Donald Trump is going to win – America isn’t
The assassination attempt against the 45th president and his selection of JD Vance as his running mate has ensured him of victory in November

On Sunday, former US President Donald Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt. The Republican nominee had his ear grazed and was quickly rushed by the Secret Service, though many are still criticizing the event’s apparent lack of safety.

Immediately, the candidate and others were cashing in on the spectacle with T-shirts and other paraphernalia – suggesting that, as always, it will be Trump that walks away victorious.

It is no exaggeration to say that this spectacle has cemented another Trump term. Many experts and Republican officials believe that Donald Trump has narcissistic personality disorder. Part of the narcissist playbook includes playing the victim. When victimhood is usurped by the narcissist, it’s a wash for the opposition. In this case, Trump has a legitimate claim to that title, and he will ride it into the sunset. The shooter, in this case, essentially handed the former president the greatest gift he ever could have.

It should also be noted that victimhood is one of the main animating factors of the MAGA movement. Trump and the current Republican Party are leaning into this energy, particularly white victimhood, to establish a politics that seeks to level the playing field for a previously unseen faction of rural white people that have lost out on opportunities as a result of globalization.

Trump’s decision in picking Ohio Senator JD Vanceas his running mate on Monday was a reflection of this strategy. As a newly minted Cincinnati resident, like Vance, the feeling in the city is palpable. Southern Ohio is a battleground of burgeoning political and social attitudes. Many parts of the country are leaning into the utter destruction of community and egalitarian values, while others, particularly the younger generation, are embracing them. At the same time when racial strife and mass shootings are increasing, people are yearning for innocence and a connection to a higher purpose. 

With the selection of Vance, the Trump campaign has made its position clear on this matter. The New Right and its desire for an idealized past, as well as a protectionist foreign policy, will define the Republican Party for the foreseeable future. The Democratic Party, as it is inclined to do, is stuck in a politics that does not fit the current zeitgeist, evidenced by the candidacy of incumbent President Joe Biden, an 81-year-old. Biden’s lack of energy, charisma, and general inspiration are indicative of the failure of current Democratic politics, as is the party’s failing effort to suppress the emergence of its progressive flank. 

At the outset of this current presidential race, I made the comment on numerous occasions that the disunity of the Republican Party would set it up for failure. These mistakes have clearly been corrected. The GOP has long been the superior party in terms of resources, organization, and ideological unity. It has now produced a nascent politics that will yet again obliterate the decorum that had long defined American politics. Growing calls from within the Democratic Party to replace Biden, while entirely warranted, are a sure sign that the race is already over.

In the grand scheme, there really cannot possibly be a winner this November. Whether an aging narcissist or an even more fossilized milquetoast liberal win, America loses. Joe Biden’s political programs have failed to inspire the country to the degree needed to ward off the malignant influence of Donald Trump. Trump’s pride, symbolic of the pride of a major swath of the country, will catch up to him and usher in untold suffering for the nation. It is such an inevitability as to have long been understood in Christian and Islamic lore as one of the seven deadly sins, leading to an eternity in hell. 

As Charles Bukowski wrote in “Lost” from his 1974 Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame, “those who escape hell, however, never talk about it and nothing much bothers them after that.” He wrote that going through hell and back is “the greatest satisfaction known to man.” This idea is also reflected in the archetype of the tree of life, where the roots of the tree descend down to hell and reach up to heaven. The path to the gates of salvation, as it is stated clearly in the Bible through Jesus’ death and resurrection, are met through hell.

Donald Trump is going to win. Of this, there is little doubt. His pride, which we may consider to be America’s collective pride, will send the nation to hell. Yet, at the end of this tortuous experience, is the opportunity to find a better and higher state through the symbolic death and rebirth of our collective psyche. How exactly this will play out is anyone’s guess.

https://www.rt.com/news/601143-donald-trump-going-win/

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BY Lucas LEIROZ

Three possible fates for the U.S. in a multipolar world

Given the unstable situation in the U.S., it is worth analyzing the possible impacts of geopolitical changes on American foreign policy. Amid the elections and rising domestic social tensions, the future of the U.S. appears extremely uncertain – largely because American strategists have not yet properly understood the nature of the new world order.

