to do to defend Ukraine.
They're not willing to commit to funding.
They're not willing to talk about what they're up to.
They're not willing to actually say to Ukraine, maybe peace is going to be necessary at some point, and your claim that you can't agree to peace because the constitution of Ukraine says that's impossible is a little bit threadbare at this point in time.
And, maybe they need to actually work out what a European defence system actually means, because in principle, they have very much more power than Russia does, and yet they're very clearly not willing to use it.
So the fact is that what we have seen in the middle of August, when there is nothing to disguise it, is the total confusion in the minds of so-called world leaders, none of whom seem to know what they're in office to do.
Except, of course, Putin, who's there to commit thuggery.
And Trump, who's there to make himself richer.
And Zelensky, who has got a purpose, but let's be honest about it, may be hanging on to a point where his people may be paying too high a price to preserve territory, which it looks likely will be ceded at some point to Russia, whether he likes it or not.
As for the rest, ditherers, the lot of them.
How did we come to a point where politics is now such a managerial science, or rather art, or rather, not even either of those two - just an exercise in dithering - that this is what we ended up with; a bunch of leaders who will go to hold somebody's hand but cannot actually usefully add to debate.
What a state democracy is in.
We need people with ideas.
We need people with conviction.
We need people who are willing to change the mould.
And instead, neoliberalism, the force in politics that said politicians should stand back and let the markets do everything, has delivered us people who believe that that's what they should do, and as a consequence, can do nothing.
We are in deep trouble, and until we get rid of neoliberalism, that will remain the case.
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What is frightening is that American foreign policy depends on not offending Trump’s vanity. One man’s fragile ego. While it is often a factor, there were always colleagues and staff to keep policy, more or less, aligned to a declared strategy. With Trump, many of the staff are only there because of their willingness to flatter.
I watched the 20 minute Fox interview (where he was never challenged ) and noted about ten inaccuracies, mainly said to inflate his ‘genius’. That dislocation from reality is worrying.
One clip was filmed from behind him with the European leaders in front of him. The body language of Meloni and Merz was quite telling.
Trump is a showman. His major “achievement” has been to turn international politics into daily theatre and recruit serious politicians to play bit parts. I do not think we will get a peace deal out of this. Putin does not want peace. He has asked for land in the Donbass because he knows Zelensky cannot concede it. The reason offered is not the most important one. The area Putin has asked for is vital to the strategic defence of the rest of Ukraine. Once Putin has it, he can walk straight in, so the Ukrainians won’t concede. The show is all about giving Trump the chance to walk away and who gets the blame for him doing so. The Europeans want Putin to have the blame so that Trump goes on supplying weapons to Ukraine and they can delay the inevitable bust up of Nato for as long as possible. But they face an uphill task as he is not interested in Ukraine. ( Bidens War) He is interested in getting a working relationship with Putin so they can carve up the Arctic between them. Then, of course, Greenland and Canada will be in the cross hairs. The longer the Europeans can keep Trump embroiled in Ukraine the later he turns his attention to his vulnerable Nato allies. Henri 4 said ” Paris is worth a mass.” For European politicians today Nato is worth a bit of ritual humiliation.
How are you going to get rid of neoliberalism?
The reason I ask is that it sounds like an authoritarian goal for you to be achieved by peaceably gaining a 1 seat or more majority in the house of commons against neoliberalism (that’s the voluntary or peaceful part) and then passing a law to make neoliberalism illegal and that would be tyranny.
Wow. DARVO is in action.
How do you beat neoliberalism? Personally, you let it beat itself, as it is now, because it is so very obviously failing.
Secondly, you always beat ideas with ideas, and nothing else, and that is what this blog is about.
Your comment suggests that you have no comprehension of either issue.
We don’t need to make neoliberalism illegal.
If we remove/reverse the harm done by it, it will lose support.
“We are in deep trouble”. I couldn’t agree more, and what a devastating put down the noun dithering is in that context. The oft quoted phrase, while not historically accurate, Nero fiddled while Rome burned, comes to mind.
I’m dismayed by western politicians and media ignorance of the real history of Ukraine. I worked there in the 90s and 00s, and the ethnic tensions between Russian-speaking communities and western Ukrainians were a major issue affecting our work – so I was aware 20 years before the current war, or the civil war that preceded it, that these divisions were not just a matter of Russian interference. I was still in contact with Ukrainians colleagues in 2014, and although they were active in Maidan, they never pretended Ukraine’s divisions were not real, or were just down to foreign interference.
The truth is messier than western narratives suggest. The histories of Ukraine and Russia have always been intertwined – Kyiv was once the capital of Russia. Was Maidan a revolution or a coup? – a December 2016 survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 56% of Ukrainians thought it a “popular revolution”, but 34% saw it as an “illegal armed coup”.
