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Antonia Baur's avatar

I am so glad you are on Substack.

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Ed Bouhl's avatar

MAGA didn’t elect a President. They purchased a weapon of mass destruction to use on their enemies. And they are using it with glee. Unfortunately they are horrifying the rest of the world, chasing off scientists and experts, and kicking the legs out from under the dollar’s dominance. Their ‘purified’ nation will be a much less important one. It will be much safer to watch this from a distance.

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Jan Steinman's avatar

I emigrated to Canada in 2006 because I saw something like this coming.

Apparently, Canada is too close. I should have chosen Greenland, or Panama.

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Barely_Free's avatar

So you went to a socialistic country to escape the last bastion of classic liberalism. You are of one of the lost.

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Jan Steinman's avatar

You don't get out much, do you?

Enjoy driving on your "socialistic" roads. Hope you don't need the "socialistic" police or fire department. But perhaps for a few more months, your kids can go to "socialistic" schools. And it's good to know that, unlike that prominent socialist Ayn Rand, you'll be turning down "Social" Security.

Typical "WE'RE #1!" Merkin attitude. Yea, in teen-aged abortions.

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David Lentz's avatar

The USA economy is 50 percent government at all levels

Half way to communism

Or is that fascism

Actually not much difference from Canada but they have universal healthcare USA has universal homelessness

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AT's avatar

You are correct. That's why I voted for Trump.

I don't expect him to fix the financial problems of the US. What I hope is for him to purge the invaders and restore some semblance of manufacturing self sufficiency before the free money runs out. I believe the end game will be hyperinflation, but regardless of the exact form I can't think of anything worse than living through it surrounded by millions of free-loading foreigners and a severe shortage of physical goods.

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Joe Gill's avatar

Surely Trump's revolution is a counter revolution. In your version of revolution, you have lumped Trump in with Robespierre and Lenin, but this is a weak fit. Hitler and Mussolini are much better fits - revolution and counter revolution need to be distinguished. One can say that Hitler was 'revolutionary' but this empties the word of its meaning. Trump is part of the elite, but his section of the elite does not like the liberal democratic facade and consensus that has governed the US since at least the FDR era. This is a white supremacist and cultural conservative revolution.

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Barely_Free's avatar

I love it when people like to compare Trump to Hitler and White Supremacy which just proves one is too consumed with TDS or fully embraces the fake narrative which the MSM feeds them and is not skilled in critical thinking that can sift through all the FUD. Trump is fighting against the system of elitism and progressive dogma that has infected and distorted many peoples reality. He is not white supremist in the least he just doesn’t support the anti-whiteness agenda of the left, the racist POC narrative, and the very dangerous and anti meritocracy of DEI. It’s going back to common sense policies like enforcing the border and holding criminals accountable. Only a progressive elitist or oligarch is against such measures.

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Martin's avatar

I would agree that someone like Vance represents a cultural conservative counterrevolution; but I'm not at all sure how much that would apply to Trump. He doesn't strike me as particulary conservative (or any other ideology for that matter). Moreover, I don't see any evidence that this is a white supremacist counterrevolution. I have no idea about Musk or Bannon (I personally find those Roman salutes disturbing); but I'm pretty confident Vance and Trump are not white supremacists and I haven't seen any white supremacist legislation or even executive orders.

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Elg's avatar

It's more zionist than white supremacist.

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Martin's avatar

Well, I don't comment on Palestine, as I don't have enough knowledge and it's difficult to get that knowledge as I haven't found a single source I trust to be unbiased (one way or the other) on the topic. At any rate, I don't think Zionism is a major part of their platform (even if it arguably guides their policy regarding Israel and Palestine).

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Elg's avatar

I haven't seen anyone disputing the internal US events, just the framing (pro-terrorism rather than anti-genocide, etc).

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-takes-forceful-and-unprecedented-steps-to-combat-anti-semitism/

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Martin's avatar

As I said above, I don't feel I have enough knowledge to take a position on the situation in Israel and Palestine or to make a moral judgement about the administration's framing. I don't even have a position on whether what is happening in Gaza is genocide or not.

