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I could believe that some people want to do this, but I’m skeptical as to the efficacy of it as a plan. I would argue the main counterweight to it is that the perception of the US financial system as stable and legitimate is a central pillar of the house of cards. And subverting the entire system with a shoddy fingerpoint toward AI is not going to change the fact that people are going to look at it and go, “So this whole system is bullshit, huh?” Not to mention, the hatred toward Trump is high already and people tend to blame the sitting president for things that happen under them, regardless of whether it was directly their fault/orchestration.
So though I can see it being possible they might attempt this, I think it’s also very plausible that it would be the beginning of the end of internal stability for the US. That it would trigger ongoing unrest that they are not actually prepared to handle because the empire is more grifting than logistics at this stage and their cons are starting to run into each other. As it is, the “theory” in question as explained by the video maker is primarily focused on the US itself. There are other consequences of actions on their way, like what is happening with Iran and the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
To put it one way, I just don’t think the US’s position at this stage is stable enough to “cleanly” carry out such a grift. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it and other potential threats seriously, or assume outcomes will be inevitable and mechanical, but I would also not overestimate the planning involved. Crises in one form or another are likely on their way, but the grifters are not a wholly unified group who is purely interested in grifting the local working class.
As to what Malkhodr asked, “How can this be fought against?” I would say in general, people should be ready to mobilize if such attempted exploitation of a manufactured crisis occurs. They should be proactive in preparing US people for the possibility of any of a number of crises and attempts to use them to make grifter political plays. They should repeat often and in detail that the stability of the US system is far from guaranteed, not as a form of panic or dooming, but turn it on its head and make it a message of hope that change for the better can happen as the old system fails. But that people have to study and practice hard on logistics and planning because that is going to be what is needed far more than ideological fervor. Escaping the grifter model requires liberation groups who can outmaneuver the grifters, not “last stand martyrs”.
I think the thing I found most contentious was in regards to “marshal law”. Granted, many of the ways this would control people in the US wouldn’t require military coercion, but to some degree, an implementation of some kind of marshal law seems at least a little necessary, like with regard to maintaining the seat of president.
It’s not that I don’t think the US military would do so, but how would they logistically do so while maintaining the empire at current recruitment rates? They could use ICE, but we saw the limits of that tactic in Minisoda, and a sustained period of occupation would just worsen the results.
Yeah, it’d be hard for them to sustain in any way, I agree. If Trump tried to extend his term, they’d probably try to recruit from volunteer fash to crack down, but that only goes so far. The US is already highly divided and it’s hard for me to imagine a successful transition to a more openly Nazi Germany style setup; I’m inclined to think civil war would be more likely (between true believers in the constitution and Trumpian fash). I can believe some of the true believer white supremacists would like a Nazi Germany type of setup, but I’m in doubt that a guy like Trump is willing to take the risks involved in a major power grab if he can instead grift the US like it’s a business and skedaddle when things get too hot. Which, granted, the grifting part does fit with the financial manipulation theory, but less so the “extending his term” part, I would say.
I generally agree with the analysis, but a couple of things worth noting are that the US elites love pulling off insane schemes like this even if they rarely work as intended. Just look at the whole Iran fiasco as an example. The other thing is that the financial system is already starting to come apart, other countries are dumping the dollar, Japan carry trade is unwinding, and there’s a whole new financial system forming completely outside western control. So, the US isn’t going to be a pillar of the global finance for too much longer one way or the other.
They might see this as a way to restructure on their own terms, and this might be what Trump meant with the military being the final say in economic matters. They will use naked force and coercion to try and keep at least some vassals under their thumb going forward.
And of course, as you note, the grifters in charge ultimately don’t care about the US economy or even as a country. As long as they see an opportunity to personally benefit, they don’t have a problem sowing chaos. Hell, if the US broke up, Musk would probably angle to become the king of Texas.
Fair points. I keep going back in my mind to what Indi wrote about the state of things; his view is something to the effect that the US is doing a mafia style / vulture capitalist style thing with the US government itself, where they run up debt on it, cash in on what’s there, and let it die when it becomes unsustainable because they have no particular loyalty to it as an institution.
