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February 4, 2017

Trumpism And The Reforging Of An Imperial America

What Trumpism is then, cannot quite be boxed as just nationalism and populism.
Perhaps in any other country it would be, but America remains exceptional, for American “nationalism” is inherently imperial. Trump is not some caudillo wresting control of a province of the international state system and thumbing his nose at the great powers until he is dragged from the palace and shot by partisans. The nerve center of the world’s most powerful civilizational bloc was just taken over. For lack of a better term, this is a big deal. And it is a big deal that the person at the helm knows it is a big deal. He knows something is rotten and that his job is not merely to maintain it and dispense spoils, but to steward it. The seriousness and deliberation with which Trump approaches the concept of restoration and the crucial task of diagnosing and repairing threats to the United States underscores a truly imperial mindset.
This is much less an ideology about pulling power levers to benefit factions and more an embrace of sovereignty over a unitary whole. Unlike the previous president, his agenda is not weaponized multiculturalism, but one of looking after both the ethnic foundation and the empire’s smaller subject peoples. This is someone who conceived of the gravity of his task all along while his seeming effortlessness was mistaken for naiveté. Trump’s proposed governing paradigms for the country are in essence extensions of how he has already ruled over his dynasty and its holdings. The people are to be looked after and their patrimony to be the envy of the world. The paterfamilias is the root of all statecraft and its most stable form.- - Social Matter

Posted by gerardvanderleun at February 4, 2017 5:16 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

You're witnessing poison reacting to an antidote.

It writhes in pain, it gesticulates in agony, it's verbosity underscores it's resistance to change emphasized by it's constant wails and violent lashings.

The poison is virus like in that it can never be vanquished but simply harnessed and confined.

It is part of the human nature and laziness or intentional negligence by the host causes it's escalated growth.

Words on parchment can provide direction but the virus of the mind can only be contained by blood, bone, and steel.

Posted by: ghostsniper at February 5, 2017 7:27 AM

"America remains exceptional, for American "nationalism" is inherently imperial."

What utter fucking drivel.

It is the antithesis of what this deluded fuck-witted brain dead piece of neocon filth squitters.

Posted by: Bill Jones at February 5, 2017 2:44 PM

Why not characterize Trump's moves situation by situation, their intensity and relationships to other actions? Essentially, look for a mosaic of OODA loops, and give the emerging pattern a provisional label like "Trumpism."
That could be called thinking out of the pox of previous perversions of thorough thinking.

Posted by: Howard Nelson at February 5, 2017 5:31 PM

I shudder to think what Trump would tweet about those last two comments. Ever notice how his use of English, ergo his thinking lacks obscure terms and cutesy stuff?

Posted by: BillH at February 6, 2017 7:09 AM

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