Unraveling of America

The rise of fanatics

America is undergoing a fundamental transformation of its political, economic and social system. US system hitherto in last century or so can be described in three phases. The first phase was breakdown crisis of self regulating markets and the great depression. This phase included recovery of America with New Deal reforms of market economy and government realizing its crucial role in managing economic demand. This phase also included competent, intellectual and visionary political leadership that managed America with proficiency. This phase can be described from mid 1930s to mid 1960s, all the way from Presidency of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower to JFK. This phase solidified America as a global industrial and economic superpower after defeat of Axis nations in World war 2.

The second phase of America can be described with its Neoliberal turn that began in late 1960s with economic policy tilting towards Chicago school & monetarism and later Reaganomics. And its foreign policy turn that began with Vietnam war and strengthening of undue influence of Defense industrial complex and BLOB on US politics. This phase can be described starting from late 1960s up until 1991. This Neoliberal economic turn entailed de-industrialization of America, off-shoring of factories and outsourcing of jobs, withdrawal of government participation in economy, falling standards of living of common people, upsurge in inequality and decline in wage share of national income for most of the population.

Politically, this second phase entailed the rise of political cretinism, diversionary politics, rube bait issues (Guns, gays, gods, race, abortion) and dumbing down of electorate. The intellectual quality and competence of political elites declined massively and even greater was intellectual decline of collective society. People were distracted away from bread & butter issues and diverted towards rube bait issues, identity politics and southern strategy. Politicians like Nixon, Reagan, Carter, Kissinger, Bush Sr. etc were political elites of this era.

The third phase of American contemporary history entailed global push of economic and military doctrine after the end of cold war and collapse of USSR. This entailed the rise of Washington consensus, US unipolar order hegemony, hyper financialization and hyper globalization of Wall Street and US imposing its policies across the world either through brute force or through institutions like IMF & World Bank. This period can be described as period between 1992 and up until 2015. This was a period of US induced cataclysm on the world with endless long wars, military adventures to export democracy abroad and economically the world derivatives panic, the collapse of finance capitalism. The finance capitalism was however resurrected by Trillions of dollars of bailouts to Wall Street financial institutions.

The standards of living of American public was declining since phase 2 and this accelerated during phase 3. Millions of people lost their homes due to housing & small business foreclosures, personal bankruptcies, wiping out of personal savings, long term unemployment and even more aggravation of inequality. The intellect of American society was destroyed due to endless war propaganda, falling standards of living, social insecurity due foreclosures & bankruptcies (GFC era) and institutionalized lies by the media and government. Neocons and ‘Wall Street Democrats’, politicians like Bush Jr, Dick Cheney, Obama and Clintons ruled during this third phase of America.

The new Phase - Rise of fanatical plutocrats

Plutocracy has been around since many decades and centuries. In last several decades, the plutocracy became more entrenched and powerful as concentration of wealth & capital accumulated in the hands of small number of people. In Hobbes leviathan, the government with all its power was regarded as leviathan. In present age, the government in on itself is impotent. Today, the real power lies with plutocrats and oligarchs who own the government, who own the capital - the means of production & employment, who own the media (& internet), who finance politicians and give platform to leaders.

Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Jeff Bezos are the leviathans of today. People like Elon Musk are not just any ordinary breed of billionaires. Oligarchs have been around since centuries. Big moneyed interests have long been meddling in politics but they usually operated discreetly in the shadows, never giving their face to political government. The plutocrats of the past were driven by motives of greed and primitive accumulation. But that has now changed and what we have today is a new breed of ‘fanatic oligarchs’. Oligarchs that are brazenly interfering in politics, oligarchs that are maniacs & adventurers, Oligarchs who have fanatical will to achieve fanatical goals. Goal of these fanatics is not just basic greed but also a madness to do outrageous things and their belief in absolute certainty of their plans.

Fanatic Tech Billionaire Elon Musk is projected as real life Tony Stark by Trump regime

For example, the idea of $2 Trillion cut in government spending, elimination or downsizing of critical institutions like Department of education, environmental protection agency etc and restructuring FBI, Department of Justice, health & human services and other critical agencies. The plans like cutting 75% of federal government bureaucracy in the name of efficiency. These drastic (and disastrous) policies will require approval from Congress but the fanatic oligarchs plan to bypass that with extending and dubious use of executive power. And there are more ambitious goals of fanatics like getting humans to Mars in 4 years (or at least so they claim), ending the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours, replacing the federal income tax with national tariffs, dismantling the administrative state. They believe in magical and mystical thinking about certainty of their goals and ideas.

