I remember reading an article about Gorbachev many years ago by the German poet and essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger. He pointed out that the hardest military manoeuvre to perform safely is retreat. Once your opponent knows they’ve got you on the run, they capitalise on your weakness and seek to maximise their gains from it. Gorbachev knew he had to retreat a bit; the USSR was over-extended, under-invested, and couldn’t keep up in the arms race with the USA. But rather than a tactical retreat (like Blücher’s after the Battle of Ligny, which made possible the later victory at Waterloo), Gorbachev’s retreat became a rout.
I liked Gorbachev. He came across as a man with his feet firmly on the ground. He knew how difficult a task it would be to implement reforms and of course there were many who were ready and willing to stop him.
You touched briefly on a point that I think needs expanding. I don't think the money power that controls both parties really fear Trump. The theatrics, both political and as played out in the media are just that.
What they really fear is his supporters. For the first time in a long while in the West, the white MAGA movement is rediscovering his racial identity, realising it is in mortal danger and beginning to think in such terms collectively.
This, given 20th century history is what the money power is most afraid of.
I am sensing this elsewhere, outside of maga. It is not necessarily real. But I am sensing a real fear of this particular group saying hold up, hang on a minute, something ain't right...
That is everyone's fear. They've all seen the photos of Dresden and Fallujah.
I think the US already had another revolution, a secret one, a quiet one where the Oligarchs took the reins of power. For many years, there was a façade of the Republic, a puppet show to quiet the masses and make them think that the ideals of 1776 still were exanct. But they weren't and hadn't been for long years before Trump.
Trump was not 'of the body', he wasn't a professional politician. Worse, he was an idealist. An American idealist. A capitalist idealist. Trump's election caused the puppets to tear the façade apart trying to keep 'the tumor' as you rightfully call it, in the driver's seat.
And the tumor won.
I don't know if Trump is a reformer or a revolutionary but I hope he's a surgeon above all.
The tumor metaphor is so perfect, one of Morgoth’s specialties. As a payer of American taxes ( we pay less than you but get nothing for it), I would love to see this tumor sliced off. Thirty years ago when driving toward Washington DC, we live about 120 miles north, you would begin seeing huge, gorgeous, buildings with the Logos of various lobbies 30 miles from town. Hundreds of them. It has increased dramatically since. These are tumors on the back of government, NGO’s, etc. and they are the real, unelected government, the face of the US in every foreign country. If clumsy attempts at reform don’t kill them, surely the host must die.
I agree, the tumour analogy is perfect and, as we know, simply removing a tumour is rarely a cure unless the conditions that caused it have been addressed.
Excellent essay, Morgoth. Thanks. I particularly like the 'tumour' analogy. However, I don't think Donald Trump can win. He may well get the votes but what matters is the people who count the votes. Besides, the US ruling class will pull every trick in the book (and even invent some new ones) to block his path back to the White House.
This will lead to their having to confront an even worse nemesis but that's a few years off yet.
So I'm not the only one who sees parallels between the late Soviet Union and GAE! I'll admit, this analysis is much more detailed than my basic intuition. However, I'd like to add another point in common: the Soviet Union still seemed mighty even in the last decade of its political life; the same should hold true for GAE if I'm reckoning correctly.
Morgoth may be right, perhaps Trump's reforms will cause the system to unravel, yet he's still got my vote in November. I think GAE hegemony will have to end sooner or later because it's unsustainable, and I'd rather it be a Soviet-style quiet collapse than a bloodbath.
It's now trope, but "there are no solutions, only choices that have costs associated with them." I read this article (until the last paragraphs) thinking 'how does one reform a pile of shit?' You nailed it then, Morgoth. The cost to do so with America is so large, I don't think it can be comprehended. Still, I think the cost to begin again is ultimately less than to enter into the liberalist technocracy we are charging into. I, for one, have accepted that one can't come out clean after being in a pile of shit.
Who here actually admires what Gorbachev was trying to achieve? I admired the man for many reasons. He knew the USSR had failed miserably. As an airman in the RAF during the 1970s and chaperoning the service school kids on the Berlin corridor train the Russian soldiers at the checkpoints would hand over caps and badges for a pack of Woodbines'. It was an eyeopener for me personally being indoctrinated with propaganda about the Soviet Army crossing over the Rhine in less than a week should they decide to invade the West.
I used to listen to Radio Moscow in the 1980s. Before Gorbachev, they’d always insist that the USSR was paradise. They wouldn’t even admit it had natural disasters like storms, earthquakes and meteors. Listeners would send in questions, e.g. Usman from Pakistan asks, “What is the rate of inflation in the USSR?”. The answer was always of the form, “Well, as amazing as it may seem, since October 1917 there has been NO inflation in the USSR!”.