The old unipolar geopolitical order is not “about to end” – it has already de facto ended. Since 2022, Washington definitely no longer has the capacity to act as a “world police” and the main agent in the global decision-making process. The special military operation in Ukraine and the reintegration of the New Regions into the Russian Federation were clear signs that the U.S. no longer has the power to decide the fate of all peoples – which obviously had a significant international impact, with a wave of sovereigntist revolutions and counter-hegemonic geopolitical moves on all continents.

This news leads analysts to think about how the U.S. will behave as a country and civilization in this new world. It is not possible to know what Washington’s final decision will be regarding its foreign policy, but one thing is certain: there is no possibility of American hegemonic ambitions remaining active. The country will have to rethink its international objectives and create new strategies to adapt to the current geopolitical configuration. And, in a way, it is already possible to think of some plausible scenarios for the coming years, considering the contemporary American political context.

For now, it is possible to talk about at least three fates for the U.S., which correspond precisely to current political alternatives. In one of the scenarios, following the line of Joe Biden’s government, the conflict with Russia is maintained and the world remains unstable and dangerous for a long time. In another, according to Donald Trump’s logic, the global geopolitical configuration is negotiated and reorganized. Finally, there is the worst-case scenario – the one we should all try to avoid, but which unfortunately appears to be desired by some irresponsible Western elites.

Joe Biden is without a doubt the worst president in U.S. history, having placed the world on the brink of a global and nuclear conflict. As an elderly man with a mental disability and incapable of making rational decisions, Biden should be prevented from running in the presidential elections. However, Biden has somehow managed to avoid the ultimate tragedy. His opponents within the Democratic Party are precisely those who want to replace him with an even more liberal and aggressive leader – someone actually willing to take Washington into a global war on three fronts, against Russia, China and Iran at the same time.

Biden’s administration is disastrous, but a new Democratic candidate could be even worse. The current president has at least put the brakes on part of the war plans in the Pacific after seeing the escalation in the Middle East, in addition to being cautious in supporting Israeli barbarism in Gaza. A new Democrat could simply ignore any security protocols and lead the world into absolute catastrophe. In short, if Biden is re-elected, the tendency is for the current situation of conflict and crisis to last for the next four years, but without causing nuclear escalations. However, if a more irresponsible Democrat replaces him, perhaps humanity will face a war with actual use of strategic weapons.

The alternative between these two scenarios lies with Trump. With his businessman mentality, the Republican leader makes it very clear what his government will be like. Trump really wants to end the war in Ukraine. Perhaps he is not strong enough to do so, considering the power of the pro-Kiev lobby in the U.S., but it is undeniable that he really wants peace with Russia. Obviously, Trump does not want this because he is “good”, but simply because he is pragmatic and realistic, thinks like a businessman and acts in search of profits and benefits. Kiev is no longer interesting to the U.S., which is why it must be discarded.

Trump plans to achieve a rapid reconfiguration of the global scenario, negotiating with Russia and China to create limited zones of influence and establishing a new security architecture. As far as Iran is concerned, Trump tends to be more problematic, given his deep connections with Zionism, but he will also be forced to negotiate with Tehran, since, from a realistic point of view, a war between the U.S. and Iran is not viable.

Trump truly wants what’s best for “America.” His policy of “America First” is sincere. He represents a specific sector of American elites that is already resigned to multipolarity and wants to preserve as much international power as possible for the U.S. in this new world. Faced with the impossibility of maintaining hegemony, Trump at least wants the U.S. to be the leader of a “pole” in the multipolar reality.

In this scenario, time is running in favor of multipolarity. Russian President Vladimir Putin was neither lying nor ironic when he said he prefers Biden’s re-election. The current president has shown himself to be too weak to make the U.S. and NATO achieve their objectives, while at the same time being prudent enough to avoid nuclear holocaust. With four more years of Biden in power, Russia and the other multipolar powers would gain time to expand their gains and would have greater advantages when finally negotiating the global geopolitical reconfiguration. Trump would call his rivals to negotiation immediately and would be much more efficient than Biden in preserving some U.S. power.

In the end, the scenarios are these: limited prolongation of the conflict (Biden), immediate end (Trump) or nuclear escalation (with a possible new candidate interested in worsening the crisis with Russia). The U.S. can only choose the moment to recognize the end of its hegemony. Preventing the rise of multipolarity is not a possibility.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/07/16/three-possible-fates-for-us-in-multipolar-world/

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“They think it’s life, but it’s only theatre”, says Calderon. This also applied to the G7 meeting and the Bürgenstock conference.

