Resegregation at Home and Recolonization Abroad
The agenda of the Project 2025-Trump regime couldn't be clearer
I don't need to lecture you, dear reader, I need only hand you the keys that will clarify what you already, in your perceptive wisdom, suspect.
Voters cast their ballots for a variety of reasons, but this past election was not about Trump. It wasn’t about Biden or Harris either. It also was not about inflation, abortion, or the economy, and much less about trans people and immigration than has been widely asserted.
This election, like all elections, was about power, both tangible and perceived power. Understanding power and the different approaches to power relations is one of the keys to understanding what’s going on right now in the US. It takes a book to fully explain that, which is why I wrote one.
Left Wing, Right Wing, People, and Power
The Core Dynamics of Political Action
Trump Is Largely Irrelevant
Seriously. Trump has no plan and no goals or desires beyond puerile ego gratification. That's why he's a useful idiot. While people watch the clown, those who do have a plan and goals can pickpocket Americans.
What's the plan? What's the goal? Whose plan and goals? The open secret of this election was Project 2025 — the detailed scheme for a corporate takeover of the Federal government with the supporting effort of appeasement of the reactionary base.
every action the new regime has taken was dictated by Project 2025’s manifesto. That is, everything except Trump’s inane blatherings about Greenland, which are most likely designed to be a distraction from the actual agenda.
Trump is a side show. Elon Musk is a freak show. Those are the distractions from the actual agenda: a right-wing counteroffensive against the power gains Americans have achieved over the past 70 years.
There are two prongs to the Project 2025 attack on America: resegregation at home and recolonization abroad. Segregation and colonialism are the two prongs in the fork of American nationalism — that particular brand of right wing ideology that has been woven into the fabric of America since its founding.
Why Trump?
Why Some People Support Him — How the Rest of Us Can Respond
When most people hear the word “segregation,” they understandably think of the Southern US’s racial segregation. But that was only one part of the structural injustices built into American society. We should not diminish in any way the centuries of exploitation and violence against Black people, but we also need to acknowledge that other groups of people were denied full status in the US. The right wing wants to restore those denials. All of them.
Worldwide, and throughout history, the right wing has been the push to concentrate power into a segregated two-tiered society. What was true in ancient Athens was true in medieval feudalism and modern totalitarianism — power was/is concentrated in one class that has power over others. To say that isn’t Marxist; it’s recognizing reality.
Another historical reality is that not everyone has gone along with that concentration of power.
That fight back has always been there, usually as rebellion for the sake of survival. In the 1700s the idea of changing society away from the concentration of power was called “republicanism,” meaning removing the power structure of monarchy and replacing it with a republic in which power is more circulated among people. Yes, the word “republican” is now rather misused in the US.
By the early 1800s, the push for greater circulation of power became known as being left wing. The push to retain concentration of power in a few became known as being right wing. Those definitions are still accurate, even though the meanings of “left wing” and “right wing” have have been muddied by the media landscape and political propaganda.
In the 1900s, labor unions, the Civil Rights Movement, feminism, and LGB rights movement, among others, struggled for the recognition of people disempowered by segregation. These were/are left-wing movements that push for greater circulation of power. These movements empowered many people but angered some people who prefer the segregation and two-tiered society that favored them. These latter people want to reverse the trend toward greater circulation of power and return to the two-tiered America they prefer.
Make America Feudalist Again
The current US Republican Party is nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else than a push to return the US to a hard right-wing two-tiered state. It’s about power, the power to resegregate America and return it to an empire. Realizing this is the other key to understanding what’s going on right now in the US.
Diversity, equality, inclusion. Those aren’t ideals, those are the central principles of a just society. But those principles are precisely what the right wing is against. “Anti-DEI” is thinly veiled code for desiring structural injustice.
Domestically, the corporatists behind Project 2025 and the MAGA reactionaries want to restore segregation. The unholy alliance of conservatives, libertarians, and reactionaries desire a neo-fuedalist state in which power is concentrated in an elite class that has the power to re-establish segregation. This attack aims to remove Blacks and women from jobs, and also to suppress free expression and communication, for example, banning books featuring nonwhites and nonheteronormative people, among other things. That IS what they mean by making America great again.
In terms of foreign policy, the MAGA reactionaries just want nonwhite immigrants removed, but the corporatists behind Project 2025 want something more. They want a return to the ultimate right wing concentration of power — colonialism. Their vision of making America great again is returning to the idea of empire, the Monroe Doctrine, and the libertarian ideal of American corporations being allowed free rein to plunder resources and exploit people.
Why the US demand for Ukraine to fork over much of its mineral wealth? Trump will say it’s the “art of the deal” when all it is is extortion in service of colonialism. Why tariffs? They’re a form of mercantilism that seeks to assert economic dominance over domestic consumers and foreign companies. Why threaten to pull out of NATO? To change transatlantic relations from partnership to American supremacy by way of isolationism — seeing America as too pure to be sullied by being involved with the rest of the nations as equals.
Using the Keys
I recommend interpreting each and every action the current Project 2025-Trump regime by employing these two keys: that the right wing is about increasing the concentration of power and that the current American right wing has the goals of resegregation and recolonization. These keys unlock the door to understanding what’s going on right now in the US. In turn, that understanding will empower you toward defending yourself, America, and the world.
The New Project 2025-Trump Regime Means My Books Are More Relevant Than Ever
You can’t fight an enemy you don’t understand
One word: populism. Have you ever written about accelerationism..? I really want to know your perspective!
I was just noting elsewhere that the corporate buy up of small rental and farm properties has a distinctly feudal feel to it…