Common understandings of Trump implies an incompetent individual driven by his own rhetoric into delusion. Is he that bad? Certainly, we may not have seen the last of his incompetences, made worse by the robber-baron style of Trump and Elon Musk. Putin the evil gnome balancing on their shoulders?
Is this rule by oligarchs in the West?
The lunacies of the super-rich?
A species of logic that might bear fruit?
The end of democracy?
I wonder, if things heat up between Europe and America, will Trump, nightmare or dream, send American troops against European countries. If European armies defend Ukraine, what will Trump do?
Donald Trump is oligarch who is danger for democracy!
Non-Profits Demand Action as Trump Administration Ignores Ruling
Non-profits urge judge to force the Trump administration to comply with order to restore frozen foreign aid, arguing that the White House is unlawfully continuing to withhold funding despite the court’s ruling...
https://www.occrp.org/en/news/non-profits-demand-action-as-trump-administration-ignores-ruling
Stanley Wilkin "If European armies defend Ukraine, what will Trump do?"
Every US administrations in the last three decades had been complaining that European countries slashed their defense spending, while just in case wanting to call Americans for help and expecting them to pay the bill. My personal guess is that Europe growing some spine (and fangs) to keep order in its vicinity, would be deemed as a rather welcomed change in Washington. The only part that they seem not to anticipate and may annoy them is that Macron's "strategic autonomy" would also mean much more assertive EU.
"The end of democracy?" America (Vance to be specific) claims that's it's Europe (the UK included on top position so goes beyond the EU) having serious problems with keeping democratic standards like quite a few countries consistently pushing for online censorship or recent Romanian case of cancelling presidential election. Setting aside usual self-serving political rhetoric, those accusations do not appear baseless though they also raise a fundamental question how democracy is supposed to operate, as there seems to be a few competing models deeming the others as not fully democratic.
Ljubomir Jacić
So don't we have here effectively tax payer financed non-profits being against freezing tax payer money for non-profits? With respect to that decision, isn't he here primarily danger to their bottom line?
The consequences of Trump's decisions are not only destroying the West, but also the non-governmental sector (NGO) around the world!
Using Trump's criticism of USAID as a pretext, police in Serbia have raided several NGOs that received money from the US agency – which they condemned as overt pressure due to their work on protecting human rights...
https://balkaninsight.com/2025/02/25/serbian-police-raids-reputable-ngos-over-usaid-money/
Nathaniel,
A well reasoned effort, but one thing you did not mention: America at present is the result of globalisation, after all Trump is playing out his dramas to the world, and is aping foreign ideas dragging them into the US.
Marcin,
I take the view that European (or foreign) archetypal politics have entered USA, a result perhaps of globalisation.
More on Trump 2.0
"Meanwhile, Trump’s diplomacy has tipped even more heavily toward Russia. The administration is leveraging foreign aid and military intelligence to bully Ukraine’s government into surrendering territory without receiving any security guarantees. Trump has also vacillated between confrontational and conciliatory approaches toward China, as well as launching a systematic attack on America’s preparedness against natural disasters, global warming, future pandemics, cyberattacks, and crises that would demand the expertise and support of career bureaucrats and foreign alliances...
The second Trump administration’s tumultuous opening has finally awoken the world to the existential dangers posed by America’s imperial presidency. US allies have now been thoroughly schooled about the risks of relying too much on responsible bipartisan foreign-policy leadership – something that the US political system may no longer be able to provide.
Trump 2.0 is already guilty of startling lawlessness. The excesses still to come should finally push Americans to act as “Americans First,” and start pursuing the structural reforms needed to restore the checks and balances enshrined in the National Security Constitution."
https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/trump-100-days-of-lawlessness-what-to-do-about-it-by-harold-hongju-koh-2025-05
Ljubomir
I challenge your optimism on this as I think the differences within America are affected by Trump, and are real enough. Many still do frantically support Trump completely unable to see the threat to their own lives or are completely unable to understand the problems within their society, and of course they are a large part of the problems.
Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ plan has a major obstacle: Physics
The proposed missile defense system has many scientists expressing skepticism...
“Technology has advanced tremendously … But the laws of physics have not changed, and that’s really what the challenge is.”
The speed of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the size of the area to be protected, would make US President Donald Trump’s mooted ‘Golden Dome’ missile-defense system extremely difficult and expensive to achieve, say experts including space-security analyst Victoria Samson...
