By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
Why Trump had and still has, to some extent, the need to present himself as an “antisystemic” friend of peace and even of Russia?
Ours is the age of great confusion. The confusion has various reasons and one among them is the embarrassment caused by the collapse of the two great “progressive” projects of the twentieth century: “Soviet socialism” on the one hand, and the Western welfare state and consumer capitalism on the other (as well as the model of “happy globalization”, “mondialisation heureuse” that followed the fall of “communism”). Today, the very idea of progress that has been central to the whole of modernity has been shaken and has come under intense contestation.
A characteristic of capitalism since the beginning of this system is that it generated its own questioning and denial. It has done this in the form of great revolutions. It promoted and was promoted, especially in its early stages, by ideologies such as humanism, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, which are ultimately not very compatible with what capitalism means, namely the domination of capital. But Capitalism produced also directly its “negation” in the form of socialism and the labor movement. Capitalism itself has been a continuous revolutionary phenomenon, not only in economics, ideas and politics, but also in philosophy, science and art. From the great French Revolution of 1789 and the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels in 1848 to the downhaul of the red flag from the Kremlin in 1991, humanity has experienced an era of continuous, intense, and profound questioning of all its ideas, institutions, and perceptions.
Today, for the first time, the capitalist system appears to be as totalitarian as possible, controlling almost all institutions that could challenge it, taking the form of an “Empire of Finance” whose power often exceeds the “visible” poles of power, such as states, with unprecedented economic, technological and “ideological” power. Control is usually exercised more in the form of “buying”, of giving “material benefits”, and less in the form of persecuting people, at least for the time being, because this can probably change soon in favor of the latter. The challenges to the system appear less at its center and more at its periphery, but those peripheral challenges are essentially defensive in nature and they dont currently propose a profound alternative to global capitalism, which is immersed in multiple crises, the way for instance the Soviet Union proposed after 1917.
Monopolies do not help thinking. Our world is also experiencing an unprecedented retreat of critical thinking in all fields (*). This retreat is facilitated by, and in turn contributes itself to the general spread of confusion.
The collapse of “Soviet socialism” thirty years ago also continues to weigh on global psychology and consciousness, discouraging anyone who aspires to change the world. In this regard, the intellectual and political atmosphere dominating the three decades after the fall of the USSR can be compared to the three decades after Napoleon’s defeat. (Europe had to wait more than three decades after Waterloo to experience a new wave of democratic revolutions in 1848. Russia had also to wait for two and a half decades to begin resisting actively Western offensive, first in Syria and, seven years later, in Ukraine.)
Ideas are “unified” now to the lowest possible denominator and even lower, reflecting the unification of the material basis of the system, i.e. those who control world’s Finance. It seems we entered a state of techno-feudalism, somewhat reminiscent of Marx’s “prophecies” in the Grundrisse
Confusion as a weapon of the system
But confusion is also necessary, and therefore planned and deliberate, due to the totalitarian nature of the plans hatched within the global “ruling class”, at the center of which are those who control global financial capital. Of course, the upper classes of society have always used fraud. But it was much less necessary in the era of the development of productive capitalism than in the era of neoliberalism, and even more so in the era of “Disaster Capitalism”.
Their plan is abominable and therefore “unreportable”. Somewhere somebody reveals a little bit of what the rulers are thinking, as was the case of the despicable Barroso, the former Maoist little man who supported Americans against Europe regarding Iraq and then was chosen to lead the EU to end up at Goldman Sachs, and who said one day that the whole world knows that the next generations will live worse than the present ones! But they usually hide their projects and they must hide them. Like Biden, behind the rhetoric of democracy (no one could think of a more effective slander of democracy than that of the US Democrats claiming it) or the semi fascist nonsense albeit dangerous that Elon Musk (sometimes called “Trump’s Soros,”) spreads every other day. It is indicative of the kind of the new rising Trumpian proto “fascism” that Musk proposed for the post of the President of the European Commission a man who comes as close as possible to their “ideal” of a “man without brain”, pre-human rather than pre-modern, that is, Phidias, an elected MEP from Cyprus
Much more dangerous than Musk’s ideas are the ideas of the Princes of Darkness behind Trump, such as the US oligarch Peter Thiel
Today’s global ruling class is more isolated from society than ever before. They are isolated also from any grand and collective idea about the future of humanity. They don’t represent much more than their enormous Self. They are not just propagating and using confusion. They are also confused themselves. They will use more probably their power to transform their own psychopathology into social pathology.
A penetrating and frightening anatomy of this ruling class can be found in Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, Eyes Wide Shut.
“Anti-systemic” irrationality
As with Hitler in the interwar period, it takes a very large dose of deception, confusion, and irrationality for large masses and entire countries to be deceived and led down the path of “peaceful” or “violent” totalitarianism, fascism, war, and irrationalism.
Especially after September 11, open absurdity has been added to the arsenal of the establishment, which tries to hide the real conspiracies under a supposedly “anti-systemic” cloak by spreading nonsense, absurdities and non-existent conspiracy theories. This way they try to hide the most important of nowadays “conspiracies”, that is the attempt of a very small minority consisting of very wealthy international “oligarchs”, mainly coming from two or three nations, in the overwhelming majority of them, with an inevitably psycho-spiritually disturbed personality, to control and dominate all of humanity, acting as a cancer in its body.