Every dollar and every euro invested in new weapons production now is money well spent, says Dan Altman, because it shows the Kremlin that the war is being planned for years to come and that Putin is mistaken if he believes the West will go soft in Ukraine. He cites the new General Dynamics factory in Texas, which produces 155mm shells, as an example.
  Dan Altman professes at Georgia State University, a specialist in geostrategy, deterrence, red lines, nuclear proliferation, international security and so on. In Foreign Affairs, the quarterly journal wherein one reliably finds the orthodox thinking on US foreign policy, Altman now calls on the West finally to show Russia who is the stronger. Under the title “The West must show that it can outlast Russia in Ukraine”, Altman explains that any sign of weakness will prompt Moscow to adapt its plans for conquest and advance further. According to Altman, the West must show the Russians that it is preparing to continue the war for “three, five or eight years”. Only then will the Kremlin realise that it cannot win this war and back down.

Bürgenstock: Actors and their roles

The ‘Great Theatre of the World’ by Calderón de la Barca (1600–1681) is based on the idea, common in the Baroque era, that the world is a stage and life a comedy in which everyone has a role to play. Calderón’s World Theatre is currently being performed by amateurs in front of the Einsiedeln Abbey (a famous Catholic monestary in the Swiss village of Einsiedeln), but there are also heavyweight political theatre professionals who have rehearsed it just a few kilometres away in linear distance.
  Because if there was a summit anywhere that is reminiscent of Calderón’s theatre, then it was the Bürgenstock Conference, which was first a peace conference, then a precursor conference to a later, possible or perhaps not possible, peace conference – and more of the same verbal acrobatics. The actors recited their lines,  and all wanted peace or at least “to initiate a process that could lead to peace”. The trained Ukrainian actor Volodymyr Zelensky said: “We are writing history”.
  This is El Gran Teatro del Mundo. Each and every one of the delegates sitting at the large table there knew that there was no question of peace. Russia was not invited because, as Ignazio Cassis, the Swiss foreign minister, admitted, Zelensky did not want it. China wasn’t there either, and the “NATO brass” is currently trumpeting louder than ever that it will continue the war in Ukraine. After its defeats in Syria and Afghanistan, does not want to lose any more face. This is why Ukraine is constantly rearmed. To the teeth, as they say. Vice–President Kamala Harris said at the round table with disarming clarity: “America stands with Ukraine not out of charity but because it is in our strategic interest.”
  In the end, nothing was achieved apart from 15 million Swiss francs in expenditures. As was to be expected, the world theatre did not produce even a joint declaration. Major countries of the South, which do not see Russia as a hostile power and take a more nuanced view of the question of guilt in this conflict than the Ukrainian president, sent only second-tier delegations and did not sign the declaration. These non-signatories include India, Thailand, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

G-7: lots of money for the war profiteers

At their 50th meeting last week, the G-7 states decided on new sanctions against Russia and an additional $50 billion ‘loan,’ which no one expects to be repaid, for the government in Kiev (meaning for the Western defence industry). Western industrialised nations spend 62 times as much money on weapons as they do on humanitarian aid in wars and disasters. This bears repeating: sixty-two times as much on war as on peace. Of late these nations have been feeding their defence industries not only with taxpayers’ money, but also with billions from the proceeds of the reserves of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. These reserves amount to 250 billion Swiss francs, which the West has stolen from Russia. The words used to describe this are “freeze”, “confiscate”, “block”, etc.
  War is not only death and misery for soldiers and their families, but also always a profit-making business for the rich. Not only for the gigantic armaments industry, but also for the numerous corporations that maintain the logistics of the great war machine and make speculative investments in war zones. The war economy is fuelled not only with taxpayers’ money, but also with loans from international lending institutions. Loans that are usually linked to the condition of “market liberalisation”. Ukraine, with the world’s greatest wealth of black soil, has now sold arable land the size of Italy’s entire agricultural sector to foreign corporations such as Cargill, DuPont, and Monsanto. If Russia wins the war, many investors may lose a lot of money. Hence the strong interest of many powerful speculators in the continuation of the war.
  The G-7 meeting in Apulia on 13 to 15 June was also a performance that would have inspired Pedro Calderón de la Barca to write a play. In any case, the sets were already in place. Borgo Egnazia is a luxury resort that investment banker Aldo Melpignano had remodelled to look like a real medieval Italian village from the outside. According to the advertising, the resort, with its golf courses and wellness areas, which is popular with Hollywood stars, conveys an “authentic Italian experience”.
  In this open-air theatre, Calderón, if he were born again, would perhaps have the visibly frail 82-year-old Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., known as Joe, play Strong August, the Elector of Saxony, a 120–kilo man who is said to have bent a horseshoe with his hands. At Borgo Egnazia, Joe Biden read from his page: “Putin cannot wait us out, he cannot divide us, and we will be with Ukraine until it prevails in this war”, Biden stated.

