I have my differences with Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris. As I said in yesterday’s post, “I find them a tad soft on Trump [but] even that’s a welcome change from the absurdities of pro Democrat media both sides of the Atlantic.”
Selfless decision? He was dragged kicking – and screaming “I’m running the world” – to withdraw
That softness for Trump betrays both men’s liberal-conservative worldview. While critical of the US oligarchy, they still believe in its potential for democracy, and that a president does run the US Empire. As if its ruling class would entrust that to any one person, or even administration!
But I keep returning to this pair as men of principle who bring a reasoned factuality glaringly absent from the debased forms of liberalism espoused by Europe’s political leaders, and our systemically corrupt media which on anything that truly matters – not least Ukraine and Gaza – fail spectacularly at their avowed job of holding power to account.
In respect of Ukraine I’d prefer a Trump Administration to anything the Dems could offer. It would have less to lose by ending the slaughter. But I’m too mindful of …
- Trump’s capitulation – back-footed by the ‘Russiagate’ fabrication – to the US deep state in 2017-21.
- His hawkishness on Iran and China. (Though Beijing will be able – as it is not with Biden, Blinken or Sullivan – to pick up the phone to Trump. Yes; the tangerine narcissist who, even while walking away from the Iran nuclear deal, and murdering a revered Iranian general, kept the lines open with Tehran.)
- His appointments. It’s unlikely for personal reasons that Trump will bring back a 24-carat psycho like John Bolton. Wish I could say the same of Mike (“lie-cheat-steal”) Pompeo.
… to be quite so enthusiastic as they are over the high likelihood – whatever the DNC machine throws up as Joe Biden’s replacement 1 2 – of a Trump presidency in January. 3
But they get too much right to be ignored. And whether you like Alexander’s answers or not, his framing of the big questions is unimpeachable. Here’s an extract, stripped of the redundancies of speech, of what Alexander says. It starts at 09:38, finishes at 16:02, and I link to the full video at the end.
Americans today should be asking who is running the United States. If Joe Biden isn’t fit to run for the presidency – and he clearly isn’t: we’ve all seen the kind of person he has become – then who do they call if there is a crisis? Is it Obama, who apparently can make or break presidents? He made Joe Biden and now he’s broken him do they call Obama do they call – God help us! – Tony Blinken or Jake Sullivan? That is the question all the major governments of the world are asking. Every government of course has its issues with the United States, be they friends or enemies, and will all be trying to work out what is going to happen over the next 10 months until January.
All will be concerned, very worried, at a vacuum of power in Washington; very worried that the president will try to do something dramatic and dangerous to secure his legacy. They’ll be worried too about some of the people around him. Most of the world has come to the view that Sullivan, Blinken and all the others are no more fit for the job than president himself so will be calculating that this is a very dangerous time indeed, and will be asking what the next true president, the one who’s elected in November, is going to do.
Most of the world wants certainty. With the exception of Europe – we’ll come to Europe in a moment – most of the world wants Trump to win. They want somebody in Washington who is in control, and will be trying to work out what his policies are going to be; what he’s intending to do about Ukraine the Middle East, East Asia, Taiwan and the global economy.
The only part of the world in absolute meltdown at this moment is Europe. All of the European states have tied themselves to the sinking ship that is the Biden Administration; an incredible thing to do. We discussed this in program after program on the Duran: what an idiotic thing they did. Now that ship is sinking – in fact it’s sunk – they are terrified and wondering what the Trump Administration which is coming will do; worried that it will cut them off to leave them hanging out to dry over Ukraine. It’s going to do all sorts of things they don’t want and they brought it about by refusing to talk to Trump. They’ve acted as if Trump really is the person that Biden and the people around him say he is, and now are in serious trouble.
But we mustn’t focus too much on Europe. The Europeans have their own set of problems brought about by their incompetent and mismanaged politics. Russia, India – all the African, East Asian and Latin American states – want Trump to win. Even China which has had a difficult relationship with Trump, though not as difficult as some people say, wants Trump because its leaders want somebody in Washington they can telephone and deal with in the belief he actually runs the government of the United States, and has a coherent way forward for the United States. Man, the Europeans followed Biden straight into a war with Russia and what a mess up! He’s led them off the cliff and that’s what they’ve done to themselves. It was astonishing, absolutely bizarre, but that’s what they did. That’s what Ursula Von der Leyen, Olaf Scholz, Emanuel Macron did. Likewise the endless election of British prime ministers; Johnson, Truss, Sunak and even Starmer – who last week told us what a brilliant and incisive master of detail Biden is. These men and women have brought all this upon themselves and upon Europe.
* * *
- Writing today, July 21, Caitlin Johnstone has this to say:
Harris, assuming she wins the nomination, will campaign on the promise of continuing Biden’s incineration of Gaza, continuing Biden’s “ironclad” support for Israel, continuing Biden’s proxy war in Ukraine, continuing Biden’s escalations against Russia and China, continuing Biden’s expansion of the US war machine, continuing Biden’s facilitation of ecocidal capitalism, and continuing Biden’s dehumanizing policies of worldwide exploitation and imperialist extraction. If she gets into the White House the face of the operation will change, but the operation itself will not.
