The U.S. 2024 election marked yet another decline in the quality of American political culture but Trump’s victory dealt a major, though not necessarily fatal blow to the Democrat Party-State’s (DPS) revolution from above begun in 2016. It remains to be seen whether Trump admin 2.0 can overcome the Deep State and avoid conflict at home and abroad as it endeavours to ‘make America great again’ or at least virtuous and constructive again. Trump is no panacea for America’s ills at home or abroad, which are deep and include cultural, ideological, educational, and other aspects, but he may be a decent start.
The Obama-Trump 1.0 era levelled a ‚one-two punch‘ to America’s once ‚comitous‘, republican political culture. The Barack Obama administration, though measured in its tone, was exceedingly divisive in its rhetoric and extraordinarily exclusionist, anti-constitutionalist, and outright revolutionary in policies such as weaponizing the justice and law enforcement systems and censorship. Its ‚Russiagate‘ hoax — better labeled ‚Ukrainegate‘ — initiated an authoritarianizing revolution from above. Former president and now president-elect Donald Trump’s persistent rhetorical rudeness and crudeness increased these qualities‘ weight in the embattled republic’s political culture and discourse. The Biden administration’s absolute disdain for its opponents and the truth and its daring efforts to construct a single-party dominant authoritarian regime has combined with its mangling of diplomacy and cynical support for continuing the horrific wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to put the DPS revolution from above at risk.
The 2024 campaign deepened the cultural regression among the DPS elite. It produced a deluge of hypoerbolic and putrid political rhetoric, with the DPS surpassing anything Trump has ever engaged in. Lies and deception dominated the DPS’s strategy and propaganda, with the Kamala Harris campaign going so far as to run diametrically opposite positions on the Gaza War in two different states. The Harris campaign and the DPS-loyal mass media further harshened the discourse by a steady stream of political vitriole against Trump and his supporters, casting them as Hitlerian Nazis. All this went too far, and a significant part of undecided and constituent Democrat voters saw through it.
Despite the apparent acceptance of the election‘s results by it losers, much of the republic’s future remains in doubt. One wonders how the Democrat Party and DPS will react to being deprived of the presidency and both houses of Congress and ‚orangemen‘ taking the helm at the FBI, Justice Department, and CIA. Can the DP become a constructive opposition and cooperate with Hitler 2.0 and the ‚fascist garbage‘ of the Republican majority? Unlikely.
Trump is still not president, and there are many in the West and Ukraine who despise him and his policies. The first assassination attempt against him appears to have been a case of the DPS deliberately provoking violence against this ‚grave threat to democracy‘ and of the American security services leaving the door unlocked for any assassin to walk through — a reapplication of the methodology used to manufacture January 6th. Trump’s assassination before inauguration day would throw the country into a constitutional crisis and could save the revolution from above. Alternatively, the DPS could sway some Republican ‚never Trumpists‘ and conjure up a new impeachment, or the revolution from above could become one from below. Certainly, whipping up street protests and violence on all possible and faked pretexts will be the Democrats‘ likely choice should the revolution from above be fully stymied. Any attempts to deport illegal immigrants are likely to be a flashpoint here.
Trump 2.0 will be better on domestic, particularly economic policy than on foreign policy. A Trump boom was developing before COVID emerged. Trump fell into that trap by approving the draconian measures proposed to him for battling the pandemic. It seems unlikely that a now perhaps more chastened Trump will extend the authoritarianization of America‘s political culture, and he will certainly terminate that of the American state attempted by the Obama-Biden DPS administrations. He is likely to drastically roll back the perverse Wokism that has penetrated both American society and the Democrat Party-State. Hopefully, he will establish a more comitous tone, even as he acts stridently, eschewing the rudeness and crudeness that has marked his political rise. Here, perhaps his brush with death in Butler may provide moral inspiration from the eternal rather than temporary satisfaction of revenge. This does not mean that the crimes of the Obama and Biden administrations and the Clintons should go without investigation and arrests of all violators of the law or that the state bureaucracy should not undergo a massive reform and cleansing of crypto-politicians in G-ladder clothing. In terms of immigration, Trump must move carefully and procedurally before deploying coercion in order to implement any deportation of illegals. Also, the Trump administration must initiate a broad investigation of January 6th and its origins and pardon all those who were arrested but did not engage in violence.
In foreign policy, Trump may be able to save Ukraine and induce peace talks, but he will back Israel’s excessive Gaza War for a good period some time, leaving the region and world at grave risk. It was not encouraging to see the hapless peace proposal ostensibly under consideration by Trump’s transition team. According to the Wall Street Journal and other sources, Trump’s advisors are developing a new “peace plan” for Ukraine consisting of three general points: (1) Ukrainian neutrality for 20 years; (2) a demilitarized zone along the frontline as extant upon agreement to be policed by French and British troops; and (3) the West’s retention of the right to arm Kiev. This is not a recipe for peace but one for war and a complete no-go for the Kremlin.