But then, that’s not necessarily incompatible with the theory in question. If the top grifters are going “what if there’s a way we can make the grift last even longer here.”
So I don’t know. It may be there is some vacillating / infighting on what the priority actually is. To grift and run, or to extend the empire’s life as long as possible. Possible, if not probable, that some who act like they are interested in the 2nd one are part of the 1st group and see it as a win-win for them, like you say about personal benefit; whether the US collapses and they run away with their loot, or the US stays stable and they continue to grift through it, they still get loot.
Yup, and also important to keep in mind that these people aren’t omniscient either. They have their own biases and blind spots like everyone else, and it’s entirely possible that their view of the world is sufficiently divorced from the material reality to cause them to make significant blunders.
True, true. And correctly identifying and taking into account those biases and blind spots can be a part of strategy. For example, Trump is clearly lead in part by his narcissism. But he also is led by a mob boss style approach to business, which he carried over into governance. I would say he’s neither a secret genius nor a total imbecile; rather, his forward-facing performance is so caricatured that it makes it hard to take him seriously at times. But this can be to his advantage, like when Hillary Clinton’s campaign tried to do the “pied piper” strategy to win the 2016 election and possibly helped him win instead, when he might otherwise have struggled more. On the other hand, I think he sincerely is a ridiculous person (like he’s not faking being one, at least not by this point in his career).
And because of how much power he has, the world has to take him seriously to a degree. And Yankees in particular have to contend with the fact that he has a base of support who doesn’t think he is a ridiculous person. Whose worldview somehow looks at him and goes, “He’s amazing.” And that suggests some differences going on in how those people see the world.
Completely agree with all that, Trump has this crazy persona that he leans into heavily, and he’s basically acting like a mobster. But, Trump is just a front man at the end of the day. It’s not like he can rule by decree, so the real decision making is happening in the deep state, and it’s not like anything we see is spontaneous. As Brian Berletic loves to point out, there are decades of policy papers written advocating for all these moves that we’re seeing the empire make.
I could believe that some people want to do this, but I’m skeptical as to the efficacy of it as a plan. I would argue the main counterweight to it is that the perception of the US financial system as stable and legitimate is a central pillar of the house of cards. And subverting the entire system with a shoddy fingerpoint toward AI is not going to change the fact that people are going to look at it and go, “So this whole system is bullshit, huh?” Not to mention, the hatred toward Trump is high already and people tend to blame the sitting president for things that happen under them, regardless of whether it was directly their fault/orchestration.
So though I can see it being possible they might attempt this, I think it’s also very plausible that it would be the beginning of the end of internal stability for the US. That it would trigger ongoing unrest that they are not actually prepared to handle because the empire is more grifting than logistics at this stage and their cons are starting to run into each other. As it is, the “theory” in question as explained by the video maker is primarily focused on the US itself. There are other consequences of actions on their way, like what is happening with Iran and the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
To put it one way, I just don’t think the US’s position at this stage is stable enough to “cleanly” carry out such a grift. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it and other potential threats seriously, or assume outcomes will be inevitable and mechanical, but I would also not overestimate the planning involved. Crises in one form or another are likely on their way, but the grifters are not a wholly unified group who is purely interested in grifting the local working class.
As to what Malkhodr asked, “How can this be fought against?” I would say in general, people should be ready to mobilize if such attempted exploitation of a manufactured crisis occurs. They should be proactive in preparing US people for the possibility of any of a number of crises and attempts to use them to make grifter political plays. They should repeat often and in detail that the stability of the US system is far from guaranteed, not as a form of panic or dooming, but turn it on its head and make it a message of hope that change for the better can happen as the old system fails. But that people have to study and practice hard on logistics and planning because that is going to be what is needed far more than ideological fervor. Escaping the grifter model requires liberation groups who can outmaneuver the grifters, not “last stand martyrs”.
I think the thing I found most contentious was in regards to “marshal law”. Granted, many of the ways this would control people in the US wouldn’t require military coercion, but to some degree, an implementation of some kind of marshal law seems at least a little necessary, like with regard to maintaining the seat of president.
