Where Trump May Have it Right

Politicians across the globe comment on Trump’s win in different, but invariably hopeful tones, while the appointment of the Secretary of State who will deal with them remains up in the air: will it be the uber-hawk John Bolton, former US Ambassador to the UN under President Bush, or someone who would agree with Ron Paul, that America should not be the world’s policeman? Since the American public is deprived of information regarding the Russian President’s world view, they probably do not realize that Trump is getting it right when he agrees to meet Vladimir Putin.

Decades ago, I wrote that the only thing the white world can do, given that it accounts for at most 20% of the world’s inhabitants, is to make the transition to non-white majority rule as painless as possible. Starting in the late nineteenth century, convinced of its enduring superiority, ‘the North’ set about ‘civilizing’ what I call the ‘honey-colored world’. White colonists emigrated to conquered countries, imposing their principles and customs. Now, formerly conquered peoples are seeking refuge from the ravages of that process by emigrating to the countries of their conquerors. Somewhat irrationally, the white world expects the new arrivals to adopt its lifestyles, in yet another example of hubris. (The first hubris being the conviction that those lifestyles were superior…).

Meanwhile, the Russian president’s nationalist ethos goes hand in hand with his campaign for a multi-polar world that goes beyond a desire to pull the rug out from under US hegemony. For the ‘poles’ the Russian leader is talking about are China (non-white), India (non-white) Africa (non-white) Russia/Europe and the Western Hemisphere (white).

As outlined in the European New Right Manifesto, there is a growing dissatisfaction — even desperation — in the West with the lifestyle built on the backs of its conquered peoples, even as these latter are increasingly determined to impose their lifestyles on the countries in which they seek refuge. Drawn to a ‘shining city upon a hill’ which some imagine paved with gold, they discover that in their pursuit of that ‘gold’, their hosts forfeited values they consider fundamental. When pressed to abandon them, they cling to them, while fanatical brothers dispense with the niceties, determined to force them upon the West.  

Having naively believed they could manipulate terrorists on the basis of a common fealty to capitalism, Western leaders learned nothing from 9/11. In 2013, I posted an article titled The US Chooses Capitalist Muslims on my website, Otherjones. In her recent book Behind the US-Saudi Connection, Medea Benjamin, founder of the anti-war organization Code Pink writes: “Curiously, while Saudi religious authorities are obsessed with modesty, this doesn’t translate into calls for simple lifestyles. Massive malls full of brand name stores are a Saudi staple.”

Globalization demands unbridled consumerism which, while involving the ‘ideal’ family, works to destroy it encouraging lone occupations, to the detriment of community. Growing numbers of Europeans and Americans are rejecting globalization on these grounds, not to mention its contribution to climate change. Unfortunately, due to zero reporting of the Russian President’s platform (to the advantage of imaginary actions such as an ‘invasion’ of Crimea or the Donbass), they do not realize that they have an ally in Vladimir Putin.  His condemnations of the ‘Western degeneracy’ imitated by Pussy Rioters desecrating a cathedral, or same sex marriage that competes with traditional families, are quoted snidely. But the many aspects of post-modernism are important to President Putin’s worldview. 

A century ago, intellectuals sided with workers and peasants against owners of factories and land, while today they increasingly denounce the disastrous effects of modernity. In that context, the nationalism of the European New right recognizes equal rights for all the world’s diverse peoples, convinced they can live in harmony on the world stage when each has a home. This is a much more sophisticated and left-leaning version of the American South’s ‘separate but equal’ that has lead to the Alt Right that is suddenly in the headlines with the election of Donald Trump. 

We have to hope he will be able to convince these followers that it’s useless to attack those who have the numbers on their side, but that Caucasians can ensure their share of leadership via Vladimir Putin’s multi-polar condominium.

The Russian president’s nationalism goes hand in hand with his campaign for a multi-polar world that goes beyond a desire to pull the rug out from under US hegemony.

For the ‘poles’ the Russian leader envisages are China (non-white), India (non-white) Africa (non-white) Russia/Europe and the Western Hemisphere (white).

As for those of us who would have preferred Bernie to Hillary, we can expect the world to be more a peaceful place when US-led globalization is replaced by multi-polarity.