The western narrative on Crimea is particularly partial. Crimea was in the Ottoman Empire until invaded and incorporated into Russia in 1783, and although it subsequently suffered other (western) occupations, it was not incorporated in Ukraine until 1954 – but that was no more than an administrative exercise within the larger Soviet Union. Nor, when the soviet system disintegrated, did Crimea align with Ukraine – it declared independence. It was only briefly part of Ukraine, from 1995 to Maidan; the referendum on Crimea’s re-declaration of independence in 2014 is seen in the west as fixed – but the Pew Research Center found most Crimeans thought it wasn’t.
It’s undeniable that since its invasion of Ukraine Russia has been the aggressor – and that Ukraine had no choice but to fight, and has done so heroically – but the truth is also that the conflict has a decades-long history. ‘Ukraine’ was fractured before the invasion, and I see no reason to believe these divisions would end if Russia withdrew. I suspect that, like a lot of former colonies, the Ukraine that emerged from the Russian/Soviet empire was never a viable state, and western Ukrainians, and the west, might well be better off simply recognising that Crimea etc are indeed culturally, linguistically and historically a long way from Kyiv.
Neoliberalism – the mid-wife that gave birth to Putin (if it was not him it would have been another) & Trump. The neoliberal imbeciles in Washington in the 1990s enabling the collapse of Russia & the rise of the oligarchs – Germany happy to look to the short term and Russian gas, the looting of Russia and the accommodation of Russian oligarchs in e.g. Londongrad (LINo & the Tories both happy with those developments), son of a KGB officer becomes a Lord, assasinations of Russians in London and elsewhere – political handwringing etc etc. Neoliberalism (& “markets have all the answers”) has much to answer for – & the rot is very very deep.
e.g. Just finished a tech analysis of Spain (2024 & 2025 YTD) how much green elec do they throw away – circa 5 – 10% – why? because the assumption was that markets would solve the problem (of thrown away green elec). Pathetic is not the half of it.
& neoliberalism is also the handmaiden of fascisim – looks like the fascists will get in – in France in 2027 and the Uk in 2029…and and…..the DARVOS pile in with nonesense.
The situation with Trump and the unedifying spectacle of so many European leaders having to make haste to his “throne” to, a. protect Zelenskyy, and, b. keep Trump from flipping entirely to Putin’s viewpoint, has been further dropped into the deep pit marked “shite hole” with some unsurprising – to those of us who recognise Trump for what he is – news this evening (not widely reported yet but OSINT’s who understand Russian have it). That Lavrov announced in an interview today that when Putin told Trump he would accept Europe and the US providing Ukraine with security guarantees, the caveat was that Russia – and also likely China – would have the power of veto over their use.
In short, guarantees that aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. So, yet more time wasting and worthless showmanship from Trump. One wonder which of the Euro leaders will be the first to grow and backbone and break ranks with the herd and call out Trump for what he is (I shan’t even bother to write it as everyone outside MAGA and Fox “News” hosts know exactly what he is.
Anyway, I could rant on, but Lawrence O’Donnell’s demolitions of Trump are so much more enjoyable to watch than anything I could manage. So, for your enjoyment, here’s the link to the latest cringe making expose of Donny “Big Ankles” Trump.
https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/lawrence-trump-uses-his-desk-to-hide-his-swollen-ankles-his-atty-gen-to-hide-the-epstein-files-245328965614
Thanks, Ivan. Next on my list tonight now.
Just to add to my previous piece, this quote from Lavrov today. I wonder if Trump ever gets told in how much disdain the Kremlin actually holds him, because we can be a sure as hell that Lavrov doesn’t say this if he thinks Putin disagrees. I suspect none of Trumps servants have the courage to bring this to his attention.
‘The probability of a meeting between Zelensky and Putin before the end of August is zero. In the future, the chances are also extremely small or completely absent. A summit between Putin and Zelensky is nothing more than Trump’s fantasy.’
I am sure that is right.
Putin has nothing to gain from such a meeting.
He had much to gain from meeting Trump.
I agree with most of your output.
Execpt the Ukraine war. If you want a truly neutral opinion you need to consult history and not just one side. How is Ukraine being used any differenty than Iraq in the terrible Iran – Iraq war, a proxy for sacrifice, then the nation ‘Iraq’ was sacrificed afterwards.
I think hate for a particular leader be it Trump or Putin is unhelpful. These people are merely symptoms of wider problems in these societies.
I am sorry, but I do not follow your argument. What is it that you do not agree with me about?