Tuesday, August 12, 2025

It's imminent

President Trump’s flagrant moves to create an American nomenklatura, after the model perfected by Stalin, of cowed, obedient appointees in all positions of influence in the government - military, economic, educational and cultural - is creating outrage in those noticing it. As argued in the previous post, “Cooperating with the enemy,” a frequent counter to such outrage is to distract the public with war, a strategy often entailing covert negotiations with the “enemy.” Here are four current threats to our ambitious executive branch which may move it to seek such assistance from abroad:

1. Trump is playing the whole world in his mediation between Russia and Ukraine. While he pretends to scold both sides, we get hints that Russia will end up keeping Donetsk, in the Donbas region - formerly Ukrainian territory along the Russian border - an area rich in rare earth minerals necessary for the internet age. After Russia gets Donetsk and possibly other areas of the Donbas, it will likely do business with the US, in fulfillment of a pre-arranged deal that will disturb enough observers to require distraction.

2. Trump's base is having doubts about him because he's hiding the Epstein files, making him appear a protector of child molesters, a career breaking perception (at least it has been). At some point it will require significant distraction.

3. Trump’s policies are destroying many of his former supporters’ livelihoods. The government shutdown, largely blamed on Trump, and his erratic tariffs, are causing millions of people to suffer, and the reaction is evident in the anti-Republican results of the recent midterm election. A terrorist attack could come in handy now.

4. Trump's recent "peace deal" between Israel and Hamas contains no substance beyond the recent hostage release. It is designed to fail, as the parties are aware, as they are aware of highly distracting and useful trouble to come.

Trump is not the only leader who has been in need of distraction. The situation is reminiscent of the lead-ups to the first two world wars, in which leaders surreptitiously sought conflict to escape from the mounting pressures of peace.


Here's a breakdown:

World War I: On June 28, 1914, just before the war broke out, a Serbian partisan, who was opposed to the Austro-Hungarian Empire's domination of Serbia, assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the Empire's throne. In a harsh ultimatum to Serbia, the Empire issued demands that, according to many historians, were so extreme they appeared designed to produce the intense Serbian response that, through multi-national alliances on both sides, triggered major war throughout Europe. Leaders took advantage of their populations' misguided belief that war would free them from their frustrated and futile seeming lives (see Aldous Huxley's 1928 novel, Point Counter Point).

World War II: In 1940, before the U.S. entered the war against Japan, Admiral James O. Richardson, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, warned President Roosevelt that mooring the fleet at Pearl Harbor would place it threateningly close to Japan, that it would be highly vulnerable to surprise aerial torpedo and bombing attack, and that Hawaii was too far from mainland U.S. to be adequately supplied. The fleet was deployed at Pearl Harbor anyway, because upper management needed major violence to cover its lack of better ideas.

It should be noted that, while the first two world wars sought realignment of power and silencing of popular discontent, the next world war's purpose will be to replace traditional human culture and physiology with a bioengineered and AI managed new type of "human." Thus, while the manipulative strategies that have tricked people into war will be largely the same for World War III, the goals will be different. At least after the last two world wars we were still human.

Cooperating with the enemy (updated again)

We criticize with impunity the Trump administration's assault on the free speech of late-night comics who ridicule him, or business ex...