Point 1 lacks the most important key to peace in an independent Ukrainian state: bloc neutrality. Trump will not be able to end the war in Ukraine without ending NATO expansion and establishing a new security architecture for Europe and at least eastern Eurasia. Ukrainian neutrality is Moscow’s minimalist demand, and neither Putin nor any other Russian leader peace agreement without it. FULL STOP. As long as NATO targets Ukraine for membership, even under some Trump-sponsored Russo-Ukrainian freeze-ceasefire or peace agreement, Russia will be on knife’s edge in concern for its national security. Naturally, guarantees of Russophone Ukrainian citizens concerning language and other minority rights as well as bans on Banderite ultranationalism and neofascism (‚de-Nazification‘) and ‚demilitarization‘ (Putin’s demands for a small post-war Ukrainian army) are also key. But Russia‘s absolutely necessary, though not sufficient requirement for peace and internal political stability and comity in Ukraine, is neutrality.
Point 2 is more a provocation than it is a peace proposal for Moscow. There is no way Putin or any other Russian leaders will countenance Western troops near Russian territory in Ukraine, however territorially defined. Too much blood, treasure, and political capital has been expended in Moscow’s effort to ensure a neutral, non-threatening Ukraine along the historical Western invasion paths for attacking Russia. Reports on the proposal do not include points on the precise territorial divisions, moreover. Moscow has still not occupied all the territory of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhe, and Kherson Oblasts, so there can be no ceasefire from Moscow’s standpoint until Kiev withdraws its forces from those oblasts entirely or are pushed out by Russian forces, which, although it is proceeding apace, will take at least several months to complete. The Kremlin will not accept Western forces being located on these areas, especially as the oblasts’ entire territories are enshrined in Russia’s constitution as part of the Russian Federation.
Point 3 would mark a Minsk 3 ‘three-peat’ in the sense that European leaders revealed after Putin decided to invade in February 2022 that Minsk 2 was nothing more than a breathing spell intended to allow Ukraine to build up its military power so that it could take back territories lost to Russia in 2014-2015. The U.S. and its NATO allies will flood Ukraine with weapons, training, intelligence and special operations centers, this time for 20 years instead of 6. Putin’s motto here will be: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
In sum, the Trump administration has a long way to go before its hits upon a formula suitable to Moscow, and Moscow is winning the war. The latter point will make Russia less amenable on its key points, though there is some wiggle room on demilitarization and de-Nazificatiopn, as the draft treaty Kiev rejected under Western pressure demonstrated.
Trump must move quickly to establish contacts and discussions both with Putin and Zelenskiy, so he can hit the ground running after inauguration. Already the Democrat Party-State and its liberal globalist allies in Europe are plotting to hem Trump in. Biden recently approved the deployment of defense contractors to Ukraine ostensibly to make repairs on military equipment, and UK PM Kier Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are preparing to pressure Biden to agree to Ukraine’s use of the French- and British-made Storm Shadow long-range missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia. Storm Shadows use US navigational technology and date, so their use requires Washington’s approval (www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/10/europe-plots-to-thwart-donald-trump-over-ukraine-starmer/). Speed is most important with regard to the desperate Zelenskiy, who as the escape from defeat and full ruin of Ukraine draws ever more near, may act rashly, say, by provoking a nuclear incident or some massive terrorist attack against Russia, which forces Putin’s hand in foreclosing on any and all talks with Zelenskiy. That could lead to instability in Kiev, collapse of the troublesome, albeit, Maidan regime, collapse of the Ukrainian state, and a chaos that precludes a central authority figure with whom Washington and Moscow can negotiate. There is even a chance that there may be no viable Maidan regime or Ukrainian state that is capable of negotiating without a full meltdown by the time Trump places his right hand on the Bible to take the oath of office.