When 9/11 happened, we had a proliferation of dozens of theories, some of which were completely unsubstantiated. The main result of the proliferation was not to ask the basic question: “Why did the American state not act to prevent the attacks, despite a multitude of warnings?” Nor the second, equally fundamental question, “Who benefited from the attacks?” Instead, we discussed whether planes really crashed into the Pentagon or how strong the concrete of the towers was.
Another very important example is the denial of man-made climate change, funded by fossil fuel multinationals to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars annually, which has misled many well-meaning people but lacking in solid scientific education and culture. But there are also dozens of other examples.
In this way, and because the (radical) left is in the “ruinous” state that we know, the questioning and the revolt that the system itself inevitably generates under Biden, Scholz or Macron is very often not directed and does not strengthen a concerted effort for the necessary social change, but is diffused without effect or strengthens supposedly “anti-systemic” movements of the far right. This is also what happened grosso modo in the intra war period.
The result, combined with the absence of a coherent, serious international left force that can credibly challenge the currently dominant system of “Disaster Capitalism,” propose a socialist alternative and organize the struggles of the popular classes and nations, is the passivity of the people, especially those who lack serious political education and experience in participating in social movements, their inability to resist forces that seem almost omnipotent and capable of acting in ways that are incomprehensible to ordinary mortals, and, finally, the “assignment” of the task of addressing social problems to right-wing extremist movements such as “Trumpism” or “Le Penism”. The Germans wanted to make a revolution, but they did not dare to do so and assigned it to Hitler, wrote Wilhelm Reich, one of the most profound analysts of the Nazi phenomenon. Other people turn to metaphysics, to the search for an individual, personal solution, or to metaphysics and religious movements such as the Evangelical International – which is in fact an international led by and in the service of Zionism.
A spiritual chaos prepares the ground for the coming of a world Dictator
It is good to remember that the Germans voted for Hitler not for what he intended to do but because he appeared to be a patriot and a socialist, a national socialist. They also voted for him because, in the face of a very deep crisis, they were offered no other credible alternative, either by the bourgeois capitalist establishment of Germany, or by its vast socialist and communist movements, which in fact avoided fighting to prevent Hitler’s rise to power.
By analogy, for the same deeper reasons and in a similar way, the extreme right is developing today in the West, represented by currents such as that of Benjamin Netanyahu, master of deception, one of the most, if not the most powerful and influential politician today in the entire “collective West”, of Donald Trump or of Marine Le Pen.
“Globalizers” are not the only imperialists
The far Right is needed for the transition from the previous system of imperialist domination (Globalization) to another system of imperialist domination (nationalist and even leaning to open fascism).
Some time, not always, some far right forces in the West (which includes Israel) seem to be pro Russian. They seem but they are not. For example, in the past Trump was elected with the massive help from Israeli agents while everybody was speaking of the supposed Russian help he received. Trump himself did nothing to counter the impression (accusation) he was “Putin’s man”. Strangely enough for a “Putin’s man” his administration armed Ukraine to the teeth, has presided over a huge program of modernization of US nuclear weapons and has rescinded the INF nuclear arms control treaty, among many others not very peace friendly or Russia friendly acts and policies
The social nature of the forces behind western far right have organic, systemic reasons for wishing to dismantle strong autonomous states such as Russia, Iran, China and of course groups like the BRICS (to the extent that the latter develop into an alternative pole of power). Even if they appear here and there as “peace-loving” or “pro-Russian”, even if they appear friendly on some issues, they will do so only to manoeuver, to gain time, to prepare the counter-attack from better positions.
A classic, historic example was Hitler who, not only appeared as a pro-Russian force (while his main purpose from the beginning was to attack Soviet Russia, the famous Drang Nach Osten of German imperialism), but went so far as to conclude an alliance with the USSR two years before attacking it! Of course, events never repeat themselves in exactly the same form, but knowledge of history and the use of the method of historical analogy are essential to judge political currents and leaders.
The strategic role of the Western extreme right was, is and can only be to prepare the ideological, material and political conditions for the Great War that will come if we do not stop the leading classes of the West with strong, global mass action. A great war of which the conflict in Ukraine and the massacre in Palestine are only the general test and premonition, the introduction to what is coming. This is the general strategic perspective. But of course it does not mean that in the mean time various centers of Imperialism cannot conclude “peace agreements” of different sorts and we cannot be indifferent to such “overtures”. But they will be and they cannot but temporary.
Like the First and Second World Wars, like the Cold War, wars do not arise from some “nationalist” or “fascist” or any other ideology. Ideologies are invited to justify wars, not vice versa. Ideologies are mobilized and used to justify policies that arise from the organic need of capitalism and imperialism to fight today for world domination and to prevent the growth of alternative poles of power.
As for those who want to fight against totalitarianism and imperialism, and the threat of the Great War they are preparing, they must be very careful with the concepts and definitions they use, so as not to unwittingly reinforce the phenomena they want to combat. Seriousness, rationality, critical thinking, science, as well as love and humanity, are the most powerful weapons man has to fight for his freedom. Which means, in our time, with the productive forces and technologies we have, also for his survival.