That's not because I don't care about the people of Gaza or haven't bothered to look into it but because both sides are pumping out so much propaganda that I can't get to the bottom of it. To be clear, I'm just noting the obvious fact that both sides are engaged in a propaganda war in the western media and on western social media and this does not mean that I'm taking a position on whether both sides are as bad as each other or one side is to blame.

What I will repeat, though, is that it really doesn't seem to be Zionism that is the driving force of this administration. The driving force seems to be reindustrialisation and reshoring of sectors key to defence and the geopolitical confrontation with China IMHO. Everything else comes second.

They also talk a good game about helping workers and the middle class, which IMO is what got them elected. In the case of Vance, I think that's sincere. I have my doubts about the sincerity of Trump and Bessent in that regard.

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Jan Steinman's avatar

Just compare the death rate between the two.

Whenever you think you don't have enough information to support one or another, look at who has the power and money.

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Simon Pearce's avatar

Agree that it does not matter what’s going on in the mind of the leader for the onset of revolution.

That said. I do think the pathologies of the leader do to a certain extent reveal the pathologies of the system that selected for him. Your analysis shows how revolutionary pressures are to a certain extent inevitable over deep time.

However, the specific course and nature of each new revolution is at some point unique and idiosyncratic. Even if we accept that revolutions are never proletarian and always counter-elite (which seems plausible) the nature and goals of the counter-elite vary from one revolution to the next.

Therefore counter-elite dynamics including leader dynamics surely have some relevance in a cycle that is at its core defined by intra-elite struggle.

I looked at this in more detail in my piece today.

https://open.substack.com/pub/theliminallens/p/the-entropic-presidency?r=dvftt&utm_medium=ios

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Peter Turchin's avatar

Yes, exits from crises are hugely variable, at least partly, as a result of leaders personalities and choices. We are currently collecting data on leaders and movements during the revolutionary/civil war periods, to test some theories about what leads to a successful exit. Stay tuned.

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Grape Soda's avatar

Both the French and Russian revolutions were unsuccessful exits imo. Perhaps revolutions aren’t called revolutions when they succeed… cue that quote about treason.

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Peter Turchin's avatar

They were successful in the sense that they destroyed the previous ruling class and demolished the social order that it built.

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Simon Pearce's avatar

Exactly Peter, and this also explains the popularity of the apocryphal quote attributed to Mao about the French Revolution “It’s too early to tell”. (It was actually Zhou Enlai talking about the 1968 student uprisings, but hey ho). Was the French Revolution “successful”? It gave us a violent and disruptive Napoleonic regime that exported aspects of revolutionary thinking around the world; then again this regime probably contributed to long-term global development via the Code Napoleon etc. Lots of strands to weave here in assessing “success”.

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Ernst Zahrava's avatar

So, successful or not? It seems to me that both points "It gave us a violent and disruptive Napoleonic regime that exported aspects of revolutionary thinking around the world; then again this regime probably contributed to long-term global development via the Code Napoleon etc." do not contradict each other, rather they support each other.

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Simon Pearce's avatar

Yes. Let’s not forget that revolutionary France exported violence because the crowned heads of Europe attacked en masse. The Napoleonic empire was a product of this process.

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Simon Pearce's avatar

Excellent! Excited to see it. There are undoubtedly structural forces at play in revolutionary leader selection and outcomes but sample sizes get very small when we start talking about different “flavors” of revolutionary entrance and exit. I will read with interest.

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Vladimir Dinets's avatar

The best and only explanation for everything Trump does, down to minute details, is that he is a Russian asset, recruited by the KGB back in the 1980s. This is not some fringe conspiracy theory, it is a well-known fact with more than enough evidence. Just look up the changes to the party platform he demanded after winning the 2016 Republican primary. Putin has enough dirt on him to fill the Grand Canyon; some of it has been known since the Steele Dossier and some I happen to know from my sources, but nobody has the whole picture. Steve Witkoff is reportedly shown some bits every time he visits Moscow.