Even if Trump can get an agreement with Ukraine, to guarantee peace Trump will be faced with the enormous task of reviving something on the order of the now shredded late Cold War and post-Cold War security architecture in Europe. Without this, the risk of war will remain too high. Moreover, Washington will have to live up to its name and return to a foreign policy that seeks to minimize ‘foreign entanglements’ rather than maximizing them by seeking the maximization of U.S. power globally in a ‘new world order.’ Thus, as long as Western ‘color revolutionism’ continues the meddling in Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and elsewhere in Eurasia, the risk of a new conflict in the ‘post-Soviet space’ remains excessively high. Moreover still, individual or a group of European states can stir trouble in Ukraine or elsewhere autonomously from NATO under their own or a new European or Eastern European flag. If NATO is to survive, it should do so as a truly defensive and conflict-resolution body, not a tool of American hegemony-preservation and power-maximization. This may be impossible without reducing NATO’s military component and incorporating OSCE’s cooperative functions as well as conflict-resolution functions. NATO might also begin to pursue interaction and eventual cooperation with the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization. Trump might find a more serious hearing in Europe, as liberal globalist governments there begin to collapse because of their support for Kiev and other miscues, as is occurring in Germany.
In the Middle East, Trump might be persuaded to push Tel Aviv to ceasefire or peace talks swayed by horrors of the near-genocide and hopefully by the realist advice of competent, principled realists he appoints to diplomatic, intelligence and military leadership positions. It is a good sign that Trump slapped down the neocon agenda-setting and pressuring effort promoted by the Wall Street Journal in floating fake rumors that the would-be future administration was considering the zealous former CIA chief and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. Wood was added to the fire, when Deep State outlets reported the day after the election results came in that Iran is attempting to assassinate Trump, but the fire has not intensified as no proof has been produced to confirm the plot’s existence and the only reported source is a man who has served time in US prisons for robbery and other crimes and is now supposedly located in Teheran (https://apnews.com/article/iran-fbi-justice-department-iran-83cff84a7d65901a058ad6f41a564bdb). It cannot be wholly excluded that such an Iranian plot exists, but the reports failed to note what Congressman Matt Gaetz reported a month ago on word from U.S. intelligence: that there was a Ukrainian assassination team in the U.S., seeking to do the same (https://gaetz.house.gov/media/in-the-news/exclusive-rep-matt-gaetz-claims-there-are-5-known-assassination-teams-us and (https://x.com/Bubblebathgirl/status/1838294590228455633).*
At any rate, the Democrat Party-State and its Republican allies — the so-called ‘Deep State’ or the politicized foreign policy bureaucracy — are hard at work already trying to foil Trump admin 2.0. In this context, Trump must abandon his knee-jerk antagonism towards the regime in Teheran as he did during his first term with regard to North Korea, no matter how at odds it is with American sensibilities. He must weaken the Deep State, insulate US foreign policymaking from inordinate Israeli influence, and bifurcate the issue of Iranian security from the Israel conflict with Hamas and even Hezbollah. Overall, the conflict in the Middle East must be halted for immediate humanitarian reasons as well as long-term ones such as Iran’s potential pursuit of nuclear weapons, an Iranian-Israeli nuclear conflict or ‘merely’ a region-wide war.
Regarding China, Trump will drive a hard bargain on trade, but he will not troll Beijing on Taiwan as the Biden administration did through childish escapades such as Nancy Pelosi’s unhinged tript to Taiwan last year. A modus vivendi with China along the lines of the of those with the USSR during the Cold War are eminently possible and are vital for avoiding conflict in the South China Sea. A good first step would be to close down the NATO office in Japan and fold up the QUAD project. Also, any revival of Russo-Western arms limitation talks should include China.
More broadly, Trump would do well to float the idea of Washington’s eventual participation in One Belt One Road, proposing construction of a tunnel complex between across the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia and a land transport corridor linking the tunnel with the OBOR’s infrastructure. The overreach driven by American messianism and post-Cold War ‘new world order’ hubris has given birth to a Sino-Russian-led movement against both. We cannot defeat nor should we endeavour to do so. Rather, in the spirit of an old American exprerssion, if we cannot beat them, then we should join them. Thereby, we can influence them and convince them of our ‘better angels’ to the peace and prosperity of all.
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*The US media’s attempts to muddy the waters also touched Russia affairs, as The Washington Post published a false report that Trump had called Putin and threatened him not go too far and also informed Zelenskiy of the call (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/11/10/trump-putin-phone-call-ukraine/). Both the Kremlin and Kiev have denied this (www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-will-discuss-with-trump-top-us-priorities-wednesday-2024-11-10/ and https://ctrana.news/news/475003-putin-i-tramp-ne-hovorili-po-telefonu-kreml.html).
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About the Author –
Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is an Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, www.canalyt.com. Websites: Russian and Eurasian Politics, gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.academia.edu
Dr. Hahn is the author of the new book: Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Thought, Culture, History, and Politics (Europe Books, 2022). He has authored five previous, well-received books: The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland, 2021); Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the “New Cold War” (McFarland, 2018); The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland, 2014), Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), and Russia’s Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction, 2002). He also has published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media.
Dr. Hahn taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and was a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group.