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/golden-dome-missile-defense-physics
Nathanial,
I thought your contribution was excellent but I need to add other understandings to yours.
While you have considered Trump's contribution I still think you mistake intention and lucidity in Trump's actins although Musk may wish to destroy Western societies for his own gains and self-perception as a genius. He sees the latter as giving him autonomous rights. But I cannot see much thought or thought processes in Trump. He appears to have no understanding, and truly believes tariffs are an answer, but to what?
Research into Trump concludes several sustainable evidences:
he was and is a crook as he continues to pillage American riches
he knew gangsters (Mafia) in New York and often loaned his properties for their use
He allowed KGB to use his properties and engaged with them and Putin when he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg
When an individual with little brain acts it can confuse until you accept there is little to no thinking going on
Elon Musk leaving Trump administration, capping turbulent tenure
"Elon Musk is leaving the Trump administration after leading a tumultuous efficiency drive, during which he upended several federal agencies but ultimately failed to deliver the generational savings he had sought.
His "off-boarding will begin tonight," a White House official told Reuters late Wednesday, confirming Musk's departure from government. Musk earlier on Wednesday took to his social media platform X to thank President Donald Trump as his time as a special government employee with the Department of Government Efficiency draws to an end...
While the precise circumstances of his exit were not immediately clear, he leaves a day after criticizing Trump's marquee tax bill, calling it too expensive and a measure that would undermine his work with the U.S. DOGE Service..."
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/elon-musk-leaving-trump-administration-white-house-official-confirms-2025-05-29/
Why US Democracy Is Failing – and How to Restore It
The image of a mega-rich, high-tech, unelected oligarch gloating at the side of an elected president confirms that America is in a second Gilded Age. The ultra-wealthy are now openly running the country, and millions of workers without a college degree have turned against liberal democracy.
Although democracy has been in retreat worldwide for at least a decade, Donald Trump’s re-election and chaotic first months back in the White House have put the United States squarely at the center of this global crisis. It may even mark a tipping point. The flood of analyses of this authoritarian turn in the US has been all too predictable, with many people blaming the Democratic Party because it lost touch with American workers...
Full text may be obtained here:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/why-us-democracy-has-fallen-into-oligarchy-and-how-to-restore-it-by-mordecai-kurz-2025-05?
Ljubomir
I cannot but agree but it is in fact an American change, or experience, and quick research of mine found a number of 19th century presidents who acted like Trump, and probably too had paymasters. Strangely, he's not new just new to Europeans.
I watched one of his 'people' talking to students in UK and he told the usual lies about Trump's successes so will the knowledge of Trump as a criminal get lost as that of Putin's has been lost to sympathizers in both West and East? He told how Trump had just stopped war between India and Pakistan!!!! The students catcalled him. There is an insult to others in their lies.
I will take this further after listening to two American intellectuals debating yesterday.
Central to these individuals, although they might deny it, is money and its relationship to the state. Making money is the chief purpose of the state and not the welfare of its citizenships. You make a huge amount of money then you take care of yourself, if you cannot do that then you are not fully engaging with American values. I heard a MAGA female politician declaiming on attacks on American/Trump's policy towards medicare and she said everyone dies, therefore medicare taken from the poor is a means of hastening their deaths not preserving that of those not rich like her. Another signal of course that MAGA has nothing to do with Christianity but white privileges.
US science is being wrecked, and its leadership is fighting the last war
Facing an extreme budget, the National Academies hosted an event that ignored it...
"That's the environment that the US's National Academies of Science found itself in yesterday while hosting the State of the Science event in Washington, DC. It was an obvious opportunity for the nation's leading scientific organization to warn the nation of the consequences of the path that the current administration has been traveling. Instead, the event largely ignored the present to worry about a future that may never exist...
The National Science Foundation, which funds much of the US's fundamental research, is also set for brutal cuts. Biology, engineering, and education will all be slashed by over 70 percent; computer science, math and physical science, and social and behavioral science will all see cuts of over 60 percent. International programs will take an 80 percent cut. The funding rate of grant proposals is expected to drop from 26 percent to just 7 percent, meaning the vast majority of grants submitted to the NSF will be a waste of time. The number of people involved in NSF-funded activities will drop from over 300,000 to just 90,000. Almost every program to broaden participation in science will be eliminated..."
