Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

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lawtig02 said:
So how do we best conceptualize the unprecedented things that are happening right now? A lot of smart commentators are calling it a coup. That may be right, but it doesn't seem sellable to me right now, especially with the military not (yet) involved. I've been thinking about it and here's my suggestion.

Trump 2.0 is two separate but coordinated movements operating in parallel. On one track, the anarchists, led by Elon Musk, are acting like an extremely aggressive vulture capital firm. They're taking a valuable but troubled "company" (the federal government) and stripping it down to its component parts. Anything they see as valuable is being appropriated and manipulated for their own benefit. Everything they see as lacking value is being tossed over the side. As anyone familiar with the industry knows, the end result is never a stronger "company." It's a massive shift of wealth to the vulture capitalists, and a shell of a company that can no longer operate functionally. That's exactly where we're headed if Elon continues to have his way.

On the second track, the Christian nationalists, led by Miller, Thiel, Vance, Johnson and many others, are working to implement what they see as conservative "culture" by returning us to something like the 1950s, when (in their view) women were mainly intended for breeding and black and brown Americans knew their place. And while the domestic features of the 1950s have received most of the attention, we can't forget that era was also defined by the onset of the Cold War, thus giving us foreign enemies to unite against. This is why we're seeing Trump 2.0 picking illogical and meritless fights with foreign countries, despite all the isolationist language in the campaign. I don't know if Trump will ever invade anyone. But I'm positive he wants us to have lots of enemies, and Trump is far more comfortable being antagonistic to our democratic friends than to our authoritarian (actual) enemies.

So far, Trump 2.0 is moving quickly along both of these tracks. That may continue for a little while. I have a feeling, though, that the dynamic is not sustainable in the long term. What happens when the trade wars start causing real economic harm to the tech oligarchs? What happens when Elon's desiccation of the military results in a massive embarrassment abroad, or when he starts talking about slashing Medicare and Social Security (which is absolutely, 100% coming)? There are a whole lot of ways these two tracks could intersect in irreconcilable ways, and given the egos involved, I doubt it will be long at all before that happens.

In the meantime, though, the destruction this plan is wreaking is enormous. It's amazing to see how quickly this 250-year old institution can be torn apart. Maybe the best analogy of all is the Romans destroying the Second Temple in a matter of days in 70 CE. The lesson from then, which applies equally now, is that it's far easier to tear down a monolith than it is to build it.
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It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue but to me its a possibly unconstitutional consolidation of executive power.

A coup would be some individual or group seizing power from the lawful leader. And Trump is the lawful leader. Calling it a coup doesn't sell and sounds like hysterics.
 
From reporting this morning, we shouldn't be surprised if Trump cancels the tariffs sometime this afternoon. If so, he'll declare it as a massive win even if nothing really changes, just like Colombia. It's government by terrorism. I can't imagine why anyone abroad would ever believe a word that comes out of his mouth.
 
Thiel and Vance are in the anarchists' camp.

The coup officially happens when the next peaceful transition of power is abrogated. Maybe that happens in 2028, but the populace may not give a shit by then...
 
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Paine said:
Anarchist probably isn’t a good word to describe a group of people that are attempting to further fuse state and corporate power to achieve their reactionary political goals. The traditional word used to describe this is: fascist.
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I think this is inaccurate at least according to none other than Benito Mussolini: “The Fascist State directs and controls the entrepreneurs, whether it be in our fisheries or in our heavy industry in the Val d'Aosta. There the State actually owns the mines and carries on transport, for the railways are state property. So are many of the factories… We term it state intervention… If anything fails to work properly, the State intervenes.”

In other words, the state gives businesses wide latitude until the businesses mess up and then the state takes over. In any case, the state is supreme over the business interests.

The technical term of corporations over the state is a corporatocracy. You really rarely see that at a national level. Some examples might be things like the British East India company or the Hudson Bay company. Some folks might call Saudi Arabia a corporatocracy. Disney world is a bit of a corporatocracy at least at the local level.
 
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Paine said:
Anarchist probably isn’t a good word to describe a group of people that are attempting to further fuse state and corporate power to achieve their reactionary political goals. The traditional word used to describe this is: fascist.
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I don't think Musk has real political goals. He just wants to drain the blood out of every living thing for his personal benefit. I see that as a form of anarchism, but reasonable minds could disagree.
 
Paine said:
That’s fair. Ultimately, fascist is a term that has a very specific historical context that doesn’t really fit well to our current circumstances. The other piece being fascism generally requires a strong labor movement in opposition in order to frame its program.

I just think it’s the closest thing we have to a working term for Musk, Thiel, etc.
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The closest I can get is authoritarianism, with fascist tendencies.
 
Paine said:
Anarchist probably isn’t a good word to describe a group of people that are attempting to further fuse state and corporate power to achieve their reactionary political goals. The traditional word used to describe this is: fascist.
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You're right, but I think also you know what was meant. Maybe "chaos monkey" would be a better term.
 
Paine said:
Is that from Thiel’s theory work? I’ll admit I can’t bring myself to read the stuff he puts out. Seems similar to the dribble that Yarvin espouses. IIRC, he is a big influence on Thiel.

ETA: just saw your edit re: Yarvin.
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Yarvin is a fucking moron, but he definitely calls for techno-feudalism with a CEO king and the right of exit for his subjects.
 
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