The presidency of Donald Trump signifies a major success for the Democratic Party and the American system of liberal democracy overall. This statement might infuriate Democrats and Republicans alike since it appears to be counterintuitive on the surface. Upon deeper inspection however it becomes apparent why this is likely to be the first reaction that many will have when being confronted with such an assumption: The ruling class has a vested interest in maintaining an illusion that propagates the exact opposite view in order to secure its position. They want to make us believe that Trump posed an existential threat to the American democracy. The Republican party and its populist appendix, the Make America Great Again movement, seek to spread the narrative that Trump was in fact a serious challenger to the corrupt Washington establishment.
The ugly truth of the matter, however, is that both camps have been playing for the same team all along. They are merely varying flavours in the endless layer cake that is the United States Government and its cryptocratic support network. The neo-reactionary author Mencius Moldbug describes this phenomenon in an “Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives” and argues that rogue politicians usually make up an Outer Party which exists in a symbiotic relationship with the establishment’s Inner Party. Its role is to create a situation of threat that reinvigorates the ruling elite once it has grown weak and apathetic after a few years of official governance. Trump fulfilled this function for the Democrats after they had become dormant during the Obama administration. In 2016 they had left their guard down after dominating the American political scene for 8 years consecutively. This neglect and arrogance enabled the rise of Donald Trump, who caused a temporary Overton Window shift which shocked the splintered and infighting left-wing establishment. Their comeback, however, could have not been more calculated and determined in its execution.
The concept of controlled opposition fulfils a crucial function here, as it ensures the continual existence of the system: It masquerades minor changes in appearances to the same structure as genuine political change, which acts as a pressure release valve for portions of the population that would usually be irrevocably hostile to the status quo. These people would otherwise pose a serious threat to the smooth operation of the system and therefore need to be pacified effectively.
This process can be likened to the swing of a pendulum: As long as its string is attached to a central point, the application of force can project the ball at the end onto an infinite number of trajectories, however, all are contained within a predetermined radius. One would have to apply enough excessive force to break the pendulum, to change its basic structure. This metaphor accurately describes the setup of the American system, which is uniquely suited to prevent the overapplication of force to its societal pendulum. The core mechanic of this security measure are elections, which serve as conflict simulators. Their purpose is to facilitate a ritualistic, but largely symbolic transition of power every four to eight years. The entire process is highly glamourized by organisations which control mass communications - mostly private news and social media corporations. This inflates the perceived relevancy of the election cycle drastically in the public mind. Realistically speaking, the president of the United States is a role that impacts foreign affairs more than anything else. Average American citizens would barely notice the transition of administrations in their everyday lives if one would remove the media spectacle from the equation. Trumps years in office did not prove to be an exception to the rule – if one can ignore the relentless media circus that wants to convince the masses otherwise.
Despite this, right-wing individuals across the US and elsewhere have supported Trump during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. Both were marked by a distinct focus on the mantra “America First”. Simply put, this two-word sentence implies the preservation of American values above anything else. But what does that mean exactly? As Moldbug put it, American values – in essence – boil down to progressive secularism.
This worldview is so deeply ingrained into the fabric of the American system, that it is even represented by its founding document: The Constitution of the United States. At least since the beginning of the 20th century, this supreme law of the nation has been interpreted under the principle of “loose constructionism”, meaning that it is being read to suit contemporary American society, not the other way round. Moldbug points out that this concept of the so-called “Living Constitution” is only ever applied to reinterpret the document with an increasingly progressive bias. The resulting political acceleration towards the left is therefore only natural within the framework of US institutions. The MAGA movement claims to oppose this development, but their simultaneous support for the presidency, the judicial system and yes - even the Constitution stand in clear opposition to this ambition.
On top of that, Trump fulfilled a critical role in the preservation of this progressive status quo: He served as a common enemy that moulded the splintered left-wing factions into a united front.
The American media created a narrative around Trump’s supposed dictatorial ambitions to stir the Democrat base into a rage fuelled frenzy that would win them the election by any means possible. Moldbug described this strategy accurately by explaining that “Devotees of the Inner Party and the Cathedral (i.e. the Democrats, and their institutional support network in form of the mainstream media, the Ivy League intelligentsia and the blue bureaucracy) are deeply convinced that the Outer Party is about to fall on them and destroy them in a new fascist upheaval.” This occurs even though their side is continually winning through cultural and institutional subversion in the long run, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.
