THE AMERICAN ELECTION AND ITS DISCONTENTS

Iconic image of America's weakness

by Colin Liddell

America is often called the "most powerful nation in the world." Sorry, but that's simply bullshit. It's only more powerful in the same way that a cow is more powerful than a man. Make a cow angry and it can trample you to death. Handle it correctly, and you can milk it for years and then turn it into hamburger meat. That's America.

The USA, the one country that emerged strongest from WWII, was the only country that couldn't invite itself to that conflagration. If Japan and then Germany hadn't declared war on the US, then it would probably have had to sit on its hands while the Axis powers continued to carve out their empires.

Another point of American weakness is its so-called "Deep State." Compared to countries that have actual Deep States, like Russia and China, the American Deep State is a shallow puddle. It can't even take out "problematic figures" like Trump or Musk. Meanwhile its rivals, China and Russia can "disappear" millions or arrange plane crashes, poisonings, and defenestrations for anyone, no matter how important. (Also, honourable mention to Israel, which combines an element of democracy with some of the same Deep State ruthlessness we see elsewhere.)

This Western weakness has always been there, while anyone who has tried to counter it, has been vilified and driven into the outer darkness. Remember Senator Joe McCarthy, anyone?

He tried to warn us

This is where we come to the US election. While some see this as an opportunity to refresh the "democratic mandate" and the real basis of America's supposedly "meritocratic" power, that is not how it is seen overseas, where it is viewed more as a kind of holiday from "lame-duck" American influence.

That is certainly how Bibi Netanyahu has been viewing it by going into Gaza, the West Bank, and the Lebanon both feet first.

Also, and increasingly, it is an opportunity for election interference. 

Just a few facts:

• Trump has the backing of Russia. 
• Musk is also on board.
• RFK was a spoiler candidate for the Dems but pulled out and swung behind Trump when he started to appeal to some of the same "crazy" that was fuelling Trump. 
• Jill Stein is now the official Kremlin spoiler candidate for the Dems.
  

Also, the whole thing is working, at least according to the betting markets and the polls in the all-important swing states. 

I might still be wrong, but it looks like Trump is probably going to romp home this time. But even if he somehow fails, the US will be led by an extremely weak leader in Kamala Harris. It's a classic case of "heads I win, tails you lose."

Ameri-bros are quite understandably focused on the trivia of "muh economy" and "muh culture wars," in both of which Trump seems to have a clear advantage (from a normal human being point of view).

But for me, this election is all about the geopolitics and how the political weakness of democratic states -- with their shallow deep states, and their inability to bump off opponents, deal with their own fifth columns, fight dirty wars, or even lie consistently -- stacks up against the anti-democratic states that can do all these unholy things as much as they want. 

Fake news: there is no symmetry between the Deep 

States of democratic and anti-democratic states

A Kamala Harris Presidency would be a vote for the faltering American geopolitical status quo, while a Trump Presidency, far from "Making America Great Again" would see a superpower retreat into isolationism, or at least strengthen those tendencies. 

This is not to criticise or praise such a move, only to mention that there is a certain logic to America's global ebbing. Even at its strongest, it was always the most unimperial of empires that broke down in tears and engaged in naval gazing every time it lost a few thousand men.  

Astroturfed hippy scum fifth columnists freely tolerated

Of course, Trump could refute expectations and even drive a temporary resurgence of American Deep State and "imperial" power, but the likelihood is we'll see less aid for Ukraine, Israel allowed to take a free hand in the Middle East, and even a hollowing out of America's position in the Western Pacific, with the Western admission that Taiwan is part of China becoming less an article of "strategic ambiguity" and more a statement of fact.

In short, we'll see less of a "rules based international system" and more of a geopolitical free-for-all, where states that are ready to spill the blood of their own people and their enemies are optimised for success.

Nations and blocs that are not already like this, will face increasingly pressures to become like this. Meanwhile nations that are not privileged by geography, history, or access to natural resources will need to push all the harder to overcome such setbacks. 

This may prompt the European Union to stand much more on its own feet politically and militarily, and to even grow some geopolitical balls, asserting Europe's traditional hegemony over Africa. It will also increase the pressure on the United Kingdom to rejoin Europe, as the alternative -- being an unneeded US aircraft carrier -- is hardly conducive to self-respect. 

While there is an obvious solution for a Europe faced by the ebbing of a US-backed global system, the case is less clear cut for a nation like Japan, still a densely populated massive economic powerhouse crammed into a relatively small space. Without the taken-for-granted "umbrella" of American nuclear power, Japan will be forced not only to go nuclear itself, but to change its culture into that of a country that can credibly use nuclear weapons. It will have to turn its "samurai spirit" from an outdated tourist attraction into a military reality.

As China and North Korea are reactionary products of aggression by an earlier Japanese state, the future Japanese state will become a reactionary product of the threat posed by the neighbours it helped create. 

Recruitment poster: Is Japan about to weaponise its incels?

In addition to the geopolitical card-shuffling and horse-trading that will follow the death of American-backed globalism, there will also be severe economic consequences. Trade, manufacturing, and raw materials will be looked upon through a lens of geopolitical leverage, rather than in purely profit and consumer-benefit models. The global network of importing from the cheapest producer will increasingly be replaced by a more regional based one.

All this would be on the cards even without Trump.

In the same way that the British Empire dissolved away because it lacked a true ideology to maintain it, so American globalism will fade and die in a similar way.

The British Empire died when the democratic preference for cheap imports trumped the Imperial Preference system that aimed to use tariffs to knit the empire (loosely) together.

The US Empire is dying because the democratic preference for tax cuts and "muh freedoms" trumps the blood and treasure costs of maintaining an effective global system. Only undemocratic states are capable of developing ideologies that can trump the democratic will, and they will be the ones that will pick up the pieces. 

It's in the bag!

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Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. As there is absolutely zero reward for honest content like this, support his work by buying his book here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia). or by taking out a paid subscription on his Substack.