Making a similar point to mine about Alexander’s touching faith in America’s potential for democracy, Caitlin goes on to remind us that …
… the same will be true if Trump gets in. Every few years the US empire has this weird little festival where it pretends the government is changing hands and will now begin operating in a way that is meaningfully different from the way it was operating before. But then exploitation continues, the injustice continues, the ecocide continues, the wars continue, the militarism continues, the imperialism continues, the propaganda indoctrination continues, the authoritarianism and oppression continues …
… though on the not inconsiderable matter of Ukraine, I differ with her too. I say there is a possibility – I put it no more strongly – of his ending the war. Not “in a day”, as he with characteristic braggadocio has promised, but I stand by my remark about his having less invested in that murderous folly.
Caitlin’s point is that US democracy (like those of the collective West at large) is bogus. I say only 95% bogus. In times of stress – like now, with the neoliberal globalist project alienating millions and putting them at odds with their venal and foolish leaders – it can throw up maverick outcomes. The bulk of the US ruling class does not want Trump, the bulk of the British ruling class did not want Brexit, and Europe’s elites are left dismayed and fearful after election results most devastating in France. This is why not only the West’s ‘open society’ values, but also a largely sham democracy, are being slyly reined in. (Mental note to self; dedicated post needed on this.)
- Also writing today is Jan Oberg of Transnational Foundation:
While it is good for the US and the world that Joe “having-supported-all-wars-there were-to-support“ Biden has dropped out, the mainstream media attention to the US presidential elections is mind-bogglingly out of proportion. There are 200 other countries, and among them, a few that will influence the world’s future much more than the US – but how many could even mention their leaders’ names?
Secondly, while the president’s personality, experience and style are of some importance, we must be aware that s/he first represents the declining, militaristic empire’s MIMAC – Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex, what some call the deep state. And that MIMAC is getting desperate …
… Biden was Obama’s Vice President when that administration carried out yet another regime change, this time in Kiev in 2014, which marks the true beginning of the NATO-Russia conflict playing out so tragically in Ukraine.
- Yesterday I cited a Naked Capitalism piece by Yves Smith. While my focus was on a fragment of below-the-line exchange, here’s a fragment from above it:
Trump has signaled he will reduce commitments to NATO, which means Ukraine too, but the psychological impact is likely to be greater than the practical difference. Trump is making clear, to much alarm, that he expects both NATO members and Taiwan to bear more of the cost of their defenses than they are bearing now. Amusingly, NATO has been discussing how to “Trump proof” the alliance, even after then NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg admitted many months back that NATO could not continue to back Ukraine without US support, as many outlets such as the BBC reported last week. This follows Congress passing a stipulation that no President could withdraw from NATO without Senate consent.
But the reality is that, as far as Ukraine is concerned, this matters less than it seems. The US and NATO have emptied their weapons caches to supply Ukraine, yet Russia has ample production capacity and stockpiles. The US under a new Democrat might prop up the Ukraine government longer than a Trump administration would, but given the difficulty of passing the last funding bill and Ukraine’s deterioration, that might not pass at all or amount to much if it did. More US support of Ukraine would increasing be a confidence game, to persuade Ukraine to keep throwing more men into the Russian maw, than a strategy with any hope of success.
European leaders would feel cast adrift. EU leaders are stunningly doubling down on Project Ukraine. They seem to be externalizing their frustration with their inability to turn the war around with their unhinged attacks on Hungarian president Viktor Orban for the temerity of talking to key players about peace in Ukraine. Orban had just assumed a rotating six month presidency of the EU Council, which despite the pretenses of the wannbe queen of Europe, EU Commission chair Ursula von der Leyen, is the premier executive group for the Union. Even though Orban had disavowed operating as EU president in undertaking his listening tour to Zelensky, Putin, Xi and Trump, he nevertheless was taking advantage of his higher profile.
The unified and vicious official European reaction to even tentatively exploring a settlement to the war has been revealing.
As Scott Ritter argues in the latter stages of this interview ……
As Ritter notes; during the Soviet era the USA had lines of communication with Soviet counterparts right down to who was in charge of agricultural production. That no longer exists. Raising the question as tho where exactly a Trump presidency is going to find any personnel to run the various agencies of State along the lines he wants at every level who is not going to do the same as John Bolton et al by working against him.
With the very clear suggestion that such people – having been expunged from the system over decades – no longer exist.
With the likelihood of internally generated change effectively dead in the water, it would seem reasonable to surmise that the consequences will be not that far away from those argued by Hudson in ‘The Collapse of Antiquity.’
Scott has my respect, though not always my unqualified support. He may well be right on a Trump presidency (and see Bryan’s comment below). But two things allow a modicum of hope on Ukraine. One is that Trump is likely this time round to be more wary and less naive as to deep state machinations. Second and more importantly, it’s likely significant elements of the US ruling class want an off ramp from Ukraine; or at least (again see Bryan’s comment) a significant respite. Especially an off ramp with so baked-in a scape-goat – if you’ll pardon my stacking metaphor on mixed metaphor – should it go tits up on Wall St.
