Trump Must Defeat the Luftreich

He can't be a halfway strongman. Everything is at stake.

At the moment Trump is playing into the deep state’s hands in Ukraine. They have their python-like body wrapped around his forearm. Perhaps instead of the deep state we should use the term ‘metastate’ or Walter Kirn’s locution “Luftreich”. Luftreich translates loosely to ‘air realm’ or ‘air kingdom’.

The metastate or Luftreich is the west’s network of crime syndicates (TBTF banks, big tech, big pharma, MIC, agribusiness), intel agencies, oligarchs, think tanks, etc. They exist above the individual nations of the west and pull most of the important strings when and as they can.

They are the ‘air realm’ because they float above and largely out of sight. Their operations are easily obscured and provide endless fodder for conspiracy theorizing. On that subject I’ll recommend this excellent piece from the New Right’s Lomez that defends conspiracy theorizing and lays out why the analytical approach used in conspiracy analysis is necessary for the world as it is:

In Defense of Conspiracy Theories

The Luftreich does things like ensure that Mark Carney was elected head of the Liberal Party in Canada and thus that nation’s new, unelected, Prime Minister. Mark Carney is one of the Luftreich’s bankers of choice. Former Goldman Sachs, head of the Bank of Canada from 2007-2013 (the years of the Great Financial Crisis), then Governor of the Bank of England from 2013-2020. He does get around and failure follows him like neoliberal vice.

Trump came out of the gate with guns blazing in his second term. His direct attacks on USAID and the NED gained a beachhead against the Luftreich and it’s mechanisms of narrative management. The metastate is currently regrouping, consolidating its opposition and beginning to surround the Trump administration in order to derail and smother it. They are cunning and extremely devious. If anyone thought Trump was some sort of controlled opposition it’s time to revise that view.

Trump must stand up and be the President of the United States of America. Remind everyone what that means, what it is. The right bitches and moans about FDR. Well FDR knew how to fight. How to win.

I expressed my concerns about the functioning of this devouring python last December. Perhaps giant octopus or hydra would’ve been a better metaphor. And as I wrote then the Dark Lord does not share power.

This thread lays out the current state of play on the Ukraine ceasefire proposal (read from left to right then down):

Can Trump still wriggle out or does he truly own the Ukraine war? Possibly. Possibly both. A lot depends on Vladimir Putin who, as Trump likes to say, holds the cards. Trump has now over-committed. If Putin outright rejects the ceasefire deal Trump will truly own the war. My guess is Putin will pull Trump’s feet out of the fire but only so far as he is able.

If you read the above it clearly contains items Russia cannot agree to. In particular they cannot agree to the “forcibly transferred Ukrainian children” framing since they were ethnic Russian children that were sent away by their families to avoid the war. More importantly Starmer’s plan to insert European troops into Ukraine during the ceasefire will be a no go for Russia. Putin has been unequivocal on this. And as Christofouro points out Russia’s Instanbul Plus ceasefire terms have existed since last June. Europe’s demand for western troops in Ukraine (which Trump may have included on purpose) could be the poison pill that derails the whole thing.

The best hope is that Russia will come back with a reasonable counteroffer that Ukraine will refuse. That puts the onus back on Ukraine and Trump can wriggle at least part way out of the position he’s in. The fact that Trump has left things up to Putin was bad statesmanship.

What should Trump have done differently? What should he do differently now?

In January he should’ve used the bully pulpit to lay out the facts of the war in Ukraine in a detailed manner: that they were never winning, the mainstream media narratives were all lies, and that the US will not fight a land war against Russia for some stupid little border dispute (he would thus elide the fact that the US can’t win a land war against Russia within their sphere of influence and would inevitably lead to nuclear war). He should’ve played the whole thing down. He did a little of this at first but bringing Zelensky to the White House for a chimerical rare-earths “deal” was stupid theater than engaged Trump with the situation in ways he should not have done.

The liberal media would’ve denied it all and pilloried him of course but they do that anyway. His stance would’ve been clear and all the media squawking would only serve to underline his clear position. The American people get the pattern by now. Trump makes true statements. The MSM vigorously denies them. Trump’s assessment is proven correct.

Then he should have refused to play footsie with Zelensky and immediately stopped funding and providing intel and weapons — and forced Ukraine to the negotiating table on US terms. He didn’t use the full power of the US government against Zelensky. Why? My guess is lack of confidence or ability to use the bully pulpit effectively. Vance could’ve done the heavy lifting on the Ukraine war presentation. He should’ve used Vance the way he did at the Munich Security Conference but moreso.

Can Trump still do this? Perhaps but I think that ship has sailed.

Trump’s biggest weakness is his vanity. Of course this is true of all western leaders these days so I’m not singling him out. The difference is that, unlike them, Trump is not following the Luftreich’s orders so his weakness may prove deadly.

The day after he was almost shot and killed he was on a spaces meeting with Musk and he did the same unflappable cool guy act he always does. He thinks that’s what strength is but there are times when a strong man should get angry. Cold fury is a helluva powerful tool — but that’s not his style. Can he learn new tricks at his age? Is he devious enough for the task at hand?

Now he’s smooth-talked his way into ownership of a war he never wanted. So what does that mean? Didn’t Trump own the war the minute he was elected? Well there’s owning and then there is owning.

