Discussion
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” (Frank Zappa)
Zappa wasn’t wrong. The civil liberties we have today aren’t entirely illusory, but they remain conditional. That’s where my ambivalence toward Donald Trump begins.
On one hand, Trump disrupts the neoliberal order. He favors economic deals over military interventions in his dealings with major powers. In theory, this could slow down the U.S. military-industrial complex, lead to a gradual withdrawal from NATO, maybe even open a path toward peace. But it probably wouldn’t last. History—especially European history—shows that rivalries between imperial powers tend to resurface, often ending in war. However, Orwell imagined in 1984 a kind of balance between continental blocs…
But Trump also represents something else. He offers unwavering support to the Israeli government, to the point of giving it carte blanche to commit what amounts to genocide against the Palestinians. He’s also laying the groundwork for a strike on Iran. Few details have leaked about current negotiations, but today's Netanyahu’s visit to Trump doesn’t bode well.
Domestically, Trump is building an authoritarian regime, underpinned—so far quietly—by white supremacism. He’s strengthening the police apparatus, targeting immigrants, and cracking down on human rights advocates. He’s also trying to weaken liberal democracy, including outside the U.S. He’s floated the idea of a third term, despite the Constitution’s two-term limit. He’s beginning to go after the media, universities, and all forms of opposition. In that regard, he resembles Erdogan in Turkey.
Economically, Trump advocates bringing production chains back to the U.S. by imposing high tariffs on nearly every other country. It seems the failure of Ukraine’s 2023 summer counteroffensive—which exposed the West’s inability to supply enough equipment to the Ukrainian army against Russia’s advance—may have hastened this economic pivot, while reinforcing the administration’s resolve to push it through. But according to Emmanuel Todd, the white American population doesn’t have the educational level required for this policy to succeed. In any case, a crisis in capital accumulation and a struggle for global hegemony are reshaping the existing order. What we’re living through now feels like a historical turning point—on par with the shift from Keynesianism to neoliberalism under Thatcher and Reagan in the early 1980s.
Neoliberalism, with its massive offshoring to the Global South, weakened unions in developed countries. After half a century of neoliberal policies, backed by the right as well as social-democratic and “pragmatic” left parties, this process is now clearing the way for the far right in the West.
A new phase is beginning. It’s shaped by digitization, the omnipresence of social media, the attention economy, artificial intelligence—and, of course, the ecological crisis. This transformation seems to be taking the form of technofascism: a fusion of authoritarian governance and the strategic use of technology to tighten control over society, often at the expense of individual freedoms and democracy.
One of the CIA's best men!