In our example, the political weaponization started immediately after Trumps inauguration in January 2017 but reached its peak effect during the second campaign season: Trump’s many failing became apparent during the year 2020, as it presented him with multiple opportunities to crush the opposition in unprecedent situations of national emergency.
The first impeachment proved to be an early indication of future reactions to these key situations. He let the Democrats get away unpunished with the Russiagate hoax, which ultimately turned out to be a smear campaign cooked up by the Obama administration and the FBI to derail the first Trump campaign. This was followed by immense political profiteering during the COVID-19 crisis, which the Democrats abused to enforce lockdowns and subsequently crash the American economy and job market, sending millions of citizens into temporary unemployment. These lockdowns were systematically applied, especially to Red-voting areas in Democrat-run districts. This accelerated the economic decline of the nation, after it had been propped up for decades by an outrageously bloating deficit – a process that was not reversed but in fact worsened during Trump’s years in office.
Make no mistake: The perceived state of the American nation in the public mind is the main indicator for election outcomes: A crippled nation is usually a safe call for an opposition victory.
It was therefore absolutely in the interest of the Democrat party to sabotage the overall health of the economy, despite the many signs that their supposedly “inevitable public health measures” were ineffective at stopping the spread of the actual disease - it was all about the election. The lockdowns proved to be invaluable campaign tactics in the Democrat arsenal as they started to trigger major social unrest all across the country by late May. The George Floyd incident – an event that should have remained a minor footnote in history - was suddenly hyped up by the media to be indicative for an increasingly corrupt justice system under President Trump. Never mind the fact that Minneapolis, the city in which this supposed case of “institutional racism” occurred, had been run by Democrats for more than four decades by this point. Black Lives Matter is merely a tool of the Cathedral, deployed every four years to systematically shame the white population into supporting the progressive cause.
The establishment knows that race riots can be exploited to smear the incumbent president, while simultaneously activating all relevant political allies – no matter who bears the actual responsibility for the chaos.
The ensuing wave of outrage across all mainstream media outlets, left wing political groups, educational institutions and Wall Street corporations created an unprecedented degree of social control that the Democrats exerted over the American public. Silicon Valley social media platforms immediately seized the occasion to justify the complete censorship of anyone who was remotely opposed to the schemes of the party. Individuals with sympathies for right wing causes were purged, dispelling the ability to campaign effectively over the internet, which was one of the key strengths of the MAGA movement in 2016. In the meanwhile, Trump was quote “monitoring the situation”, which demonstrated a lack of determination, while his opposition was implementing revolutionary tactics to stay in control of the election narrative.
In August 2020, the Democrats were already working on the next phase of their plan, by uniting behind the demented puppet that is Joe Biden. He serves them as a presentable façade in order to turn the unelectable Kamala Harris into America’s next president. A critical element here was the continuation of the COVID measures, which by that point had already become obsolete. These were sold to the population to popularize mail-in-ballots as an indispensable social distancing tool. Truth is that they have been the target of fraudsters for many decades, which was confirmed recently by a Democratic whistleblower in the New York Post. Despite these grave security concerns, changes to the electoral law of many state legislatures were made to remove restrictions on this voting method. This, however, was only one aspect of what the Time magazine described as “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election”. This brazen article bragged openly about the leftist conspiracy to manipulate the election in the favour of the Democrats.
Unashamedly it claims that once the mainstream media called the race for Joe Biden after the election, “jubilation broke out (…) as people (…) [celebrated] the democratic process that resulted in Trump’s ouster.” It then states that before this occurred, left-wing activists and business titans, formed an “informal alliance” to “keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy” - by openly rigging the election. During and after election night, Trump could have chosen this from a range of potential casus belli – transgressions committed by the Democratic party and their goons throughout the year that would have given him every right to declare an all-out war on the Cathedral and end the megalomaniac scheming of the liberal elites once and for all. Instead he opted for doing absolutely nothing. Trump’s original promise of “draining the swamp” turned out to be a naïve attempt at stirring the muddy waters, awakening the terrible beast underneath. This is indicative of his failure to facilitate change by breaking the thoroughly corrupt American system.