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/06/us-science-is-being-wrecked-and-its-leadership-is-fighting-the-last-war/
America’s Weak Strongman
US President Donald Trump is strong in a relative sense: after he destroys institutions, what remains is his presence, surrounded by incompetent sycophants. But he is weak because, having destroyed so much state capacity, the United States has no actual tools to deal with the rest of the world...
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/only-americans-are-intimidated-by-trump-by-timothy-snyder-2025-06?
Students emerge as bargaining chip in China-US trade talks
Foreign students’ access to United States institutions emerged as a bargaining chip in trade talks this week, with China appearing to secure a softening of the US stance on Chinese students as part of a ‘framework deal’ ostensibly aimed at winding down crippling tariffs...
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250612172618362
Tourists are no longer going to America. Billions of dollars are missing.
Ljubomir
What would be the point if US universities are being degraded by Trump and Chinese universities are much better than before? Tourism has plummeted,
The cost of silence
"University presidents, faculty leaders and higher education associations must speak with urgency and clarity. This is not merely a policy disagreement; it is an existential threat to the global engagement that has defined American higher education since the Second World War. The costs of silence are too great. Higher education institutions cannot remain on the sidelines as political decisions dismantle the very structures that have allowed them to thrive. It is imperative that the sector mobilise – through legal challenges, coordinated advocacy and reaffirmation of core values – before the damage becomes irreversible. The United States became a global leader in research and innovation not by closing its doors but by opening them to the world’s brightest minds. The revocation of Chinese student and scholar visas not only contradicts that legacy – it endangers the future of US leadership in science, technology and higher education."
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250602131534123
Trump Is Creating a Post-Western World
Some might hope that Donald Trump’s alienation of US allies can be reversed under the next administration. Yet regardless of how his trade wars, territorial claims, and coercive tactics play out, the damage to the West as an idea and organizing principle of world order has already been done.
Soon after taking office in his first term, Donald Trump declared that, “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.” But the past few months have shown that the biggest threat to the Western-led world order is Trump himself...
https://www.project-syndicate.org/magazine/trump-foreign-policy-damage-to-west-opens-door-for-the-rest-by-amitav-acharya-2025-06
Ljubomir,
How much harm has he done let alone what he will do. The assertion that that is what MAGA want is interesting.
What if MAGA Has a Point About Science?
Distrust of science among the political right has been growing for at least two decades, setting the stage for the Trump administration’s actions to slash university research funding. Cosmologist Paul Sutter argues that making space for conservative views may be the only way to regain bipartisan support for science...
https://undark.org/2025/06/19/opinion-maga-science-divide/
Ljubomir
My work has poured extreme doubt on psychiatry and the drugs it employs, but these things have to be dealt with separately not within political positions.
where psychiatry is concerned its modern approach was begun by a doctor who prepared the ground for the Nazi party and psychiatry from the 1950s owes everything to the APA, which funded the DSM, and which are drug companies lap dogs.
Trump’s Nuclear Fool’s Gold
"By triggering an expensive and destabilizing strategic arms race, US President Donald Trump's proposed "Golden Dome" will not necessarily render America any safer from nuclear attack. As decades of maintaining relative peace through "mutual assured destruction" have shown, nuclear stability has a logic of its own.
Will US President Donald Trump’s vision of building an impregnable missile-defense system be the final nail in the coffin for strategic nuclear arms control? Given that his proposed “Golden Dome” could trigger an expensive and destabilizing strategic arms race, Trump’s dream could be the world’s nightmare..."
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-golden-dome-arms-race-and-other-risks-by-carl-bildt-2025-06
Troops are now patrolling Los Angeles. This is a disaster waiting to happen
"This was the moment that Donald Trump was waiting for. A Democratic city, Los Angeles. A Democratic state, California. His most popular issue, immigration. And protests where occasional violence could be spotlighted endlessly on social media. What better time to summon the troops and burnish the president’s tough-guy image.
But Trump should be careful what he wishes for. The spectacle of needlessly calling in 4,000 national guard troops and 700 Marines may be red meat for his Maga base, but for most everyone else it is a bright warning sign of Trump’s autocratic tendencies. Rather than quell the protests, he is provoking more, not only in LA but in at least two dozen cities across the US. Even if this is not yet the mass mobilization that such repression has sparked in other countries, it is making Trump’s true colors clear...