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Barely_Free's avatar

Where is your conspiratorial evidence? You must have loved the Steele dossier and believe it’s real. Seems like Trump is doing everything to make America stronger and great but somehow this is a goal of Putin, please explain?

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Vladimir Dinets's avatar

:-)))

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Yuri Sytenkov's avatar

As powerful as he is, trump is by far not alone. Was Lenin helped by German money and train car - no, was this the decisive factor - also no

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Vladimir Dinets's avatar

I have a strong impression that he forms his cabinet entirely from a list of Russian assets. Also, why do you think German money didn't help Lenin? Certainly didn't hurt...

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Yuri Sytenkov's avatar

The faction of incompetent ignoramuses in Trump cabinet is far greater than potential Russian assets imo

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Vladimir Dinets's avatar

I very much doubt it. Also, everybody assumes them to be simply idiots, but with recent stories about DOGE installing Russian spyware in US govt. databases and Hegseth moving military plans to unprotected storage it no longer looks like the most likely explanation. Remember how everybody thought Trump was just an idiot, and then he gave Putin the entire C.I.A. agent network.

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Yuri Sytenkov's avatar

I am still thinking about this. Probability of Trump being Russian

assent is certainly a double-digit percentage. And even if he isn’t, real asset would not be doing things much different

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Yuri Sytenkov's avatar

Some more tidbits. Hegseth must be either complete idiot, following precise malicious orders blindly, or just be a foreign (ie Russian) asset

You’ve been given free access to this article from The Economist as a gift. You can open the link five times within seven days. After that it will expire.

Pete Hegseth is purging both weapons and generals

https://economist.com/united-states/2025/05/06/pete-hegseth-is-purging-both-weapons-and-generals?giftId=dd55abae-f2c5-4f3a-974d-9fe05678edd8&utm_campaign=gifted_article

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Obadiah's Odyssey's avatar

Do you have any evidence I could look at for this?

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Vladimir Dinets's avatar

There's plenty in open sources. Here's a good place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier

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Peter Turchin's avatar

In short: → The Steele Dossier was garbage. → The FBI knew it was garbage but used it anyway. → The media presented it as fact because it fit their narrative.

Longer response:

https://substack.com/@peterturchin/note/c-112608120

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Vladimir Dinets's avatar

That's a weird way to conduct research. In reality, the only part of the dossier that was later disproven was Cohen's trip to Prague, and Cohen later said himself in his book that the main story about Trump-Russia collusion in 2016 was accurate. “Trump had colluded with the Russians, but not in the sophisticated ways imagined by his detractors. I also knew that the Mueller investigation was not a witch-hunt,” Cohen wrote. “Trump had cheated in the election, with Russian connivance.” And it was Cohen himself who managed the whole operation.

As for the golden shower story, my sources claim that it's by far the most innocent part of the video library that Russia has from Trump's numerous stays in Soviet and later Russian hotels.

Trump's team put a huge effort into discrediting the dossier, but without any discrediting evidence.

If you'd like to seriously dive into this, start with the book American Kompromat by Craig Unger. It is not anywhere near comprehensive, though. For example, by now there are multiple testimonies by former KGB personnel about Trump's recruitment in 1987. Trump's business connections with Russia are so extensive that he'd probably have twice as many bankruptcies by now if it wasn't for constant Russian help (see, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_projects_of_Donald_Trump_in_Russia). And so on, ad infinitum.

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jbnn's avatar

A bit more than a trip to Praque...

The Rise and Fall of the ‘Steele Dossier’

A case study in mass hysteria and media credulity.

Aaron Maté

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-russiagate-steele-dossier/

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Vladimir Dinets's avatar

Actually, it's still only the trip to Prague. Pretty much everything else in that article has nothing to do with the veracity of the dossier, it's all about its reception. Which in my view was totally adequate, considering the extreme risk of having an enemy-controlled president in a presidential republic.

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Jukka Aakula's avatar

People explicitly supporting Pax Americana (say transatlantism in Europe) may be less than 10%. But how many people have opinions on such issues?