Then Gorbachev came in, and suddenly they were telling everyone how bad everything was. It was a 180º turnaround.
That's exactly what Trump has been doing. Growing up in the early 2000's everyone in my country thought the world of America. We all wanted to go there and we all thought it was perfect. It never occured to anyone that there was anything wrong with it. Trump took many in the third world by suprise when he broke the american myth, and just told everyone how the system had not been working for decades. It was a strange feeling for many.
Every year I used to attend GDT courses and every year instructors would re-enforce the narrative that the USSR was an overwhelming force and that we as part of the NATO alliance could only delay the inevitable advance should they decide to invade. And then we would watch the news on how they couldn't get bread into the shops. That Berlin corridor run opened my eyes for sure and you know, they were just young lads like us. Only conscripted. I got to know a Sqd Ldr pilot years later and he would recall how his squadron would intercept Bears over the North Sea and how they would exchange greetings with Soviet aircrew.
After the collapse of the USSR, some revealing documents were released about Soviet plans during the Cold War. To begin with, they saw Poland as the key buffer state between Russia and Germany, which they felt they had to control. But they gradually realised that, if there was ever a hot war with the West, the Polish population would immediately rise up to sabotage their military supply routes. Soon the Red Army would wind up fighting not just NATO, but a full Polish uprising. So they made alternative plans to re-route around Poland, which is pretty cumbersome and inefficient. They also made plans to use only Soviet troops in vital positions. They decided they couldn’t trust the loyalty of other Warsaw Pact troops.
All of this confirms my view that, after 1945, the USSR had no serious desire to invade western Europe. Their eastern empire was there to keep the west at arm’s length. It was never the first instalment of some plan for planetary conquest.
As a funny side to this story. I asked him what it was like going through the sound barrier in his Lightning Interceptor? Nothing to it Richard but I could have something to say about nearly running out of fuel!
Great piece. I think drawing a parallel between Gorbachev and Trump for their respective systems is an accurate observation. However, I am not sure whether "Trumpean reforms" in America would lead to an increase in white identitarianism. To the contrary, I would posit that any such increase so far has been the backlash against massive woke identity politics from the left. Some people have hypothesised that these in turn were dialed up in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the emergence movements focused on economics like Occupy Wall Street in a kind of divide-and-conquer strategy. The underlying problem weakening America much faster than the "normal rate of decay" in an empire (as to be expected from a Spenglerian perspective) would then be policies that only benefit a small class to the detriment of not only everybody else, but of the vitality of the system as a whole. Massive outsourcing and the resultant rise of geopolitic rivals, the opioid crisis, the financialization of the economy - all these things can (only?) be explained by the wealthy class overplaying its hand in disregarding what the system can survive in terms of draining its energy. The recent comments by e.g. Jamie Dimon in Davos appear to acknowledge this.
The comparison is very apt and enlightening. Especially how without knowing, the centerist reformer would bring about a right wing recursion. And that's why the system hates them.
I have always held a dim view of the USA. Historically, I only see what happens there happens to us here a few years down the line. Most of the time., the working man doesn't benefit.
I can't evolve my vision or foresight any further than the fact the best two people the World's leading superpower can put up for president are an elderly man in serious cognitive decline and a pussy grabbing honey monster that failed most tests first time around.
I don't see anything drastic happening in the USA over the next 4 years other than the volume being turned down on the current psychotic state that afflicts it. The controlling machinery behind the curtain may not be firing on all cylinders, but it is not going to completely breakdown any time soon. There is too much at stake and too much to lose.
Reformer's are the deadly poison masquerading as medicine. Revolutionaries are adrenaline spikes that prevent death to the system.
I wonder if these are the only two solutions? Remember how we are constantly told that there are only ever two sides to a story? Well what about the truth? Far too often, the truth is held for ransom or buried in a shallow grave.
Palestine (and Middle East) were Christian, 200 years before Rome, they had Popes, bishops, Churches, Monasteries, Abbeys, while Rome they were still feeding Christians to the lions. Saint Georges became a Roman soldier. When Romans crossed (Syria-Palestine) to massacre Christians Georges bravely defended.
He was caught died the most cruel and savage death.
Interesting...Trump is no Gorbie. Trump is trying to restore something that was lost. Gorbie was a true reformer, trying to save Communism by reinventing it, not renewing it. But point taken: neither system (in their relative stages) may be able to withstand reform or renewal.
Palestine (and Middle East) were Christian, 200 years before Rome, they had Popes, bishops, Churches, Monasteries, Abbeys, while Rome they were still feeding Christians to the lions. Saint Georges became a Roman soldier. When Romans crossed (Syria-Palestine) to massacre Christians Georges bravely defended.
He was caught died the most cruel and savage death.