Yes — the minute Trump won the presidency he was responsible for winding down the Ukraine war. He was not responsible for anything else. His position during the campaign was clear: the war is stupid and it would’ve never started if he had been president. That was it. The more he engaged with the likes of Zelensky the more he became engaged in the war and with the Luftreich.

For better and worse the USA is the imperial core. We can dictate terms to our vassals. Trump can threaten to cut off US LNG supplies to Europe as a national security matter. It sure as hell is. He can even lean on Qatar and Norway to cut off supplies as well. Now that most of Europe is cut off from Russia’s pipeline gas supply he can strangle Europe. Force them to the table. Treat them like the enemy of the American people they clearly are. Europe’s leaders are jokers and idiots running around pretending they have sovereignty. Pretending they have an army. They have nothing but the network, the Luftreich. It’s time to force them to face reality and knuckle under.

Trump must stand up and be the President of the United States of America. Remind everyone what this means, what it is. The right bitches and moans about FDR. Well FDR knew how to fight. How to win. He was devious and merciless. Can Trump rise to the occasion? I think it’s possible but his leeway is minimal and he can’t continue to make mistakes.

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I’m reminded of that little joke from Casablanca. Claude Rains is questioning Bogart about his shady past and why he came to Casablance. Bogart says he came for the waters. Rains says there are no waters. Bogie says “I was misinformed”.

There are no rare-earths in western Ukraine. More accurately there are rare-earths in Ukraine but there are rare-earths everywhere. The only place in Ukraine that has concentrated amounts worth mining are in the east — the part Russia controls or will soon control. If the idea was to claim land Russia’s military is currently contesting then it was dumber than I thought.

Douglas Macgregor was on Tucker Carlson yesterday for a must-watch interview. Macgregor knows about rare-earths. He points out that Kentucky has some of the most available rare-earths concentrations in the world. The rich coal-seams and tailing deposits from old mines contain tons of rare-earths. We don’t even have to mine for them. We just need to build a refinery. Great jobs for one of the hardest hit areas of the country and rare-earths for our new chip fabs and electronics industry.

What was the Ukraine rare-earths deal really about? Sometimes Trump gets a notion in his head and no one can dislodge it. Or maybe it makes sense somehow. Who knows. I think the idea was to make it appear as if Trump had turned the Ukraine war into a financial win for the US. He was clearly angry about how much money Biden spent on the war and wanted some of it back. He should’ve let it go or at least forced a very public audit on Ukraine so we could see how much of our money they stole and how many weapons they sold onto the black market. It would help the narrative construction that Ukraine was a total waste.

In the Carlson interview Macgregor makes a solid and sobering case for why we need to avoid all of the confrontations the Luftreich have embrangled us in — from Ukraine to China/Taiwan to Israel and the Middle East — and instead focus on our own borders. We need to deal with the monstrous Mexican drug cartels that are eating away at our nation; not to mention the Chinese who control far too much of Canada. It would be a historically-rhyming tragic irony if, in all of the Luftreich’s efforts to slay foreign monsters, it ignores the poisoning and corrupting monster nestled in our underbelly.

Yet that is the nature of the Luftreich: it has no interest in strengthening any particular nation — not even the imperial core. It exists for its own power designs and greedy enterprise. The Luftreich is, in essence, a massive criminal enterprise. Why criminal? If you can’t discern the lawless behavior of firms like Pfizer, BlackRock, serial felonists like the too-big-too-jail banks, etc then I can’t help you. I would argue they actually have far more in common with the Mexican drug cartels than they do our vision of traditional capitalist enterprise. They are leeches and pillagers. They suck the life out of nations rather than strengthening them. If the Luftreich continues its rampage the once proud nation that is the United States of America will continue to crawl on all fours like a beast. If the blind greed of the Luftreich continues unabated the west will fall — and so will they.

So how can Trump kill it? I don’t think he can or should kill it outright. What he must do is expose its maniacal plans and weaken the hydra. He must wrangle the tools of the US government, including the NSA, DOD and CIA, towards different ends. And he must make the financial leviathan bend to the national interest. He must redirect all of their energies toward his ends — our ends.

The western hemisphere is our hemisphere. Our world island. The only world island. The other one is too large and unwieldy to ever work as a unified whole. Trump should take Greenland. Canada needs to be whipped hard to remind it of its vassalage. And Mexico must be brought to heel via a war to clean up the mess left in the wake of NAFTA and our own national dissipation. And we should deal with the rest of Central and South America to remove all Chinese influence from our hemisphere.

Trump’s vision must manifest. He must declare a doctrine, a plan. He has started to do this in fits and starts but he should call the people to his side in this enterprise. He must strengthen the youth of our nation with purpose and direction. Defending our borders and our people from the scourge of mass immigration, fentanyl and corruption is a most worthy goal. Twenty-five years ago Dubya told us to go shopping. Trump must call us to a nobler goal. We are ready.

Trump can seize his power and his moment. Let the liberal media squawk. No one pays attention to them. The Democrats are now run by corrupt DMV-level incompetents. Jail the criminals and ignore the rest. Stake out the domestic and geopolitical terms of the 21st century and take no prisoners. Get angry. Wrestle the python to the ground and use its power for the national purpose. Cold fury is the only possible response to this metastate, this Luftreich, this strangling octopus that will destroy us if we let it.