At the end of their rope

Two other actors also made powerful stage appearances, although it is also publicised that they are at the end of their tether in their political lives. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told us that Putin had failed if he thought he could rely on the West’s war-weariness. You could almost think the chancellor had been reading Dan Altman. Emmanuel Macron, who had already rehearsed the role of Strong August at home by proposing to send French ground troops to Ukraine, sounded a similarly pithy note. Both Scholz and Macron, as well as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, are currently suffering a rapidly declining losses of credibility.

A majority favours a ceasefire and negotiations

According to recent polls, an overwhelming majority of people in France, Germany, the UK and the US are in favour of a ceasefire and peace negotiations. Even the pensioner in West Virginia who has little interest in foreign policy and can no longer afford her medication might at some point come round to the idea that the multibillion-dollar packages that Washington is sending to a distant, unknown country called Ukraine would be of greater benefit to those in need at home.
  The NATO states therefore have a problem. Not in the military sphere, because Kiev is currently operating effectively (under the operational leadership of NATO experts) with attacks on Crimea and targets in Russia. But in the domestic political sphere, good advice is expensive, because the Western democracies need the approval of the voters if they want to continue this war. Even in the toughest authoritarian regimes, it is impossible to wage a war for a long time without popular support.

The mechanics of the bluff

Pedro Calderón probably didn’t know the word “bluff”, but the card players of ancient Spain certainly had a lot of expressions for deception and dissimulation. The deterrence theory of experts such as Dan Altman is based on the mechanism of the bluff. He constructs a logic that says the opponent will give up if you signal to him that you have the better cards. However, according to Altman’s diagnosis, this is currently not working because the West is not bluffing sufficiently. The Russians are not at all convinced by the cheap slogans in Brussels and Washington that they will support Ukraine “as long as it takes”. Only when the West immediately and actively invests more and more billions in an enormous rearmament will the bluff be effective enough to make Moscow realise that they mean business.
  The big mistake in this construct is ignoring the “human factor”, namely the premise that you can see into the minds of your enemies. They are as predictable as robots. Altman’s strategic recommendations could turn out to be advice for a march into the abyss. Of course, Dan Altman is not the voice of Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Affairs is not official Washington even if it reflects views that are prominent among America’s policy elites. Foreign Affairs has also featured voices criticising the failure to seize or torpedo opportunities for a ceasefire in 2022.
  The poker game that Altman recommends stems from the mentality of a group of hardliners in Washington. Throughout history, this mindset has repeatedly led governments to continue wars to the bitter end, even though it was long apparent that they could not be won. A clinging to the absurd, a policy that was directed against the interests of its own people. The US demonstrated how this works in Vietnam and Afghanistan for twenty years each.

The pathology of power

In his book ‘The Pathology of Power’ (W. W. Norton, 1987), science journalist and peace activist Norman Cousins says that he often met General Douglas McArthur, the commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Fleet during the Second World War. McArthur reported that he had not been consulted by his government when it dropped atomic bombs on Japanese cities in 1945. The general was convinced that the invention of nuclear weapons of mass destruction had made security policy and military deterrence, as we had known them before, impossible. War was no longer an option because it would inevitably lead to the destruction of both sides.
  “Polvo salgan de mi, pues polvo entraron”, says Calderón’s allegorical figure of the “world” towards the end of El Gran Teatro del Mundo, as all the actors hand in their costumes. And it sounds like an early admonition from the Spanish playwright: “They shall go from me as dust, as they came as dust.”  •

https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/archives/2024/nr-13-25-juni-2024/das-grosse-welttheater

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* Helmut Scheben was a press agency reporter and correspondent for print media in Mexico and Central America from 1980 to 1985. From 1986 he was editor of the weekly newspaper Wochenzeitung in Zurich, and from 1993 to 2012 he served as editor and reporter for Swiss television SRF, including 16 years on the news programme Tagesschau.