I think there are more beneficiaries of Pax Americana than the 1-10% in the following sense:

Free market globalism has been beneficial for countries like Bangladesh, especially compared to an "alliance" of kleptocracies (Russia, USA, and China) in the new economic order. Which people benefit from the new type of global economy of mercantilism and colonialism, except some dictators of the third world?

Pax Americana is certainly much better than the multi-polar neoimperialism of Russia and USA for countries like Ukraine, Poland, Finland, and the Baltic countries. Which people benefit from the multi-polar neocolonialism?

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EKO's avatar

Where does a critic like Noam Chomsky fit in? A different (and unsuccessful) counter-elite?

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Simon Pearce's avatar

Chomsky was always very careful to not be a true revolutionary. He always understood how destructive revolutions are and was hoping for a kind of “up-leveling” of humanity. Unfortunately (IMO) his epistemology was flawed and this was clear in his work in linguistic philosophy which had -Neoplatonist tones. He always strenuously denied any link between his linguistic philosophy and his politics because he knew the philosophy revealed too much about his deeper operating frameworks.

I studied both and the links were revealing even if he denied them.

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Grape Soda's avatar

The Bernie Sanders of philosophy. Much sound and fury…

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Simon Pearce's avatar

Yes. I tend to agree. I met him a few times. Nice man. Well meaning.

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Michael A Alexander's avatar

It sounds like you perceive we have moved from the Crisis phase of the secular cycle to the Depression phase (or as I call it, the Resolution phase) of the cycle. I agree. It did not occur to me that what Trump is doing is a revolution. I have thought of it in terms of Skowronek's political time model. But this model has a reconstructive president establishing a new political dispensation after winning a critical election. The first critical election was in 1800, which Jefferson called the Revolution of 1800. If we see the periodic critical elections (1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, 1932, 1980) as "political revolutions," to use Bernie Sanders' term, then that is definitely what Trump and Co. are trying to achieve.

Now one might see Trump as trying to establish an authoritarian state, I would see this as more if a coup than a revolution, in that the structure and mechanics of the government would continue on.

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Peter Turchin's avatar

No, we are solidly in the Crisis part, and will be here for years to come.

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Graham R. Knotsea's avatar

Leftists believe they are gonna smash leftist tyranny with communism. You cannot reason with these people.

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David Lentz's avatar

Trump has made no truly fundamental changes

Has he ended the federal reserve?

Ended banks?

The west is ruled by bankers

They are the puppet masters

So so far it’s just theatre

Reality TV

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Peter Mott's avatar

Ages of Discord end when the causes of them are removed.

I particularly liked the resolution of elite overproduction in medieval France (1150-1450) via the battles of Nicopolis (1396) and Agincourt (1415).

But the general crisis of the 21st century is shaping up to be comparable with its namesake in c17 of which Jack Goldstone wrote many years ago. God knows what will happen.

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Yury Makedonov's avatar

@Peter, what is a final state of this revolution?

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Ernst Zahrava's avatar

The significance of what Trump is doing lies in the fact that this is a clash between the Old World and the New on a global scale. Those who benefited from the Old World are not just part of the "golden billion" — they exist across all regions of the globe. They are members of the elite in almost every country.

That’s why Trump’s rebellion — or revolution, if you prefer — affects the interests of many powerful groups worldwide. His struggle is not merely an American one; it is part of a much broader, global conflict.

To make matters more complex, some of the “counter-elites” don’t necessarily want to destroy the existing system. They simply want to quietly take control of it. But that, as always, is how power struggles tend to unfold.

I like your post

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Barely_Free's avatar

Just as I expected. You have nothing.

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Elg's avatar

You seem to be mixing up your revolutions? The February Revolution had many nobles involved; the October Revolution abolished nobility and persecuted them. It's absurd to insist that a billionaire aquaintance of presidents, a middle class guy kicked out of university for protesting the government, and a peasant bookworm are all equally elites / counter-elites.

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Elg's avatar

The more I read, the more baffled I am that you're even comparing them. Trump is at most the mismanagement of government before the revolutions.

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Joe Gill's avatar

at the structural level its main targets are migrants and DEI and antizionists. de facto that makes it white supremacy. they dont need pointy hats

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