It’s not that I don’t think the US military would do so, but how would they logistically do so while maintaining the empire at current recruitment rates? They could use ICE, but we saw the limits of that tactic in Minisoda, and a sustained period of occupation would just worsen the results.
Yeah, it’d be hard for them to sustain in any way, I agree. If Trump tried to extend his term, they’d probably try to recruit from volunteer fash to crack down, but that only goes so far. The US is already highly divided and it’s hard for me to imagine a successful transition to a more openly Nazi Germany style setup; I’m inclined to think civil war would be more likely (between true believers in the constitution and Trumpian fash). I can believe some of the true believer white supremacists would like a Nazi Germany type of setup, but I’m in doubt that a guy like Trump is willing to take the risks involved in a major power grab if he can instead grift the US like it’s a business and skedaddle when things get too hot. Which, granted, the grifting part does fit with the financial manipulation theory, but less so the “extending his term” part, I would say.
I generally agree with the analysis, but a couple of things worth noting are that the US elites love pulling off insane schemes like this even if they rarely work as intended. Just look at the whole Iran fiasco as an example. The other thing is that the financial system is already starting to come apart, other countries are dumping the dollar, Japan carry trade is unwinding, and there’s a whole new financial system forming completely outside western control. So, the US isn’t going to be a pillar of the global finance for too much longer one way or the other.
They might see this as a way to restructure on their own terms, and this might be what Trump meant with the military being the final say in economic matters. They will use naked force and coercion to try and keep at least some vassals under their thumb going forward.
And of course, as you note, the grifters in charge ultimately don’t care about the US economy or even as a country. As long as they see an opportunity to personally benefit, they don’t have a problem sowing chaos. Hell, if the US broke up, Musk would probably angle to become the king of Texas.
Fair points. I keep going back in my mind to what Indi wrote about the state of things; his view is something to the effect that the US is doing a mafia style / vulture capitalist style thing with the US government itself, where they run up debt on it, cash in on what’s there, and let it die when it becomes unsustainable because they have no particular loyalty to it as an institution.
But then, that’s not necessarily incompatible with the theory in question. If the top grifters are going “what if there’s a way we can make the grift last even longer here.”
So I don’t know. It may be there is some vacillating / infighting on what the priority actually is. To grift and run, or to extend the empire’s life as long as possible. Possible, if not probable, that some who act like they are interested in the 2nd one are part of the 1st group and see it as a win-win for them, like you say about personal benefit; whether the US collapses and they run away with their loot, or the US stays stable and they continue to grift through it, they still get loot.
Yup, and also important to keep in mind that these people aren’t omniscient either. They have their own biases and blind spots like everyone else, and it’s entirely possible that their view of the world is sufficiently divorced from the material reality to cause them to make significant blunders.
True, true. And correctly identifying and taking into account those biases and blind spots can be a part of strategy. For example, Trump is clearly lead in part by his narcissism. But he also is led by a mob boss style approach to business, which he carried over into governance. I would say he’s neither a secret genius nor a total imbecile; rather, his forward-facing performance is so caricatured that it makes it hard to take him seriously at times. But this can be to his advantage, like when Hillary Clinton’s campaign tried to do the “pied piper” strategy to win the 2016 election and possibly helped him win instead, when he might otherwise have struggled more. On the other hand, I think he sincerely is a ridiculous person (like he’s not faking being one, at least not by this point in his career).
And because of how much power he has, the world has to take him seriously to a degree. And Yankees in particular have to contend with the fact that he has a base of support who doesn’t think he is a ridiculous person. Whose worldview somehow looks at him and goes, “He’s amazing.” And that suggests some differences going on in how those people see the world.
Completely agree with all that, Trump has this crazy persona that he leans into heavily, and he’s basically acting like a mobster. But, Trump is just a front man at the end of the day. It’s not like he can rule by decree, so the real decision making is happening in the deep state, and it’s not like anything we see is spontaneous. As Brian Berletic loves to point out, there are decades of policy papers written advocating for all these moves that we’re seeing the empire make.