Month: August 2025

The Trump Trajectory

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People talked about the “Reagan Revolution.”  I guess it was a conscious effort to leave the malaise of the 1970s behind.  It rejected the pessimism that grew out of the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Oil Crisis and the general chaos that was spawned during the 1960s counterculture.  Reagan said that pessimism was unfounded and that America was ready to become “that shining city on a hill” that it was meant to be.

And to some extent, the booming 1980s sort of proved him right.  The hippies became yuppies and made a killing on Wall Street.  And away we went.  Of course that wasn’t all of it.  Reagan was followed by Bush senior and Clinton and Bush junior and all of them pushed agendas that didn’t include the long-range prosperity of the bulk of the American people.  They were intent on a “new world order” and getting their slice of the pie under the table.  So, the Reagan revolution didn’t end up with all of us living on that shining city on the hill.  Most of us ended up on the other side of the tracks and broke.

And that brings us to MAGA.  It’s sort of the Reagan Revolution 2.0 without the PG rating that 1940s Hollywood lent to Reagan.  We’ve got Donald Trump running this train and he’s got more of an R rating vibe to him.  But then again, in the age we’re in that doesn’t seem shocking or even surprising.  But what it does leave us to wonder about is where do we end up?  There were, are and probably always will be very powerful interest groups that are constantly lobbying for the federal government to do their bidding.  Arms dealers and hedge funds and pharmaceutical companies are constantly jockeying for Congress and the President to buy their weapons or approve their drug or pass a law to lock in their profits.  And all of these decisions could be detrimental to the future of you and yours.  Currently Donald Trump is calling the shots and he’s sticking it to the globalists and the Deep State and doing everything he can to make the job environment better for the middle and working classes of this country.  And I think this will re-ignite some of the optimism, opportunity and affluence that we saw and felt in the 1980s and 1990s.  And that’s wonderful.  So many of the young are hanging on by a thread and need some good times to help them catch up and live middle-class lives again.

But what comes after Trump?  Let’s be optimistic and say that by 2028 Trump has managed to hang onto his control and sparks a boom economy.  And because of that JD Vance gets catapulted into the White House.  Will he have the vision it takes to prevent the same kind of shenanigans that Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama and Biden allowed to happen?  I don’t know if he has the same kind of smarts that Trump has.  I’m not saying he’s dumb.  He seems eloquent and sharp.  But is he enough of a hustler to know when someone is trying to hustle him?  Because I think that’s what it comes down to.  Now the good thing is that Vance used to be a working class (at best) guy.  He may have a loyalty to the shlubs.  But can he out hustle all those crooks in DC?

And I think that is what it all comes down to.  Will JD Vance and Peter Thiel and Elon Musk throw in with us instead of Raytheon, Blackrock and Pfizer?  That’s the bottom line.  And can the majority of voters in this country throw in with them or will they instead vote for the next Mamdani or whatever communist flim-flam man comes down the pike next.  In other words, are Americans smart enough to vote for their own long-term interests.

That’s what I wonder.

What Have We Got to Lose?

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This week Donald Trump has a meeting in Alaska with Vladimir Putin.  I find this intriguing.  And not because I believe they are on the cusp of agreeing to the end of the Ukraine war.  Far from it.  Ukraine and Russia are killing each other there at an industrial scale and there does not seem to be an end in sight.  So that doesn’t seem to be on the agenda.

And maybe that’s the point.  I think both men are getting together despite knowing that no peace deal is currently possible.  So why are they getting together?  I’m not really sure of the answer but maybe it’s because they both know they are in a sort of unique position.  I think that maybe both of them want to find a way out of this nightmare and maybe they figure if they meet up without those in their orbits who want to keep the war going forever, that maybe they can figure something out that would satisfy both sides.

I know that Trump doesn’t want any part of this war but the neo-cons are very powerful in the Congress and even to some extent in his administration.  As for Putin, he’s in a million dead Russians so he can’t just walk away.  And even if he could there are a lot of Russians in Ukraine and he’s carving out a homeland for them.

But all and still, there may be a way to move this thing forward so that the killing stops.  And maybe that’s why both of them are there.  Trump’s whole persona is “the art of the deal.”  He probably figures it couldn’t hurt to talk to the other head honcho.  It’s not as if he’s afraid the other guy will talk him into a bad deal.  So how could it hurt?

Of course, if the two of them walk away accomplishing absolutely nothing and can’t even come up with some story about how these are the “first steps toward peace” then it will look like a loss for Trump.  And Trump must know this.  So, he must think there is something to be gained that outweighs that risk.  And that’s what intrigues me.  Could both of them be there for entirely the right reasons?  Could these two supremely egotistical and cynical men be getting together because they want to change the trajectory of the world?  Because if you think about it, they’re the only two men on this planet who have the authority and clout to actually do it.  Between the two of them, they control about 90% of the nuclear weapons on the planet and between the two of them they control some enormous amount of the resources (both natural and financial) of the planet.  Now certainly, both of them are constrained by the political systems they exist in.  Believe it or not Putin is considered a moderate in his regime structure and Trump has to deal with the military-industrial complex that is still insanely powerful.

But they still are the chief executive officers of two very, very powerful entities.  And imagine if the reason they are going to meet is to try and untangle the conflagration that Biden and the neo-cons has allowed to engulf us.  Maybe they can find a path.  Or maybe it’s hopeless.  But I give them both credit for trying.  What have we got to lose?