Seven Lessons Trump Learned, Incompletely

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Trump learned Washington is filled with personal and organizational enemies. Rather than understanding that people may hate him and institutions may fear him, he lumps them together. Personalizing his individual and institutional enemies as demonic, he fails to focus on their various systemic weaknesses, and how to exploit those weaknesses. If MAGA is truly a war against the Deep State, it deserves a war-oriented strategy. Trump must understand the logistics of the enemy – how the deep state army is fed, watered, armed, and trained. Instead he seeks “friendly” allies among the deep state, trading favors as seen with his endorsement of House Speaker Mike Johnson in order to be certified quickly. Will Trump’s cultivation of an accidental speaker – one not interested in cutting spending, or ensuring Congress does its Constitutional duty – lead to a single MAGA victory, or will it instead guarantee its failure?

If Trump wanted to achieve a constitutional and solvent America, he would seek counsel from congressmen and senators like Thomas Massie and Rand Paul, both of whom share his stated goals of constitutionalizing Washington and both of whom know the system far better than Trump and advisors. But Trump is not seeking such counsel.

Second, Trump has correctly learned many federal agencies are unnecessary, over-funded, extra-constitutional and out of control. He has also learned how to dissolve failing businesses via sale or bankruptcy. Accordingly, instead of vacating, defunding, and eradicating “low-hanging fruit” agencies, he has nominated agency heads to “lead the dissolution.” These potential appointees are excellent leaders; and their natural inclination will be to “fix” the agency they rule, rather than delete it.

Trump is rumored to seek “privatization” the USPS, but much like his endorsement of Speaker Johnson, this would be costly. The USPS reports “The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.” This same report also states that in 2023 it lost $6.5 Billion, despite “making” $56 Billion in 2022. How the Post Office can sustain annual losses in the billions is a good question, but how did it “net” $56 Billion in 2022? Because of a congressional bailout, which is to say a taxpayer-funded bailout. The USPS will need another bailout or funds infusion sometime during the second Trump era and because Trump sees the USPS firmly as a government interest, they will get it. Instead of a privatization project that keeps government “businesses” subsidized – why not simply deregulate all letter and package services, eliminate the USPS monopoly on First Class mail, and require 100% self-support, including its retirement programs? As he clearly showed us with the Johnson endorsement, Trump is a bricklayer, not an architect.

Third, Trump learned the Pentagon will not obey orders, and will directly lie to the President. However, he seems to think this means he as President should “run” the Pentagon and “make it obey.” Like many people who have not served in the military, Trump retains a deep-seated awe and unwarranted respect for it, and the people inside it. Having military men and women in his cabinet, like Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth, who have seen the dark side of Pentagon arrogance and stupidity, is a good thing – but he reveals his true deference for the military industrial complex with his other appointments, including those purported peacemakers in hotspots like Ukraine and Israel. Retired Lt General Keith Kellogg is a great example – he’s 80 years old, with more of his working life before the Cold War than after, more USSR than Russian Federation. Kellogg, as NSC Director under Trump 45, was LTC Alexander Vindman’s boss, when the latter actively tried to impeach Trump over a phone call Vindman didn’t like. Kellogg was “chosen” after he presented a “Ukrainian Peace Plan” to Trump. WTF? If ending a simmering potentially nuclear war with Russia is important, as Trump promised his supporters it was, why would you choose Kellogg as your lead guy? You wouldn’t want Dr Jeffrey Sachs, or Colonel Douglas MacGregor?

Trump’s Middle East appointments include Eric Trager on the NSC, Steve Witkoff as envoy, and Huckabee as US Ambassador to Israel, among others, meaning MAGA really meant MZGA. This is a dedicated pro-war diplomatic front, and pro-genocide as well.

Incidentally Trump just shared a great video of Sachs explaining Syria accurately and succinctly, so he can’t claim ignorance.