Beyond the grand rhetoric - which was required to mobilize the reactionary part of the American populace – Trump harboured no serious intent to reverse the course of this troubled nation.
In the meanwhile, the MAGA movement was paralyzed by Trump’s inertia and calls to wait for the implementation of a vacuous scheme that never came to fruition because it never existed in the first place. If you still “trust the plan” – think again. The QAnon conspiracy was possibly one of the most successful psychological operations conceived so far, as it encouraged inactivity and patience in a time that required iron will, determined drive and courage. By the time the night of the election rolled around, it was already y too late – the fight had been capitulated in maddening silence. While the left was prepared to burn down the entire nation if the results would have deviated from their expectations, right wingers sat in their homes waiting for a Rubicon-crossing moment initiated by their leader. Trumps complete unwillingness to support any serious move toward this direction in the past 4 years should have provided enough evidence that this would in fact never be the case.
History has shown again and again that true revolutionaries never wait to implement their real ambitions once they capture power. The preposterous media campaign to brand Trump a 21st century Mussolini who was plotting a fascist overthrow of the American system achieved its intended effect: Frenzied liberals were already prepared for conflict, while revolutionary desires were now starting to grow in the MAGA camp. If Trump would have had the guts to seriously challenge the outcome of the election by late November, his opponents would have staged a violent coup d'état. This would have provided ample justification for the application of dramatic force under the pretence of “protecting the nation”. This scenario is the only one in which we could have witnessed the utter destruction of the progressive institutions which ensure the perpetual leftward drift of the American societal pendulum. This, of course, would have also destroyed the pendulum itself since the American system was always designed with progressive ideals at its core.
The presupposition of the political right-wing since the French Revolution has always been the existence of a desire to react against the advancement of degenerative societal conditions by reversing to a previous civilizational state. Therefore, an authentic right-wing movement needs to be reactionary in nature, otherwise it runs the risk of being subverted by leftist operatives. Trumps ultimate failure consisted in his historically proven progressive inclinations, which prevented him from seeking real and fundamental changes to the American system. Clearly, this was in misalignment with the reactionary values of his followers. His ability to engage this audience regardless by making radical statements without any intent to act upon them created the circumstances that led to the Capitol Hill incident earlier this year. Dedicated MAGA supporters were baited into preparing for a dramatic shift of events initialized by their leader. Trump’s indecisiveness during the months after the election paired with unjustified claims about an imminent coup created a state of heightened anticipation.
The consequential escalation of events on the 6th of January was the culmination of this process: The impotent storming of the Capitol completed the propagandistic narrative-arc spun by the mainstream media throughout the course of the Trump presidency. This comparatively harmless moment will be exploited by the progressive establishment for years to come to assume moral superiority in every future conflict. According to Moldbug, this is the worst possible outcome since the mere impression of attempted violence alerts the Cathedral to the highest degree. This decentralized institutional network is the true governing megastructure of the West and the main perpetuator of progressivism in the world. The Cathedral already controls all the resources necessary to destroy any centrally organised political enemy it sets its sights on. Of course, neither Trump, nor the MAGA movement ever posed a real threat to this behemoth and after everything was set and done, it emerged stronger than ever before.
Ultimately, it was Trump’s participation in not one, but two elections that served as a justification for this exact status quo. The polarization of the public into conflicting groups that both firmly support the core institutions that make up the United States have ultimately fortified the American societal pendulum. The immense public interest in the 2020 election was an indication for this newly gained Antifragility of the Cathedral. The mere fact that Trump held office for four years without fundamentally changing the institutions of the United States excludes him as true opposition to the structure overall.
At last, the 2020 election signified the largest American voter turnout since the year 1900. The more people participate in this system by voting, the more legitimacy does it gain, meaning that America’s so-called democracy is well and alive - not despite of - but because of Donald Trump. Welcome to Reality.
Considering that nearly every right-wing movement in the last century or so has failed in the long run, it is time that we start to rethink our approach.
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