The Trump Presidency, 2.0, Part 3: Imperial Maintenance and Changes

Trump-style imperialism is only a variation of the theme.

With the exception of Antarctica’s residents and those living on the International Space Station, virtually all humans live on violently acquired land. It began with the slaughter of the megafauna, which began around three million years ago. That process began gathering momentum over one million years ago, and when behaviorally modern humans arrived on the evolutionary scene, all other human species were quickly driven to extinction, although there have been strenuous academic attempts to deny it all. There is probably not a patch of inhabitable land on Earth without blood on it, if we go back far enough. Hunter-gatherers slaughtered each other once the easy meat was gone, farmers displaced hunter-gatherers, often violently, and rising and falling empires have characterized all civilizations since the first ones appeared.

Where Israel sits today has been slaked with blood many times over the millennia. The genocide in Gaza since 2023 is the latest atrocity, taking place in full view of the world, and very little has been done about it by the world’s nations, as the USA supported it and few will stand up to the Empire. Some heroic journalists spoke up recently, and there have been other efforts, but 99.99% of the West just lets it happen, and American tax dollars have once again financed genocide. Where I live near Seattle was invaded less than two centuries ago, at the tail end of the greatest demographic catastrophe in the human journey. That is quite a bloody heritage. In what I call the Fifth Epoch, human territoriality will vanish, including the idea of nations, as it will no longer make economic sense.

Humans have become progressively less violent and more humane over the human journey’s Epochs, as humanity’s increasing surplus energy made peace and plenty more feasible. But the industrial Epoch is only three centuries old, most of humanity still lives in predominantly agrarian societies, and there is plenty of “cultural momentum” of agrarian heritage in industrial societies, in which women are second-class citizens, for example.

George Washington, who architected the theft of temperate North America from the natives, called his new nation an infant empire. The USA has grabbed land ever since. If Americans want to know about American foreign policy, the American mainstream media is the last place to look, as it is all imperial propaganda. The Propaganda Model, which was primarily Ed Herman’s invention, stands unrebutted to this day, and was largely invented to explain the media’s treatment of American imperial behavior.

At the turn of the 20^th century, the USA and United Kingdom were experimenting with colonialism that did not fly the flag over subject nations, such as how the USA invented Panama. Economic domination could supplant formal colonial ownership and could even be cheaper. As European empires disintegrated, largely due to the World Wars, the USA took over. In the 1950s, the USA engaged in covert action and threatened nuclear attack to remain dominant on the world stage, in a cheap form of imperial policy. The USA overthrew targeted governments while posturing as the world’s savior. The USA slaughtered many millions of people and kept post-colonial peoples in bondage. Resource politics, especially regarding oil, dominated American foreign policy. The only partial exception in my lifetime was John Kennedy. He was a lukewarm imperialist, his attempt to end the Cold War cost him his life, and all American presidents since then were puppets and knew it. Even the “human rights” president, Jimmy Carter, was another bloody emperor.

After the 9/11 terror attacks, and there was likely far more than met the eye happening, the Bush administration had a hit list of seven nations, and since then, the USA was instrumental in overthrowing three of their governments: Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Iraq and Libya were the two most progressive Arab nations that also sat on vast amounts of oil that the USA did not control. Those three nations have all been devastated (1, 2, 3).

This brings me to the new emperor, who is taking the throne for a second time. If there was anything “good” about Trump’s first term, it was that he did not start any new wars. He did not help the Ukrainian situation, and plenty of people around the world died violently from American imperial violence, but it was relatively peaceful. Biden’s reign risked nuclear war. If Trump can roll back the specter of nuclear war, that may be his greatest legacy. He has plenty of Strangelovian nuclear hawks to contend with, to accomplish that. That is nothing new in the USA.

I ignore the mainstream media as best as I can on Trump’s foreign policy, and what is coming through loud and clear is that Trump is largely dispensing with the lying liberal rhetoric that has characterized recent American presidents and is pursuing naked imperial interest. While Consortium News welcomed Trump’s defense of the First Amendment, it notes (along with MintPress News) with horror Trump’s plans for Gaza (1, 2, 3). It looks like Israel is going to kill or expel every last Palestinian, and real-estate developer Trump almost salivates at the real estate potential of Gaza, once the Palestinians are gone. This is stark ethnic cleansing. Israel has invaded and plans to digest part of Syria. This aligns with Zionist plans from the beginning.

Marco Rubio as Secretary of State is ominous. Trump has made his ambition clear, to add Greenland, the Panama Canal, and even Canada to the American larder. A revival of the Monroe Doctrine seems to be coming, and an invasion of oil-rich Venezuela may be on the table. Of course, those nations cannot effectively fight back, as Trump goes for the low-hanging fruit of territorial expansion, and he even has plans for Mars.

Ending all of this would be easy, if enough people with the proper orientation joined together and focused on helping the Fifth Epoch arrive, which is what my work is all about.