Aspirations aside, Trump has not yet managed to build an autocracy. It is important not to exaggerate, because that can demoralize the resistance and obscure how much difference it is making. But it is essential that we keep in mind not only the wrongfulness of Trump’s conduct in LA but also the broader plan of which it is a part.
The danger is not the protesters. The danger is Trump."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/12/los-angeles-national-guard-military
NIH still screens grants in process a judge ruled illegal
Directives by the Trump administration are still being applied to grant materials despite court order...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02024-9
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01914-2
The Gates Foundation’s Global Reach Expands, to Mixed Reviews
The U.S. has backed away from global health funding, leaving a vacuum of an estimated $10 billion or more. That makes the Gates Foundation — formerly known as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which served as a major player in global health since the 1990s — a de facto world funding leader...
https://undark.org/2025/07/02/gates-foundation-global-reach/
Prediction:
Trump will leave NATO, enter into agreements with Putin who will help Trump rig the next American election.
Perhaps only a rebellion will end Trump?
Trump’s Army?
Whereas historical fascists had an enemy without and an enemy within, Trump only has an enemy within. That is why, immediately after joining Israel’s attacks on Iran, he declared victory – and a cease-fire: The world is too much for him; the army is just for dominating Americans...
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-wants-us-army-to-be-palace-guard-by-timothy-snyder-2025-06
Turmoil at US science academy as Trump cuts force layoffs
Efforts by leaders of the US national academies to adjust to the new political reality have spurred member concerns about capitulation and censorship...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01939-7
Ljubomir,
While you are correct, having an enemy in is an essential step to having one without. The Tariffs were one way for Trump to create an enemy without, all previous allies in order to create partnerships with crooks like himself, Russia, etc.
also the enemy within were over decades created by MAGA, anyone more intelligent than themselves.
Markets and Their Discontents
Markets were once understood as the crucible of morality, not the site of depravity and dissolution, where souls get bought and sold, as the left still seems to think. To be sure, “the market” remains hallowed ground, but it has become contested terrain – which a new book helps us navigate.
In his most notorious (and most misinterpreted) polemic, On the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche suggested that if morality was a matter of thinking about what we owe each other, its origins were to be found at the moment when commercial transactions forced us to abstract from the differences between unlike things, and to assert equivalence where there was none. It was here that money – for Karl Marx the universal commodity – became the mechanism which enabled routine exchanges between strangers...
https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/end-of-capitalism-but-not-of-markets-by-james-livingston-2025-07
The “Trump Doctrine” Is Wishful Thinking
US Vice President J.D. Vance has tried to spin America’s strikes on Iran as an example of overwhelming US military power fixing problems that diplomacy couldn’t. But the United States has compiled a long record of such attempts since the end of the Cold War, and almost all of them failed.
J.D. Vance recently tried to cast President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure as a wildly successful example of the “Trump Doctrine.” According to Vance, the doctrine is simple: you identify a problem that threatens US interests, which “you try to aggressively diplomatically solve.” If diplomacy fails, “you use overwhelming military power to solve it and then you get the hell out of there before it ever becomes a protracted conflict.”
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-doctrine-delusional-us-strikes-will-not-achieve-political-objectives-by-melanie-w-sisson-2025-07
Trump is effectively attacking the Brazilian leadership with his new tariffs on them, ramping up the credentials on he previous president., thereby attempting to interfere internally in Brazil.
If Trump succeeds (he won't) he will build up a personal political force of crooked politicians like himself and may effectively run Brazil. The present Brazilian leader said he was acting like the -king of the world'.
But is this really that much different to other US leaders, even Obama, who have interfered with the internal politics of other nations? Now while many in the US disdain this kind of approach, there will or are many who consider this a very good thing indeed. Making America Great again?
With his suit against Murdoch, Trump signals: No one is safe
President Donald Trump has filed an unprecedented libel lawsuit from a sitting president against a longtime adviser and pivotal media ally...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/24/trump-murdoch-wall-street-journal-libel/
Europe learned to love American gas. This is how Trump wrecks it.
Backroom deals, embassy contacts and brown liquor built a booming export trade. Now, the lobbyist who saw it all says the U.S. president’s dalliances with Vladimir Putin are an incoming “asteroid” for the industry...
"Trump’s overall unreliability as a partner — his tariffs, his taste for bullying, his open disparagement of the EU — make Europeans wary of swapping reliance on one strongman for another.
