Trump the Destroyer

Great American Hope or harbinger of the end of the World?

What does Trump 2.0 mean?

Those who idolize him see him as the Great American Saviour, chosen by God Himself after an assassination attempt to get rid of the “Deep State” and lead America into a new Golden Age.

Those who hate him see in him an anti-progressive monster bent on destroying the lives of immigrants, transexuals, women and LGBTQ children of color.

And there's a minority who see him as a Judas’ goat, or, if you will, even an “anti-Christ” figure, whose main purpose is to lead Americans to new wars in the Middle East for Israel, and from then perhaps even to the end of the world.

But who is he, really?

Good Cop, or Bad Cop?

I think he is neither. I think he is an actor playing a role.

Let's look and compare his official portraits, the one from 2016 and the current one, clearly modelled on his mugshot.

For the past four years, Trump played the role of a maverick ex-president persecuted by the “Deep State" in all kinds of ways. And I don’t know if the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania was real or fake, but it was a very strange event that looked as if it was part of the campaign, complete with photo-op and everything.

But whether it was real or not, it certainly reinforced the view of Trump as someone who is heavily persecuted by the “Deep State”.

But what if there was no “Deep State", or, rather, what if the “Deep State” was also supporting Trump?

Everyone expected Trump to turn against China, to continue the enmity with Russia and Iran and to continue supporting Israel. This will indeed likely happen (although perhaps not so much now on the Russian front right now).

But what was quite unexpected was his sharp turn against the supposed allies Canada and the EU, with tariffs used as political tools, and the intention of grabbing Greenland. His comments about “owning Gaza” were also baffling. And his recent public spat with Zelensky was something extraordinary too, to say the least.

But Trump has a long history of outrageous comments and acts that end up in nothing. In fact most of the tariffs have already been postponed, the deportations of illegals (of which much was made during the first weeks) have already dwindled to insignificant numbers, and in Gaza, so far, nothing has changed on the ground. In Ukraine, too, nothing much seems to have changed yet besides a reshuffling of the cards, despite the theatrical discussion at the White House.

Remember the Wall with Mexico and the Muslim ban, from 2016? Same old, same old.

Operation Mars?

I didn't watch the inauguration, but there some strange elements there, starting with Melania's weird comic villain hat and the two books she was holding but which Trump didn't touch (I guess one was the Bible, but what was the other one?) and ending with Trump and Musk talking about Mars.

Since the last time humans (supposedly…) landed on the Moon was back in 1972 and never went back, I doubt we will be heading to Mars, except through CGI and AI. But in Greek/Roman mythology Mars is the God of War, and perhaps this is the meaning intended?

Trump has already said that he left instructions to “obliterate Iran" in case he is assassinated, which is a very strange thing to say. So it might be that the whole thing is just a prelude to war with Iran?

It's not the economy, stupid

On the economic front, Trump was supposed to be “good for the economy", as Republicans tend to do better there than Democrats, but so far, things are not looking very good. The stock market is going down, inflation is increasing with egg prices through the roof (but not only), and the proposed tariffs used as political tools are annoying almost everyone. Even Bitcoin is down now.

As Oscar Wilde, or maybe somebody else, said, “It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future", and, contrary to most political pundits, I have no crystal ball.

It is possible that some good things will come out of it. (RFK? Or is that another deception?) Just turning back the pendulum from the extreme social changes of the Biden years would be an improvement.

But I am not very optimistic that things will change very much for the better, or maybe I have just become cynical with age.

We shall see.