For readers not familiar with The Collapse of Antiquity, it advances a simple thesis. In the early civilisations of Sumer a new king began his reign by cancelling debt. Why? Because interest rises exponentially while wealth creation from which debt is paid can at best rise logarithmically. So the inexorable logic is for power to accrue to a creditor oligarchy. Debt forgiveness derailed this but the new king had to be powerful enough to force it through. In today’s terms, he had to be what liberals (believing ours to be a democracy rather than a creditor oligarchy) condemn in a Putin or Xi. He had to be an authoritarian. How else could he break the destructive, and ultimately self destructive, power of the oligarchs? Their failure to do this, Michael Hudson argues, brought down the civilisations of Greece and Rome: collapsing under the weight of debt which could not be repaid but would not be forgiven.
Interestingly, Mark Sleboda worries that a Trump presidency would offer just enough to Russia to bring the war in Ukraine to a halt – leaving Russia vulnerable to a rearmed Ukrainian rump state further down the line.
I offer this link as a reference although I don’t recommend the post as it is full of inappropriate jokeyness for my taste (initiated by one of the interviewers). Mark is usually better than this.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marksleboda/p/israelpalestine-trumpvance-european?r=24s6j6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
I’ll check this out. Meantime, it’s a point of pride with Putin never to repeat his mistakes. He was hurt and embittered by Merkel and Hollande leading him down the garden path over Minsk. Ditto on Boris Johnson’s torpedoing – assuredly on Washington say-so – of the Istanbul talks in March 2022. (Kiev would have kept Ukraine intact in return for meaningful guarantees on neutrality, meaningful autonomy for Luhansk and Donbas as per Minsk, and de-Nazification. A notorious liar, BoJo has the blood, most of it Ukrainian, of hundreds of thousands on his hands.)
Even if Putin were to be so unimaginably and atypically foolish as to agree a peace which allowed the West respite in which to tool up for an attack five, ten or twenty years hence, neither Kremlin hardliners nor the Russian public would allow it. He’d be out faster than you can say Biden is demented!
Hi Phil,
Hope you enjoyed your vacation.
Have some issues with the commenters on your post and it is manly to do with Trump’s choice for VP
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2024/07/investigative-reports/the-man-behind-trumps-vp-pick-its-worse-than-you-think.
If you have time you will understand my reasons.
Regards,
Susan:
I did enjoy my vacation, Susan. Thanks. I look forward to reading the piece you link to. Even a cursory skim shows multiple use of the word, ‘billionaire’ in respect of Vance.
Me, I say the whole lot of this plutocracy masquerading as democracy are gangsters representing even bigger gangsters but I note that, writing today with that preacher’s eloquence of his, the Rev Chris Hedges also makes multiple use of the b-word:
Many who loathe Trump are fully signed up members of the Liberal Clueless who, if they even noticed a decades old trail of empire carnage and chaos across the global south, drank the Koolaid on its highfalutin rationales. But there are folk I respect – some friends, others serious pundits like WSWS – who see in Trump something dangerously new. (The latter’s spiritual mentor, Leon Trotsky, had himself once stood alone on the Russian Left – never mind the Western bourgeoisie – in seeing something dangerously new, rather than simply the latest variant of antisemitic reaction, in Adolf Hitler and his brown-shirt “bands of human rubbish”.)
I think WSWS are wrong, likewise those of my friends who have arrived at a similar conclusion, but we’ll see. It wouldn’t be the first time I had to eat my words.
Stay well.
In 2020 I sort of hoped Trump would win. Not because I endorsed his policies nor because I have any regard for him as a human being. But because I sensed a cooling of Europe’s enthusiasm for its role of US vassal during his presidency and felt that a second term could drive a wedge between the two, which would seem to me overall rather positive. The past 3-4 years have certainly seen a reassertion of US dominance over Europe, aided by weak (corrupt? treasonous?) submission by Europe’s leaders to policies and actions that have severely harmed Europe economically and politically. Again this year, I wonder if a Trump victory could reignite a push for more European independence from the US, perhaps even encouraged by the Americans. Vain hope, perhaps, but in times of crisis one clings to any straw.
Hi Martin and welcome. Your final two sentences are on the high side of optimistic but not, I think, to be dismissed as straw-clutching. Europe’s quisling leaders – Sunak and Starmer no less than Baerbock, Macron, Scholz, Stoltenberg, VDL and all the rest – have shown that their loyalty is to their Washington handlers and not their own peoples. This may not be widely recognised yet, but is empirically and irrefutably verifiable.
This entire cadre, or its most vulnerable segments, may indeed be swept away as it finds in Egypt a new pharaoh who knows not Joseph – and a collective West consequently breaking up along internal as well as external fault lines. What happens then could be a wild ride whose destination, good or bad, is anyone’s guess.
We certainly live in interesting times.