By Joseph Gerson
Days after November’s Trump/MAGA election victory, a senior Russian diplomat asked how great a historical transformation it signaled. Was it the equivalent of the Civil War, or the Depression era New Deal? Soon it was clear. Jamille Bouie wrote in the New York Times that Trump and his cronies were “waging war on the American system of government.” Corrupt billionaire plutocrats led by Trump have captured the state to increase their immense fortunes, to eviscerate our limited social safety net, and to turn the clock back on 70 years of civil and human rights gains. We are in the midst of counterrevolution, with Trump citing Napoleon Bonaparte as he asserts that he and his co-conspirators are above the law.
As demonstrated during the Munich Security Conference and with his tariff threats, the fascist Trump/MAGA wreaking ball is wreaking havoc. Which of their actions are more horrifying and dangerous? Europe reduced to being a marginalized geopolitical pawn? The Musk/Vance embrace of the neo-Nazi AfD and Britain’s Reform Party and the boast of “new sheriff in town” encouraging the fascist right to seize power in Europe? The Hegseth/Kellog diktat that Washington will determine Ukraine’s and Europe’s futures without them having seats at the negotiating table? Encouraging Russian invasions of European countries don’t massively increase their military spending to 5% of GDP, while Trump plans to cut the trillion dollar U.S. military budget? Tariffs directed against allies as well as rivals? Insistence that European AI research be subsumed into that of the U.S. in the competition with China? Secretary of State Rubio meeting with Netanyahu to press the ethnic cleansing/Gaza Riveria resort campaign and discussing possible destruction of Iran’s nuclear program? The deadly dismantling of the US Agency for International Development and eliminating the food and medicines that countless people in the world’s poorest countries depend on for survival?
Read the full article on Pressenza: https://www.pressenza.com/2025/02/new-sheriff-astride-the-globe-trumps-sovereigntist-imperialism/