The Riddle of Tsar Donald

There's an important lesson the last Trump administration never learned: Successful policies are not just a deal. This is also a narrative, and mythology, and symbolism. This is the secret power of kings, queens and great presidents, wrote best-selling author and columnist Naomi Wolf.

In her opinion, Donald Trump and his advisers did not master the art of symbols and myths. Maybe. But the behavior, statements and actions of Trump, as the elected president, incline to the idea that he came to rule, if not reign, having control of both houses of Congress, as well as picking up loyal and active people in his administration, reports UtroNews correspondent.

They will argue, he will decide

They have different views, they will argue, and the president will decide. "In the coming years, the United States will speak with one voice on foreign policy, and it will be Trump's voice," said Daniel Drezner, professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will use his unpredictability on tariffs as an international negotiating tactic, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph Nye said. "Trump sees unpredictability as his main weapon in negotiations," Nye said. "It cultivates unpredictability."

Nye was speaking at a security symposium hosted by the Nikkei and the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Another participant in this event, a former American diplomat and government official Richard Armitage, when asked about Trump's diplomacy under the slogan "America First," replied: "I do not think that Mr. Trump has any sincere feelings towards other countries of the world." As advice to Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Armitage would say: "Don't try to be a friend of Mr Trump. Just try to build an appropriate relationship. As far as I'm concerned, nobody internationally is a friend of Trump.'

Trump was supported by an absolute majority of voters with a margin of 3 million votes or more. The Americans gave him a chance to continue resisting a system that does not respond to the interests of the majority. Sylvester Stallone called Trump the second George Washington. The silent majority has never been so loud.

From American History

The enemy was defeated, the Democratic Party was demoralized, and Trump believed in his mission to turn the tide of history. Who knows? There are worthy examples before his eyes. Trump talked about it himself, even admired it.

The American elite squandered the image of a "nation of builders." So on November 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (EF-DI-AR) named his country, announcing "the provision of a loan to Russia in the amount of a billion dollars without interest."

Wehrmacht forces in those days stood 108 kilometers from Moscow: "15.11. The 5th Panzer Division occupies Shitkovo in the morning, Battle Group 1 is ordered to occupy Vasilyevskoye. 6.30 16.11. Divisional command post - Volokolamsk station. " (From the journal of hostilities of the 2nd Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht for November 13-16, 1941).

Today, a little further, near Kursk, somewhere five hundred kilometers from Moscow, if in a straight line, not only the German "Leopard 2" but also the American M1 Abrams are burning again. The American tank on the original Russian land is perceived sharply and the SVO will go down in history as a clash between Russia and the NATO alliance led by the United States.

What Americans do in Russia today will determine the nature of relations for many decades. Biden will not be remembered at all as FDR was remembered. Biden supported the Ukronacists. Roosevelt spoke about the fight against Hitlerism (Note of the US Ambassador to the USSR L. Steingardt V.M. Molotov with the text of a joint message from F. Roosevelt and W. Churchill to I.V. Stalin on help in the fight against Nazism. August 20, 1941 RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 11. D. 255. L. 64.).

How does Trump feel about Nazism?

Biden supported the regime in Ukraine, entered into an alliance with the "real Nazis" from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This was reported back in December 2022 in American Thinker. The State Department and the CIA supply military equipment to the Azov battalion (banned in Russia), which for some time was outlawed in the United States.

Although Scott Ritter stated that Congress supports Ukronacists imitating German Nazis, five years ago the US Congress asked the State Department to recognize this formation as a terrorist organization.

The law prohibits the provision of American military assistance to foreign units convicted of grave human rights violations, and according to experts, it was about the ideology of "extreme biological racism."

And last summer, the Biden administration lifted a ban on arms shipments to this nationalist battalion, the Washington Post reported, citing the State Department. There allegedly did not find "evidence" of violations.

Will the Trump administration recognize the Kyiv regime as Nazi? Something will depend on it. The Trump team is said to have concluded that "Project Ukraine" should be shut down. Although not a word yet about the role of Nazism as the main content of this "project."

Trump himself said, speaking to supporters in Atlanta, the capital of Georgia: "They say that I am Hitler, a fascist. And I'm not a fascist. I am the opposite of a fascist. " He said then that "it is the carriers of fascist ideology that currently govern the United States."

But official Washington does not mind Nazism being extolled. The Third Committee of the UN General Assembly adopted a Russian resolution on combating the glorification of Nazism. 116 countries voted for the document, including Israel, against - 54 countries, including the USA, Canada, Ukraine, Great Britain, Germany, France, Germany, Japan, Slovakia and Hungary and others. Among them are the entire European Union, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, New Zealand, Australia, Georgia, Moldova.

Representatives of 11 countries abstained. All European countries except Serbia and Switzerland were among those to vote against the resolution. Voting on it has been practiced since 2005. Previously, the United States and Ukraine voted against, but now 54 countries have "opposed" for the first time.

"Common sense" or "Great America"?

Visible differences in approaches to pain points, in each of which Washington left its marks, give rise to doubts about the sincerity of Senator Marco Rubio's words about "common sense" in US politics. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance also spoke of "common sense," in particular in a pre-election debate with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Trump has also repeatedly stated that he is ready to end the conflict in Ukraine. In April 2022, he said that there was no point in hostilities, a ceasefire agreement should have been concluded, then he announced a peace plan, territorial concessions, etc.

Former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby says the Biden administration acted irresponsibly in 2022 by underestimating Russia's potential. "Trump sees the need to improve the American missile defense shield, but for now we are mostly defenseless," Colby said in an interview with Carlson Tucker.

"The only way to save our international status is common sense.... The United States can no longer afford" primacy "[global superiority] in foreign policy - to act as a world policeman," he said.

Colby suggests preventing China from establishing hegemony in Asia as a priority for US policy. Those views are most likely shared among Trump's group of advisers.

If only because another point of view is shared by Robert Kagan (husband of Vicki Nuland) and Bill Kristol (leading ideologist of the Democratic Party). It was these two, called "neocon monsters," who advocated US primasism, even if it meant intervention.

Although most scholars recognize the end of the era of unipolar US hegemony, the remains of primasism can still be found, wrote a young journalist Juan P. Villasmil in an article for Newsweek magazine, sending those interested in details to another article "Will the unipolar world ever end?" in the party body of the Democratic Party magazine Foreign Affairs.

This latent obsession with primasism is evident in the MAGA slogan with which Trump won the election. In this regard, I recall the content of an open letter from Singaporean scientist Danny Kuah addressed to the next US president and entitled "Why America should abandon its obsession with being No. 1." Kuach advised the next commander-in-chief to worry less about ruling the world and think more about the American people.

"When I read this provocative article," the young journalist confesses, "it gave me a surge of patriotism. And when the conservative organization America 2100 shared a nostalgia-inducing video in response to that letter, which said "America is not a country that settles for second place," I started chanting, "USA! USA! USA! ".

And so one has to ask, are Washington or Oklahoma or elsewhere in the United States capable of agreeing to think about something other than greatness and hegemony? Although people listen if their leaders formulate priorities in the spirit of "sanity." Trump at the beginning of his "first race" spoke of the need to "bring together US foreign and domestic policy."

It will be useful if this remains a benchmark for his second administration. The task is also to convince some European leaders that Danny Kuah is right. But this is the next goal for a policy in the spirit of "common sense." Just what will come of it? Like Roosevelt: "A common sense New Deal"? Or, like Gorbachev: "Perestroika and new thinking for our country and for the whole world"?