The oligarchy and plutocracy has always been polycentric with multiple factions. Big Oil, Big Pharma, Defense industrial complex, Big banks etc. During the cold war, the defense industrial faction was most powerful. Now in present day, the most powerful faction is ‘Cloud Capitalists’ , also called as ‘Tech bros’. These are Silicon valley billionaires who own the internet and social media platforms, and they have a tremendous sway to shape public opinion with their mind bending algorithms. More than a century ago, Veblen defined the concept of ‘The Leisure Class’ - the unproductive ruling elite and their conspicuous consumption that have no benefit to society. Today, we need a similar study on psychology of Tech Bros that have acquired probably the greatest influence over society. Think of someone like Elon Musk, the richest man in the world who owns Twitter/X with 400+ million users worldwide and also controls two-thirds of all satellites around earth (Starlink network).

Tech Bros is a new specie in itself - a product of Neoliberalism, anarchocapitalism, libertarian Utopian thinking and high dose of social Darwinism. This specie was created by self regulating markets and metastasis of cloud capital (tech sector was mostly left unregulated in last two decades). Yanis Varoufakis in his book elaborates this phenomenon as Technofeudalism - the most toxic and malignant form of capitalism so far. Tech Bros is like a Frankenstein monster created out of Neoliberalism and Technofeudalism, and which has now gone out of control. An expert study is needed to understand minds of Tech Bros, their hyper arrogance, narcissism, psychopathy and fanaticism.

Tech Bros and Venture Capitalists that are now a part of the Trump regime plan to operate Government like a private business firm. Tech Bros are applying their business mentality to reorganize government by mass deregulation, Privatization, wholesale firing of government employees, massively cutting federal spending and restructuring/dismantling institutions in the name of EFFICIENCY as if government is a private enterprise.

Capitalism in last 150 years has gone through several transformations. The classic industrial capitalism and self regulating markets, Capitalism under state regulation and dirigisme, Neoliberalism-hyper globalization-hyper financialization and finally to Technofeudalism. Throughout these phases of transformation, the productive powers of capitalism (& its material outreach to average person) has dwindled while the rent seeking motives of capital have been ever increasing. This is evident in ever rising income & wealth inequality and also the environmental destruction of the planet. Varoufakis’s book Technofeudalism underscores this concept in detail.

After the collapse of finance capitalism in 2008 and its great rescue by trillions of bailouts by western governments and their central banks, the productive powers of western nations significantly declined. Much of the industrial centers are now spread around small pockets of the world and many of them are concentrated in China. A remaining core industry of America today is the Tech sector, the Silicon Valley companies and large part of their business model is their parasitical algorithms that seek to monetize every human need and effort. This is full commercialization of internet and social media whose sole purpose now is to create digital market places of any & every kind, and collecting RENT from their services. This monetization of internet is greatly different from the vision of its creators which made it as an opensource free-for-all medium for sharing and communications.

Plans of Tech Bros to dismantle & transform existing institutions into private startups.

One of the most perverse form of Tech industry is Cryptocurrency which itself has emerged as a powerful lobby with significant sway over government (1, 2). Crypto is a hyper speculative parasitical financial instrument invented by Tech Bros in recent years which has grown into a multi trillion enterprise. Capitalism, at least the classic industrial capitalism, was about INNOVATION and its commercialization. But today, much of the innovation in Tech sector is the toxic algorithms for rent seeking and for more nefarious purposes. Tech Bros propose creating a Parallel state based on Crypto finance by overhauling (destroying) existing system of institutions.

The new Phase - Pathocracy and Kakistocracy - Intellectual bankruptcy of Politicians

Coming to Political elites. The first phase of American contemporary history involved competent and intellectual political leadership. The second phase involved political cretinism and intellectual decline of political elites. The third phase involved massive corruption, compromise, incompetence and intellectual bankruptcy of Political elites. By the third phase, the politicians had become worthless and unproductive to society. They were only agents of Wall Street and Plutocratic interests dispensing their demands but maintained a fig leaf of decorum and etiquette of public office.

Now in new Phase, what we have can be described as a Pathocracy and a Kakistocracy. Pathocracy is a political regime of psychologically unstable and dangerous individuals - think of Trump administration full of Narcissists, sexual predators, delusional fanatics, sociopaths, criminals and anti-social elements. These people, by psychological design, are anti-civilization. Dr Bandy Lee has written extensively about this. Kakistocracy is a regime made up of the most incompetent people at the highest public office. Trump regime qualifies to it very well. What does RFK Jr knows about public health? What does Hegseth knows about Defense matters? What does Matt Gaetz knows about jurisprudence? What does Bhattacharya knows about medical science? Nothing. These are minions, conspiracy theorists and idiots with no competence. And of course on top of them is Donald Trump himself, the most incompetent and unfit person in the world.

Trump regime a Kakistocracy

And it should be kept in mind that Trump himself is an impotent man without any power of his own. Only way he got to power is when oligarchs have financed his campaign with hundreds of millions of dollar, gave him media and internet platforms to spread Trump contagion, rescued him in corrupted courts by giving him immunity. The fanatic plutocrats only intend to use the degenerative and malignant Charisma of Donald Trump to dupe people. The Trump regime after victory will give all kinds of policy favors to billionaires - tax cuts, subsidies, government contracts, deregulation and lucrative positions.