Despite pressure from Trump, most EU buyers have refused to sign long-term contracts with U.S. companies, against a backdrop of declining gas demand on the continent and more supply coming online from alternative exporters like Norway and Qatar...
White House officials wanting to prioritize a peace deal, and officials on the National Energy Dominance Council — like Wright, the energy secretary, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum — who warn that a peace deal letting Russian gas into Europe would reverse recent U.S. LNG gains.
Some fear Trump’s penchant for spectacle and hyperbole will lead him to a peace deal with Russia that weakens Ukraine and undermines U.S. exports...
Oil and gas industry officials have begun warning the White House that normalizing relations with Russia would contradict Trump’s energy and economic agenda that centers on shipping more fossil fuels overseas. They cautioned that Moscow would almost certainly expect Washington to lift sanctions on its energy industry, allowing cheaper Russian LNG to undercut the U.S.
For instance, a Trump-brokered peace deal could involve lifting U.S. sanctions on Russian LNG...
Half a year on, Trump’s clashing foreign policy and energy agendas risk turning the picture into white noise."
https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-learned-to-love-american-lng-this-is-how-trump-wrecks-it/
https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=1920,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/01/298326_1536_rgb.jpg
Even in domestic thinking, Russia's reinvolvement with the greater world community needs careful thought, whatever the military and political effects. Of course Trump, who demonstrates zero awareness, driven perhaps by personal motives, will merely act if he is given the chance losing, at least, any moral leadership credentials US had. The Trump policy described above is little different to older American policies except for the speed of withdrawal and Trump's irresponsible boasting.
Unfortunately, Europe will bear the brunt of Russia's reintroduction to the world and will need to adjust to an entirely new situation where China and North Korea are new political and economic players in the region, close to not at a distance.
Trump will use his power to keep the billionaires that financed him in check. The great error is to believe that his tarrifs will not turn the people against him. Corruption and division on the basis of ecocide has no future!
Trump’s America Is a Tinderbox
By stoking fear and division and undermining every check on his power, President Donald Trump has brought the United States to the brink of major civil disorder. As democratic norms erode and polarization deepens, political violence could surge ahead of the 2026 midterms and reach crisis levels by 2028.
“Bomb threat! You need to exit – now,” a security officer shouted at me as I observed the Principles First conference, a gathering of moderate Republicans in Washington, on February 22. Moments later, we learned that the threat had come from an untraceable email claiming that four pipe bombs had been planted “to honor the J6 hostages recently released by Emperor Trump.”...
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-presidency-heightens-risk-of-political-violence-by-alex-hinton-2025-07?
As the weather agency struggles to maintain forecasting, some experts worry about relying on private companies instead...
In NOAA Cuts Fallout, Private Companies Fill Weather Data Gaps
After deep staffing cuts, the National Weather Service has been leaning on startups to supply atmospheric and oceanic data. Such partnerships aren’t new, but former officials worry the agency’s core data collection efforts — which are critical for public safety and an accurate climate record — could be replaced...
https://undark.org/2025/08/06/noaa-startups-data-gaps/
Ljubomir
We are witnessing the destruction of America. Or is it self/immolation.
interestingly the degree that religion stands behind most of this violence.
Predicting the collapse of the “West” is hyperbolic; however, populist policies that weaken multilateral institutions, strain alliances, and promote economic unilateralism can erode liberal international norms and cooperation — such trends increase risk and instability but do not deterministically “destroy” Western democracies, which remain resilient if institutions, civil society, and coalition partners push back.
Phil, the aspects you allude to form the present identity of the West so to create a new bundle seems difficult in the climate of Trump and Putin. Surely Trump is engaged in shifting that identity towards the dominance of the few, in which he places himself and his family?
Please Stanley - your charge was the West - not your (profound as in your OP) bias for Trump and his family and vague "power". Can elaborate - what power and what numbers the now/approaching few vs. pre Nov 2024.
A few of what I see to the point of US for US with external effort and investments based on enlightened self interest.
Force the effete EU to take primary role in their own defense.
Force economic competition that reduces impact of WW@ recovery concessions and protections.
Mitigate risk of rogue state - Iran.
Reduce role of extranational entities from UN's WHO and Paris to the 4th estate.
Address current and previous un-assimilating migration.
International negotiations - obviously of a very different tone and function.
