Destroying America

 It is still early in the morning, but somewhere Donald Trump is undermining American power. I feel very certain about this.

Is this really where America wants to go, to Russia? How Trump is driving US towards Russia – a timeline of the president’s move (The Guardian). Putin is a failure, his country ruined by Ukraine. Just because Trump finds it easier to deal with Putin?

Reading Robert Kaplan's Trump Does Not Know How to Run an Empire (POLITICO) reinforces my worries.

The most long-lasting world powers and empires succeeded not by raw power but by various methods of persuasion: the more subtle the approach, the more longevity for the great power involved. And such persuasion involves a talented and well-functioning bureaucracy, exactly what Trump is seeking to destroy. Our bureaucratic elite is not like others around the world: its sense of seeing little differentiation between American self-interest and promoting human rights and democracy might be somewhat naïve and self-serving, but it is real and deeply felt. These bureaucrats know that without that sense of idealism, America’s foreign policy descends into a sterile, ruthless realpolitik: like China’s. And no empire or great power has lasted very long without a sense of mission. That’s why Trump’s policies toward the bureaucracy are in direct conflict with his goals abroad, even if he doesn’t know it.

Trump never ran a business like General Motors. His was a one-man shop - with him being the man. Nor did he run a business with any success, other than his New York real estate business. I knew a fellow from Queens who said to me that anyone with a billion dollars who couldn't make a profit in New York real estate was right and truly incompetent. All Trump did with his real estate business was to take the money and business he inherited from his father and move from Queens to Manhattan.

If he is trying to turn the federal bureaucracy into a man-shop, much makes sense. It is stupid, but it makes sense. That Trump has no core competence beyond being able to bullshit people; it will be ruinous for the country, I cringe whenever people call Hitler a genius. Another talker without any core competence beyond BS and a disregard for rules. Thing is, rules exist for dealing with reality. Never fight a winter war in Russia is such a rule.

Does  Trump find it easier to deal with Putin because they both are deluded about their skill set?

America cannot sustain itself with Trump's bullying. Theodore Roosevelt, one of America's premier imperialists, knew the limits of physical power: speak softly and carry a big stick. People may be slow to see the danger of Cujo - the family dog had never been seen as a danger, but as a protector - but friends and allies of Cujo will unite to end the danger of the rabid dog. I have always maintained that in politics that Newton's laws apply: for every action, there is a reaction. We did not win World War Two by ourselves. America has not had peace and prosperity without our friends and allies believing in us. Our power comes from not sending troops. Our power comes from money and ideals and ideas; those further than any bullet. 

Instead, Trump's best bud is doing this for us: 'Be quiet, small man’: Elon Musk's heated exchange with Polish minister over Starlink (The Times of India)

Read How the US Courts Rewrote the Rules of International Trade (The Nation), consider what has been the success of American power. Then look at Trump and ponder how much longer before we lose our prosperity and peace and empire.

In fact, the refreshing thing about Potts’s book is that she makes no bones about it: Imperialism is clearly what we are dealing with here. But it is a different type of imperialism, one where exogenous judicial authority increasingly stands in for military or executive authority. Her book is a call to treat the United States as an imperial power precisely (although not exclusively) because of this extension across international space of US legal authority and, correspondingly, of the interests of US capital. Potts writes of the latter-day American empire evincing a “judicial modality”—of foreign sovereign nations and their peoples being subordinated to America by law rather than by colonial occupation or military force.

Germany's Merz wants European nuclear weapons to boost US shield 

'Nobody will trust a US treaty again,' and the yen is new safe haven  (Fortune)

That makes Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping the big winners, as they see confirmation of their views that democratic powers are on the decline, Roche explained.

“The big loser is actually the US, because nobody will trust a US treaty again,” he added, noting that a lot of so-called Global South countries will fall into China’s orbit as a result.

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China and Russia have led the de-dollarization movement to reduce their reliance on the dollar in international trade transactions and central bank reserves. 

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