WHATEVER one thinks of Donald Trump, he remains a phenomenon and we will not see another like him for generations to come. I do not share and accept many of the political perspectives of Mr. Trump, but what I find disdainful about those who criticise him is that they pick on his faults but never seem to give him credit for innovative and unique way of thinking about America’s role in the world. And that is of seminal importance because when America sneezes the world catches a cold.

The entire media landscape, the Wall Street world, the entrenched libel establishment (including the journal, “Foreign Affairs”), the military industrial complex and corporate America never ever touch on Mr. Trump’s criticism of American involvement in endless wars and what purpose these wars serve the US. They never touch on Mr. Trump’s criticism of a congenital unprofessionalism in American journalism. They never touch on what Mr. Trump says he discovered when he became president – the deep state that runs America.
Why do they avoid these aspects of Mr. Trump’s vast output? Because he threatens their interests and his presidency could remove the vast, invincible power of these arms of American society. One example of the deep state should suffice. There are thousands of pages of the inquiry into the assassination of President John Kennedy that successive president since 1964 have refused to release.

After almost 60 years, these presidents have kept those documents away from the American people. Why? What is there to hide? Mr. Trump’s discovery of the deep state has led him to the decision that he would declassify the remaining pages and Mr. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy Jr. has asked Mr. Trump to release the stuff so he could learn more about the persons behind his uncle’s assassination.

Enter the former German chancellor, Angela Merkel. In her recently published autobiography, Ms. Merkel noted that she saw Trump as a man who likened politics to real estate business. Ms. Merkel saw that as a huge fault in Trump but she is beyond capacity to understand that trait in Trump in the context of what America does in the world and how that undermines the ontology of the United States.

How is the real estate approach to politics a positive for Trump? Mr. Trump has been painted as an unhinged person by the American media. But there are things Mr. Trump comprehends about the US that the media and the deep state conveniently ignore. The most simplified and rudimentary lesson in politics is that empire weakens a country because that is where the money goes and nothing is left to spend on anything else.

The US’s expenditure on its armed forces combined that of the entire world. And this is happening even after the collapse of the Non-Aligned Movement and the USSR. The US has over 255 military bases around the world and has just opened another in Poland. The CIA, foreign espionage arm of the US government, is allocated a budget of more than 100 billion.

Mr. Trump with his real estate approach knows that you invest money to buy assets and those assets grow and make you wealthier but the US Empire is not making the US wealthier. On the contrary, US spending on wars and military engagements have killed the American dream. His slogan of Make America Great Again is about making the US wealthy again so America can have the American dream again.

Mr. Trump would not frown on the idea of the US being the controller of the world but that status must not be at the expense of America being poor. This is in sharp contrast to the entire Democratic Party. Leading the school of fighting wars is Mrs. Hilary Clinton, her husband Bill Clinton, President Biden, Kamala Harris among others, are all supporters of an expanded war in Ukraine.

Mr. Trump is no fool. Mr. Trump knows the Europeans want to defeat Russia because of historical envy and race feelings they want the US to do the job for them. This is one of the strong beliefs of Mr. Trump. He thinks Europe uses the US for their own military purposes.
Mr. Trump if he remains consistent may save the world from the Third World War. The European state system was born out of war. Europe sees war as a natural outcome in the international system. Europe wants a war with Russia and the want the US to lead it. Mr. Biden is prepared to play the European game because that is the thinking of the Democratic Party. But not Trump. The Europeans are in for a rude awakening after January 2025.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.