January 24, 2025 | Trump’s Revolution, In Context

As you watch Trump shred the old order, are you wondering about this revolution’s historical and philosophical roots? For instance, how does MAGA relate to the Fourth Turning? Or to the deep state? Or the Monroe Doctrine, Woodrow Wilson’s globalism, George Soros’ “open society?” or Klaus Schwab’s one world government?

Could you, in short, use a little context?

What follows isn’t a little context, but a lot. Political scientist Alexander Dugin has written a long article that ties Trump, MAGA, and the failing neo-liberal order into the broader worlds of history and political thought. The more understandable this revolution becomes, the more interesting (and consequential) it seems.

One caveat: Dugin came up through the Soviet system and seems to miss it. So read this not as the final word on the subject but as useful background.

Some bite-sized excerpts from Dugin’s article:

The Deep State and the History of American Ascendancy

Since the 1990s, [US global] dominance has increasingly taken the form of left-liberal ideology. Its formula combines the interests of major international capital and progressive individualistic culture. This strategy was most fully embraced by the Democratic Party, and among Republicans, it was supported by the “neocons.” Its core idea was the belief in a linear and continuous growth trajectory: of the American economy, the global economy, and the planetary spread of liberalism and liberal values.

It appeared that all the states and societies of the world had adopted the American model — political representative democracy, a capitalist market economy, an individualistic and cosmopolitan ideology of human rights, digital technologies, and Western-centric postmodern culture. The U.S. deep state embraced this agenda and acted as its guarantor, ensuring its realization.

Samuel Huntington and the Invitation to Adjust the Course

As early as the beginning of the 1990s, some American intellectuals began to voice concerns about the long-term viability of this approach. The clearest articulation of these concerns came from Samuel Huntington, who predicted a “clash of civilizations,” the rise of multipolarity, and the eventual crisis of Western-centric globalization.

Huntington proposed strengthening American identity and consolidating other Western societies within a single — no longer global but regional — Western civilization.

However, at that time, this perspective was dismissed as overly cautious by most. The deep state fully supported the optimists of the “end of history,” such as Huntington’s main intellectual opponent, Francis Fukuyama.

This explains the continuity in U.S. presidential policy from Clinton, Bush, and Obama to Biden, with Trump’s first term being an anomaly. Both Democrats and Republicans — exemplified by George W. Bush among the Republicans — expressed the unified political and ideological strategy of the deep state: globalism, liberalism, unipolarity, and hegemony.

However, from the early 2000s, this globalist optimism began to face serious challenges.

• Russia, under Vladimir Putin, ceased blindly following the U.S. lead and began strengthening its sovereignty. This became particularly evident after Putin’s Munich speech in 2007, the events in Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and especially the beginning of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in 2022. All of this ran entirely counter to the plans of the globalists.
• China, especially under Xi Jinping, began pursuing an independent policy, benefiting from globalization while imposing strict limits when its logic conflicted with China’s national interests or threatened its sovereignty.
• In the Islamic world, sporadic protests against the West grew — ranging from aspirations for greater independence to outright rejection of imposed liberal values.
• In India, with the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right-wing nationalists and traditionalists came to power.
• Anti-colonial sentiments surged in Africa, and countries in Latin America began increasingly asserting their independence from the U.S. and the West as a whole.
• This culminated in the formation of BRICS as a prototype for a multipolar international system that operates largely independently of the West.

The American deep state faced a serious dilemma: should it continue to insist on its agenda while ignoring the growing antagonistic trends, attempting to suppress them through information dominance, leading narratives, and outright censorship in the media and social networks? Or should it acknowledge these trends and seek new responses by adjusting its foundational strategy to a reality increasingly at odds with the subjective assessments of some American analysts?

Trump and the Deep State

Globalists expected the establishment of a world government, as openly advocated by Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, and George Soros. In this vision, all the world’s people become global citizens with equal rights within a unified economic, technological, cultural, and social framework. Tools for this process, or the “Great Reset,” include pandemics and environmental agendas.

For Trumpism, all of this is completely unacceptable. Instead, it advocates the preservation of nation-states or their integration into civilizations — at least within the context of Western civilization, where the U.S. takes the lead. But this leadership no longer rests on the banner of liberal globalist ideology; rather, it is based on Trumpism’s values. This closely resembles Huntington’s original argument for consolidating the West in opposition to other civilizations.

The Dismantling of Globalist Regimes in Europe

One of the most astonishing developments, which has already perplexed the West, is the speed with which Trumpists— without yet fully consolidating power — have begun implementing their program internationally. For instance, starting in December 2024, Elon Musk launched active campaigns on his platform X to displace leaders unfavorable to the new “Trumpist” United States.

Previously, this was the domain of Soros-backed globalist structures. Musk, wasting no time, has begun executing similar strategies, but this time in support of anti-globalist and populist leaders in Europe, such as Germany’s Alice Weidel (Alternative for Germany), Britain’s Nigel Farage, and France’s Marine Le Pen.

Denmark’s government, which resisted the idea of ceding Greenland, and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who opposed his country becoming the 51st U.S. state, have also come under Musk’s intense scrutiny.

European globalists, who represent the remnants of the old network, are bewildered and have voiced opposition to the U.S.’s direct interference in European politics. In response, Musk and the Trumpists reasonably pointed out that no one objected to Soros’ interference — so now it’s their turn. They argue that if the U.S. is the master of the world, then Europe should obediently follow Washington, just as it did under Obama, Biden, and Soros — that is, under the deep state.

There’s much more here.

John Rubino January 24th, 2025

Posted In: John Rubino Substack

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