Fourth, Trump learned US foreign policy has been counterproductive and costly, and Trump celebrates his past presidency as one that didn’t pursue war. But did Trump pay attention to the fundamental reasons that the US has been at nearly nonstop war? Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve, wars on countries and “ideas” have been easy to fund, consistently a waste of lives and credibility, and hard to end. The lesson Trump has taken, if his current proposals to buy Denmark, take back Panama, and absorb Canada are considered, is that the US can, and should, be an expansionist empire – not a self-governed Constitutional Republic. If war is needed to do that, so be it. The overarching strategic rationale for expanding the US territory North and south is part and parcel of deep state global war scenarios, as we see in Biden’s fiat seizure of territory in December 2023. We “strategically need” Canada, Greenland, the Arctic, Panama and the canal, and who knows what else so we may engage in global war “better.”

Fifth, Trump has learned the very special power of money in service of the Israeli government. Perhaps his talk of Canada as the 51^st state, and the acquisition of Greenland, is just Trump’s way of downplaying the actual 51^st state, one that overwhelmingly controls the votes of 95% of the House and Senate. It is hard to understand the inordinate devotion and fealty of various Americans, and most of our elected representatives, to the unhinged expansionist and racist desires of 7 million Zionists in Israel, and their guilt-driven American counterparts. Not everyone in Israel is influencing our Congress and media; we hear little from the 2.3 million non-Jews in Israel proper or the over 5 million Palestinians and Arabs living under Israeli occupation. It’s as if Tennessee, a state with about 7.3 million residents, suddenly became the power behind the Congress and the White House, and whatever Tennessee legislators wanted, they got, often behind closed doors. Oh, that it should be Tennessee! But even if it was Massachusetts, a similarly populated state, it would be clear to all that something wasn’t right. Trump has yet to learn how radically incompatible America First is with Zionism.

Sixth, Trump learned what bankruptcy looks like, and he understands personal and business debt. Accordingly, he believes debt should be repaid, and borrowing should be rational not magical. Sadly, the lessons he has learned are not appropriate for, and do not translate to, US government debt. The Federal Reserve creates imaginary money, and this debt must – and eventually will – be repudiated. Repudiation of the debt will collapse many institutions in the US, and its resolution will follow the pattern set forth by David Rogers Webb in The Great Taking. Trump, instead, validates the $41 trillion debt (and the other $100 Trillion plus in unfunded liabilities) and intends to grow a state that can “pay it back” by creating economic value in America through tariff-driven counter-intuitive regeneration of American industry and productivity – debunked well by Mises Institute’s Mark Thornton. At the same time, Trump imagines increasing the natural resource asset base by placing Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal under US command – increasing the government’s new “borrowing” capacity even though that capacity has always been irrelevant to Federal Reserve conjurers.

Is it better that the American empire seize new resources and territory by threat and payoffs rather than the normal way nations repudiate their debt, through war with its foreign debtors and on its own citizens? Hillary Clinton’s “what difference does it make” comes to mind here.

The seventh lesson Trump has learned relates to the CIA and the surveillance state, and he appears to have learned the wrong one – unless that lesson is if you wish to remain a living President, you must be seen as complying with CIA demands and desires. Trump may well be the president who completes JFK’s vision of the total destruction of this venal, unnecessary and unconstitutional agency, but don’t bet on it. Trump’s evident support of a strengthened, more powerful and openly domestically-operating CIA is shocking. Will he declassify all the remaining CIA files on the JFK assassination immediately, and expose the CIA’s black budgets and operations? Or will he continue to grow the CIA at home and abroad as a “useful” arm of the warfare state?

Trump sees personal enemies rather than systemic adversaries, considers state power at home and abroad a “national good” and believes the government debt Ponzi scheme is upright and honorable. He seeks to build out the nation and its influence when his voters passionately demanded he break down the state, and let freedom reign. The lessons Mr. Trump has misunderstood, misremembered and completely failed all lead to more state power, less freedom, and ultimately more economic and military war – foisted energetically on the populist voters who elected him, and everyone else.