I remember reading an article about Gorbachev many years ago by the German poet and essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger. He pointed out that the hardest military manoeuvre to perform safely is retreat. Once your opponent knows they’ve got you on the run, they capitalise on your weakness and seek to maximise their gains from it. Gorbachev knew he had to retreat a bit; the USSR was over-extended, under-invested, and couldn’t keep up in the arms race with the USA. But rather than a tactical retreat (like Blücher’s after the Battle of Ligny, which made possible the later victory at Waterloo), Gorbachev’s retreat became a rout.
I liked Gorbachev. He came across as a man with his feet firmly on the ground. He knew how difficult a task it would be to implement reforms and of course there were many who were ready and willing to stop him.
You touched briefly on a point that I think needs expanding. I don't think the money power that controls both parties really fear Trump. The theatrics, both political and as played out in the media are just that.
What they really fear is his supporters. For the first time in a long while in the West, the white MAGA movement is rediscovering his racial identity, realising it is in mortal danger and beginning to think in such terms collectively.
This, given 20th century history is what the money power is most afraid of.
I am sensing this elsewhere, outside of maga. It is not necessarily real. But I am sensing a real fear of this particular group saying hold up, hang on a minute, something ain't right...
That is everyone's fear. They've all seen the photos of Dresden and Fallujah.
I think the US already had another revolution, a secret one, a quiet one where the Oligarchs took the reins of power. For many years, there was a façade of the Republic, a puppet show to quiet the masses and make them think that the ideals of 1776 still were exanct. But they weren't and hadn't been for long years before Trump.
Trump was not 'of the body', he wasn't a professional politician. Worse, he was an idealist. An American idealist. A capitalist idealist. Trump's election caused the puppets to tear the façade apart trying to keep 'the tumor' as you rightfully call it, in the driver's seat.
And the tumor won.
I don't know if Trump is a reformer or a revolutionary but I hope he's a surgeon above all.
The tumor metaphor is so perfect, one of Morgoth’s specialties. As a payer of American taxes ( we pay less than you but get nothing for it), I would love to see this tumor sliced off. Thirty years ago when driving toward Washington DC, we live about 120 miles north, you would begin seeing huge, gorgeous, buildings with the Logos of various lobbies 30 miles from town. Hundreds of them. It has increased dramatically since. These are tumors on the back of government, NGO’s, etc. and they are the real, unelected government, the face of the US in every foreign country. If clumsy attempts at reform don’t kill them, surely the host must die.
I agree, the tumour analogy is perfect and, as we know, simply removing a tumour is rarely a cure unless the conditions that caused it have been addressed.
Excellent essay, Morgoth. Thanks. I particularly like the 'tumour' analogy. However, I don't think Donald Trump can win. He may well get the votes but what matters is the people who count the votes. Besides, the US ruling class will pull every trick in the book (and even invent some new ones) to block his path back to the White House.
This will lead to their having to confront an even worse nemesis but that's a few years off yet.
So I'm not the only one who sees parallels between the late Soviet Union and GAE! I'll admit, this analysis is much more detailed than my basic intuition. However, I'd like to add another point in common: the Soviet Union still seemed mighty even in the last decade of its political life; the same should hold true for GAE if I'm reckoning correctly.
Morgoth may be right, perhaps Trump's reforms will cause the system to unravel, yet he's still got my vote in November. I think GAE hegemony will have to end sooner or later because it's unsustainable, and I'd rather it be a Soviet-style quiet collapse than a bloodbath.
It's now trope, but "there are no solutions, only choices that have costs associated with them." I read this article (until the last paragraphs) thinking 'how does one reform a pile of shit?' You nailed it then, Morgoth. The cost to do so with America is so large, I don't think it can be comprehended. Still, I think the cost to begin again is ultimately less than to enter into the liberalist technocracy we are charging into. I, for one, have accepted that one can't come out clean after being in a pile of shit.
On point Morgoth!
Excellent read!
Who here actually admires what Gorbachev was trying to achieve? I admired the man for many reasons. He knew the USSR had failed miserably. As an airman in the RAF during the 1970s and chaperoning the service school kids on the Berlin corridor train the Russian soldiers at the checkpoints would hand over caps and badges for a pack of Woodbines'. It was an eyeopener for me personally being indoctrinated with propaganda about the Soviet Army crossing over the Rhine in less than a week should they decide to invade the West.
I used to listen to Radio Moscow in the 1980s. Before Gorbachev, they’d always insist that the USSR was paradise. They wouldn’t even admit it had natural disasters like storms, earthquakes and meteors. Listeners would send in questions, e.g. Usman from Pakistan asks, “What is the rate of inflation in the USSR?”. The answer was always of the form, “Well, as amazing as it may seem, since October 1917 there has been NO inflation in the USSR!”.
Then Gorbachev came in, and suddenly they were telling everyone how bad everything was. It was a 180º turnaround.
