Pot plants shiver in the garden

 As pointed out countless times, most of Trump's actions, even the most brutal, have solid American ancestry:

The threat of official violence is constant. Only now, the menace is extending beyond black and brown residents, to anyone who dares to decry or document the administration’s overreach. In short, the protective factor of white privilege is collapsing in the face of Trump’s fascism.

(https://contrarian.substack.com/p/trumps-comply-or-die-policing-isnt?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true)

What is new is not the 'what', but the 'to whom':   The recent deaths (Jan. 2026) in Minnesota have made clear to many who think of themselves as insiders, to whom the protection of American law applies more or less as written, that their president considers them outsiders and so without this protection.  Officially tolerated - if not more more than tolerated - killing of various especially ethnic minorities is a very traditional part of American public life, but the Trump government has the same tolerance for the killing of white Americans who do no more than politically oppose them.  Now it seems that the penny has dropped for many ordinary white Americans.

By contrast, very rich Americans seem as yet unconcerned. But how long before a corrupt and grasping administration, once it has established the right to treat previously insider groups as outsiders if it wishes, decides to shake some of the ultra-wealthy down seriously?

Caesar and Thucydides explain the new U.S. foreign policy

 Apparently Trump is concerned that Canada will not be able to defend itself from invasion by China or Russia, and wants to protect it from these misfortunes by invading it himself, much as Caesar invaded Gaul to protect the Gauls from invasion by the Helvetii.

With Greenland,  American language is more straightforwardly 'we want it'; as the Athenians tell the Melians:

'For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences...  in return we hope that you..., will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must'

(Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 5.89)

Ancient Rome broke all its allies, and the modern one wants to do the same.

  Trump's proposed tariffs on European countries that dare to oppose his intended annexation of Greenland are shocking from the perspective of two years ago, yet not even surprising looked at in the light of Roman history.  I mean he has not demanded hostages, nor even threatened to sack major European cities, both of which were par for the course in the late Roman republic.

  Despite this restraint, the tariffs mark the collapse of British  policy since the Second World War, this policy being to cling to the U.S.'s coat tails at all costs, and then try to paper over the abject dependence with the phrase 'special relationship'.  But the open marketing of the tariff as coercive, the casual manner in which it was announced and the UK included shows the relationship is not very special to the US, whatever the UK may think.

  This is acutely embarrassing for various British politicians, particularly all those who have toadied to Trump.  So far none seems to be defending him.  For the Prime Minister in an already weak position the loss of prestige, and even more the economic difficulties this could cause, may be disastrous.

  Will it then lead to a widespread reassessment of the country's position and course?  I doubt it.  For too many wealthy and well connected people in the UK (as in the US and elsewhere) the break up of the old American order is too catastrophic to face. The old world suited them well, better than any likely new one and therefore they will try to prop up this order, and prevent any other from being born.

The electorate may be conservative but the oligarchy is not.

 The life conservatism of the electorate is incompatible with:

1.  the greed of the oligarchy

2.  the ambition of bureaucrats, in particular of the state bureaucracy 

3.  (a long way behind) the dreams of millenialists both secular and religious.

 Hence the ongoing erosion and finally destruction of democracy.

The Annals of Modern Rome

 "So corrupted indeed and debased was that age by sycophancy that not only the foremost citizens who were forced to save their grandeur by servility, but every ex-consul, most of the ex-prætors and a host of inferior senators would rise in eager rivalry to propose shameful and preposterous motions. Tradition says that Tiberius as often as he left the Senate-House used to exclaim in Greek, “How ready these men are to be slaves.”

(Tacitus, from The Annals - but where?) 

We note:

1,  One Republican Representative from North Carolina has proposed a bill in the House to rename Washington DC's Dulles airport  after Trump.

2.  Another from Florida has proposed  a bill to add Trump to the U.S. presidents  commemorated on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

 3.  Another allegedly has proposed making Trump's birthday a public holiday. 

This for a convicted fraudster and civilly adjudicated sexual assailant.

4.  Mark Zuckerberg, not a Congressman but a top-notch oligarch listened (again allegedly) to a rendition of the U.S national anthem sung by pardoned insurrectionists from the 6th January 2021 attempt to overthrow the result of the 2020 election, with his hand on his heart (of course).  Maybe he was crying as well.

All this in a country that knows neither King nor any Lord save God.

 

Democracy is the child of mass warfare; prolonged peace leads to oligarchy.

Democracy is the child of mass warfare; prolonged peace leads to oligarchy.

 (Thoughts originally prompted by an article on Crooked Timber today, 30/01/2025, about the death of NATO and the post-WWII order generally).

The American aim after the fall of the Soviet Union was to force ruling classes the world over to cooperate,using American rules, on American terms and under American leadership.  In return, these ruling classes could make money and for the most part keep it - the Americans would refrain from shaking them down too much.  Of course, they would do it a bit, but not too much; other people could make and keep money even in the U.S.  The perhaps not unwelcome consequence of this was a general shift towards oligarchy.

Why so? Because the official public sphere was, to bourgeois eyes, contaminated by popular involvement.  As much as possible was therefore removed from it, and hidden behind a veil of technical jargon or outright secrecy.   Of course pressures in this direction had existed before, but now the balancing elite fear of the Soviet Union was gone increasingly confident elites elites could gut democracy a point where its name becomes an object of derision.

It turns out though that the rulers of China and Russia never accepted the American deal, and want to end it.  In the case of China this was always blindingly obvious except apparently to American policy makers in the 1990s and early 20-noughties. In the case of Russia, a much weaker country, I find it more surprising, possibly because I know nothing about Russia.  Thinking about the self-deceptions the UK spins to persuade itself it still sits at the top table, maybe I should not be surprised.  Russia no more than Britain had a purging 1945.  For whatever reason both Russia and China now challenge the US, with the challenge offered by China apparently now worrying American elites.  It is possible therefore that these will once more feel the need to woo their common people and maybe this will be enough to halt, at least for a while, the slide to oligarchy.

Renouncing the Ring

 I find it increasingly difficult to believe that Trump will renounce power when his presidential term ends in January 2028, despite the perfectly legal manner of his election:

1.  Biden not only broke his pre-election pledge to be a one-term president but did so in the face of  private polls , taken not much more that a year before the election, showing that Trump would beat him in a landslide.  Nine months later, in the face of disastrous public polling, panicking Democrats tried and failed to persuade him to stand down.  Finally, the deft Nancy Pelosi found the magic formula (maybe a warning that Trump after beating him would want to take revenge for his legal difficulties on Biden's son?).  Biden did stand aside, but he obviously found it almost impossible to do so.  Trump is not given to controlling his baser instincts.

2.  Trump's cabinet appointments, and especially Matt Gaetz as Attorney General.  If this is not a loyalty test for Republican U.S. Senators [update 30/01/2025 which they refused to pass], it is surely an attempt to turn the DOJ into Trump's personal tool, for persecuting people who have crossed him since he lost the presidency no doubt, but when the time comes to find reason why Trump can remain in office.  Also maybe to create a potential MAGA leader in opposition to Vice President Vance.

Then also his track record last time and perhaps fear of what his opponents would do if he stood down.

 

Further update of 30/01/2025 - the sweeping pardon for the 6th Jan Capitol Hill rioters makes it even harder for me to believe that Trump will meekly leave he White House in 2029.  He has the same problem Caesar did - only political office can keep him out of the courts.