The fanatic oligarchs have real remote control of Trump regime.

The new Phase - The fatal flaws of Democracy

Perhaps the biggest transformation of America, or more accurately its biggest degeneration, is in its sociopolitical system. In this new phase, the Democracy has broken down to a malignant dysfunctional level where electorate have lost all rational thinking and connection with objective reality. Social Democracy can only work in an informed, educated, equal and rational society - A society which collectively has understanding of its interests and objective reality. But now society has lost collective intellect due to decades of dumbing down, abuse, brainwashing, polarization, identity politics and at the same time when inequality has sky rocketed. This has eroded rational thought process of the people.

It was always said that the western liberal Democracy and its economic system are THE BEST in the world. But this was never tested on a long enough timeline. Now we are witnessing its great structural flaws. In terms of economy, we witness the rise of fanatic billionaires leviathans with unmatched power who have remote control of Political cretins. In terms of elections, we see electorate cutting their own throats by voting for most incompetent, unfit and dangerous leaders. Dr Bandy Lee describes this as ‘mass psychosis’ in America where people have been detached from rational thinking and objective reality.

Now the basic bread and butter, core economic issues of society, economic rights and matters of livelihood matter little. The sociopolitical arena and American culture is now largely driven by Kayfabe (1, 2, 3) , a reality TV show where people sub-consciously participate in fictitious narratives for temporary pleasure and entertainment (owning the libs).

American politics is now reduced to Kayfabe just like Pro wrestling

American pundits continue to harp about sanctity of Democracy while being oblivious of the fact that ingredients to have a Democratic republic have now evaporated.

Incompetence of American pundits

It merits that American intellectuals, historians and thinkers give a fair assessment of events going on in America but barring few exceptions most of the pundits, especially the ones that peddle conventional wisdom on media, have not given an accurate description of things going on in America. This is either due to intellectual dishonesty or due to intellectual bankruptcy of these pundits.

For several years, American pundits have dismissed Trump and MAGA as an exogenous event. An event imposed on America externally by Russian meddling. Pundits have also called Trump as an aberration, a one-off event of fringe American politics. But what we face today, that is the new phase of America, is a SYSTEMIC crisis. A structural crisis of America’s political and economic institutions of which its seeds were sown in phase 2 and phase 3 of recent American history which i described above. Historians well understand that in a long enough timeline, the individuals may matter little. The history is made by totality of factors of which individuals are just one element. Of course, at certain times, individuals can turn out to be crucial like Lincoln in American civil war and FDR during great depression. But in present times, the MAGA & Trump phenomenon is caused by structural and systemic crisis of America on which i have written in detailed series of articles (1, 2, 3, 4).

Historian Branko Milanovic has gone as far in saying that Trump is an endogenous variable - that means a net outcome of a system (or outcome of a systemic problem more precisely). Economist Joseph Stiglitz describes Trump as product of Neoliberalism (more accurately Trump is a product of Technofeudalism). Are individuals really critical in world history or does totality of circumstances shapes history? I think reality is somewhere in between. While the environment that created Trump has to be acknowledged in totality, Trump itself is a seismic event that will alter historical direction in significant way.

Some historians have made a peculiar comparison of Trump with Gorbachev, the last supreme leader of USSR. This comparison has certain similarities but with distinct underlying realities. Gorbachev was kind of an idealist who wanted to reform Soviet union, its economy into market system, its politics into social democracy and seeking respect and friendship of America. The rush to make reforms of PERESTROIKA and GLASNOST and mindlessly implementing radical ideas ended up dissolving Soviet Union. In terms of personality and wealth status, Trump is nothing like Gorbachev and neither does Trump has any idealist vision for reforming America.

Trump is an imbecilic and incompetent leader, without any actual vision. But his so called ‘America first’ , ‘Make America Great Again’ policies may end up destroying the US hegemony or US unipolar order. Blanket tariffs on allies (Canada and EU), friction with fellow NATO members, needless trade wars, bellicose diplomacy are the kind of things that will put a major strain on America’s relationship with its traditional allies, especially in Europe. Domestically, the shock therapy on American economy, if implemented, would create major turmoil. Mass firing of federal employees, eliminating or restructuring critical institutions, deportation of migrant workers, abandoning climate change policies and impact of trade wars on economy can be devastating to America. The pledge of retribution against political opponents and the media will destroy the basic fabric of American sociopolitics.

Trump is not just a threat to American society but to all civilization. Under Trump era, the global instability, uncertainty and confrontation will rise. America being the centerpiece of liberal world order will greatly destabilize the western world as well as Democratic order (however imperfect it already was). The world may run on his whims (and of his controller Tech Bros fanatics) and tolerate his temper tantrums which will increase by the day. Trump regime will become a global exponent of unfitness, incompetence and corruption.

Thinking of stable genius of US President