That's exactly what Trump has been doing. Growing up in the early 2000's everyone in my country thought the world of America. We all wanted to go there and we all thought it was perfect. It never occured to anyone that there was anything wrong with it. Trump took many in the third world by suprise when he broke the american myth, and just told everyone how the system had not been working for decades. It was a strange feeling for many.
Every year I used to attend GDT courses and every year instructors would re-enforce the narrative that the USSR was an overwhelming force and that we as part of the NATO alliance could only delay the inevitable advance should they decide to invade. And then we would watch the news on how they couldn't get bread into the shops. That Berlin corridor run opened my eyes for sure and you know, they were just young lads like us. Only conscripted. I got to know a Sqd Ldr pilot years later and he would recall how his squadron would intercept Bears over the North Sea and how they would exchange greetings with Soviet aircrew.
After the collapse of the USSR, some revealing documents were released about Soviet plans during the Cold War. To begin with, they saw Poland as the key buffer state between Russia and Germany, which they felt they had to control. But they gradually realised that, if there was ever a hot war with the West, the Polish population would immediately rise up to sabotage their military supply routes. Soon the Red Army would wind up fighting not just NATO, but a full Polish uprising. So they made alternative plans to re-route around Poland, which is pretty cumbersome and inefficient. They also made plans to use only Soviet troops in vital positions. They decided they couldn’t trust the loyalty of other Warsaw Pact troops.
All of this confirms my view that, after 1945, the USSR had no serious desire to invade western Europe. Their eastern empire was there to keep the west at arm’s length. It was never the first instalment of some plan for planetary conquest.
As a funny side to this story. I asked him what it was like going through the sound barrier in his Lightning Interceptor? Nothing to it Richard but I could have something to say about nearly running out of fuel!
Great piece. I think drawing a parallel between Gorbachev and Trump for their respective systems is an accurate observation. However, I am not sure whether "Trumpean reforms" in America would lead to an increase in white identitarianism. To the contrary, I would posit that any such increase so far has been the backlash against massive woke identity politics from the left. Some people have hypothesised that these in turn were dialed up in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the emergence movements focused on economics like Occupy Wall Street in a kind of divide-and-conquer strategy. The underlying problem weakening America much faster than the "normal rate of decay" in an empire (as to be expected from a Spenglerian perspective) would then be policies that only benefit a small class to the detriment of not only everybody else, but of the vitality of the system as a whole. Massive outsourcing and the resultant rise of geopolitic rivals, the opioid crisis, the financialization of the economy - all these things can (only?) be explained by the wealthy class overplaying its hand in disregarding what the system can survive in terms of draining its energy. The recent comments by e.g. Jamie Dimon in Davos appear to acknowledge this.
The comparison is very apt and enlightening. Especially how without knowing, the centerist reformer would bring about a right wing recursion. And that's why the system hates them.
I have always held a dim view of the USA. Historically, I only see what happens there happens to us here a few years down the line. Most of the time., the working man doesn't benefit.
I can't evolve my vision or foresight any further than the fact the best two people the World's leading superpower can put up for president are an elderly man in serious cognitive decline and a pussy grabbing honey monster that failed most tests first time around.
I don't see anything drastic happening in the USA over the next 4 years other than the volume being turned down on the current psychotic state that afflicts it. The controlling machinery behind the curtain may not be firing on all cylinders, but it is not going to completely breakdown any time soon. There is too much at stake and too much to lose.
Reformer's are the deadly poison masquerading as medicine. Revolutionaries are adrenaline spikes that prevent death to the system.
I wonder if these are the only two solutions? Remember how we are constantly told that there are only ever two sides to a story? Well what about the truth? Far too often, the truth is held for ransom or buried in a shallow grave.
Palestine (and Middle East) were Christian, 200 years before Rome, they had Popes, bishops, Churches, Monasteries, Abbeys, while Rome they were still feeding Christians to the lions. Saint Georges became a Roman soldier. When Romans crossed (Syria-Palestine) to massacre Christians Georges bravely defended.
He was caught died the most cruel and savage death.
He became the first Saint, most beloved.
So, no Return to Fresh Prince but Return to the Cosby Show?
Interesting...Trump is no Gorbie. Trump is trying to restore something that was lost. Gorbie was a true reformer, trying to save Communism by reinventing it, not renewing it. But point taken: neither system (in their relative stages) may be able to withstand reform or renewal.
Palestine (and Middle East) were Christian, 200 years before Rome, they had Popes, bishops, Churches, Monasteries, Abbeys, while Rome they were still feeding Christians to the lions. Saint Georges became a Roman soldier. When Romans crossed (Syria-Palestine) to massacre Christians Georges bravely defended.
He was caught died the most cruel and savage death.
He became the first Saint, most beloved.