Whatever your picture, Trump is unique in this role completely unlike his largely mediocre (or less as in Biden) predecessors. His vision, energy, multitasking and execution does raise concern for what seems (perhaps is) a wild man. who minimizes discussion, shuns consensus to exercise powers that they all owned.
Trump has until midterms. The voters can decide.
Phil, yes, I agree with your assessment of Europe and certainly Starmer in Britain. They still refuse to take the control they could.
Force economic competition, which has to be conducted worldwide but hardly evident in Trump's policies as these will no doubt undermine America over time. Wealth is not produced by a few, but must surely be produced by the population as a whole engaging locally. China broke through in the 80s by organising effective trading between the different internal states not through empowering the rich. Of course China is also an oligarchic state, Xi being as wealthy as Trump. How much money has Trump made for himself since becoming President?
The WW2 recovery concessions is one way of looking at it rather than the US setting up Western economies to benefit the US. This enabled the US to be the central economy taking advantage of the ruin of Europe especially the UK. At the time, this was perhaps sensible.
Rogue state? Iran and Trump's America? Trump is in a meeting with Putin, friend or blackmailer, making Putin, a crook as well, relevant again and ignoring Ukraine. And that will help? How much will Trump steal in the end? In the 1970s Iran was becoming very wealthy but a fanatical Islam took over and now Iran is an also ran, as in 20 years the US could too. Religion has that effect!
Is migration necessarily bad? Not sure there. White migration was useful in California and Texas, especially when oil was found in the latter. Migration appears to be increasing Portugal's wealth. The more people, wealth builders, in portugal increases money from the housing market and spending money from abroad.
International negotiations? between dictators?
Your concept of Trump is largely conceived by himself, and that alone is interesting. a failed businessmen who has convinced the stupidest people in the West that he is the reverse. If a brain is empty (there is no evidence he can read and his vocabulary is interesting or would be in a kindergarten). His energy and multitasking is performance base surely. The flow of emails throughout the night an attempt to convince the country of his uniqueness, a bad sell given how stupid most of them were. But they appealed to and convinced his MAGA audience-see above but intensify.
And how does his pedophilias fit into this? Quickly forgotten, even if actually true. I knew about it years ago. Will e get away with it? Sadly probably. The degree of stupidity amongst MAGA is extreme, apparently believing Trump is a prophet out to save America from cross dressing and transgender. Wow! Any hope? No. Only decline.
My concept of Trump is what I observe. By contrast Stanley, yours is sophomoric economics, political drivel with a large investment in ad hominem - all driven by profound bias.
Let's see, stupid, pedophilia (you knew?), prophet, theft, blackmail, dictators,
You really know nothing of America, MAGA, Trump or much else. But you know Stanley-think in depth.
Please just manage your school and minimize exposure to students. It is a shame such biased folks as you are able to intimidate students enforcing infecting such bias.
On Trump and BRICS
His rhetoric notwithstanding, US President Donald Trump is going easy on China and Russia, while pushing away Brazil, India, South Africa, and America’s fellow G7 members. Does he want to give the BRICS+ group of major emerging economies and others an even stronger reason to develop alternatives to the Western-dominated order?
Much about life under US President Donald Trump’s second administration is mystifying and strange, not least his treatment of the BRICS+ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, plus five newer entrants) and the risk the group poses to American power and influence. Judging by his words, Trump seems to want to stop the bloc of major emerging economies from challenging the US-led global-governance system. But judging by his actions, one could be forgiven for thinking that he wants to help it pursue its global ambitions...
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-trade-war-alienating-friends-and-going-easy-on-adversaries-by-jim-o-neill-2025-08
Violence As Policy in Trump’s America
Both Republicans and Democrats have been victims of violent attacks this year, but the murder of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk has once again highlighted the fundamental asymmetry of contemporary American politics. Unlike the Democrats and most Americans, many leaders on the right view their supporters' violence as legitimate...
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/right-wing-reaction-to-kirk-murder-stoke-more-violence-by-jan-werner-mueller-2025-09
Ljubomir,
Of course much of this comes from Trump, fanning the violence. But yes at this point Republicans express the natural violence of Americans indicated by its gun culture and its tendency to use the huge supply of weapons some citizens have. That is hard to change! The Wild West and all that!!!!
The implied violence behind much of what Trump says is not simply theatre, but what he wants to do.
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