There seems to be to be lots of fact to this take:

So I’d wish to make an try to chop by means of lots of the noise and take a more in-depth have a look at a query many appear to nonetheless be wrestling with: does the Trump 2.0 administration symbolize something aside from a rebranding of empire?

I don’t consider it does, and that’s what I’ll argue right here.

The bigger rebrand underway is seeing elite “reconciliation” below Trump and plutocrats line up behind the repackaging from a “woke” empire to a extra old style model targeted on race, faith and extra brazen exploitation. Within the pursuits of protecting this publish manageable, I’ll have a look at this on Wednesday and focus right here solely on the transition kind Biden’s “International Coverage for the Center Class” to America First, how they complement each other, and the way these narratives are nothing extra than simply that: tales used obfuscate the truth that insurance policies are solely involved with additional enriching American oligarchs and increasing their means to extract lease to each nook of the globe.

America’s “Enemies” Are the Purpose You Can’t Pay the Payments

In some ways the Biden administration’s International Coverage for the Center Class (FPMC) and Trump’s America First are related. They each search to current a veneer of solidarity with the US working class by means of the scapegoating of overseas bogeymen for People’ ever declining requirements of dwelling. In actuality these bogeymen have little to nothing to do along with your $100,000 medical invoice however they do all the time occur to be the enemies of American oligarchs.

Whereas Workforce Biden nonetheless paid lip service to the human rights-democracy-feminism-LGTBQ instruments of empire, they’ve largely worn out their usefulness. Trump discards these subtleties. Each are a might-is-right method, however the latter is simply the empire at its most sincere.

Regardless, each are concerned within the technology of narratives meant to obscure the truth that these evil international locations are branded so as a result of they resist the identical oligarchic forces bleeding People dry. (This isn’t meant to romanticize these nations as they’ve their very own points with neoliberalism and oligarchy.)

Let’s begin with Biden’s FPMC. Nationwide safety advisor Jake Sullivan, largely credited with being the mind behind the failed tech battle towards China, additionally was the chief architect behind the narrative that wed a rebuilding of the American center class with the Biden overseas coverage. Right here’s Politico again in 2020 describing Sullivan’s philosophy:

…the energy of U.S. overseas coverage and nationwide safety lies primarily in a thriving American center class, whose prosperity is endangered by the very transnational threats the Trump administration has sought to downplay or ignore.

That time period “center class” was a purple flag from the beginning, because it has all the time been a part of a undertaking of creating the working class disappear.

Nevertheless it did attempt to lay blame for struggles of the aggrieved working class on nefarious overseas forces. Not a long time of neoliberalism, not Biden yanking away Covid help, not the actual fact American life is a market versus a society. No, after all not. The actual culprits are Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran and all those that refuse to bend the knee to Washington. Should you have to be indignant at your lot in life, be indignant with them, was the message of FPMC.

The 2 political events within the US, that are unwilling to tackle the plutocrats, are due to this fact compelled to contrive these hackneyed gross sales pitches to the general public, however the actual campaigning is happening behind the scenes involving concepts on how the administration will broaden the attain of American capital. That is evident within the actions of the Biden administration and the path America First is already taking.

Let’s rapidly overview what Collective Biden did for the “center class.”

A proxy battle towards Russia coupled with an effort to strangle China’s tech sector, thereby ensuring the US reigned supreme. After yanking away Covid help, Workforce Biden handed the CHIPS Act, which subsidizes semiconductor manufacturing within the US, and the Inflation Discount Act, which incorporates billions for clear vitality tech. They usually threw in a genocide in Palestine for good measure. What have been the outcomes?

The tip of Covid help decimated the working class. Mission Ukraine has efficiently walled off Europe from Russia however it’s been a navy catastrophe for Ukraine and NATO. Russia has turned eastwards and appears to be solely strengthened by the empire’s efforts to cripple it. China’s tech sector is doing nice and within the absence of Western imports it used to depend on is studying to make its personal.

The IRA+CHIPS has invested $388 billion up to now which has reportedly helped help 135,800 jobs within the US. That’s a small blip on the radar when contemplating the three.7 million jobs despatched to China from 2001 to 2018.

The CHIPS push has already stalled attributable to a scarcity of certified employees, and the actual fact stays that it doesn’t matter what slogan the Biden, Trump, or subsequent administration comes up with, it’s not going to deliver again jobs that have been offshored or take away the financial vise from most People with out addressing the nation’s advanced-stage neoliberalism. As Micahel Hudson writes:

[The US] has constructed too excessive a rentier overhead into its financial system for its labor to have the ability to compete internationally, given the U.S. wage-earner’s budgetary calls for to pay excessive and rising housing and training prices, debt service and medical health insurance, and for privatized infrastructure providers.

And as James Ok. Galbraith writes, “The Biden economists had ignored a elementary reality, which is that the last word good thing about any “stimulative” coverage flows to these with market energy—to land and to capital—no matter the way it could also be distributed at first.” That’s a elementary reality conveniently “ignored” by each administration.

Naturally, Biden’s FPMC after all didn’t assist the “center class.” Listed here are actual wages:

And there may be proof that almost all of these miniscule positive aspects are on the backside for the working poor attributable to their must promote their labor in unsafe Covid circumstances.All different financial indicators — from bank card and medical debt to homelessness and financial inequality — continued their downward spirals below the “new FDR”:

So how about “America First”? Properly, it’s nonetheless early, however the query is, as all the time: whose America — the working class or the monetary vultures and Silicon Valley oligarchs bleeding the nation dry? And can the Trump administration do something aside from make this reality worse: the US wealth inequality is now on par with what it was on the eve of the Nice Melancholy, which was the very best degree within the nation since its creation.

The Trump administration’s America First bullet factors are right here, however are broad, e.g., “On the President’s path, the State Division may have an America-First overseas coverage.”

A extra detailed take is helpfully damaged down right here:

As we will see from the administration’s actions up to now, like with FPMC, an emphasis is positioned in profitable new international struggles and blaming others for People’ financial struggles.

There are ulterior motives in each case of blaming foreigners. Let’s take only a few examples.

  • China is answerable for the fentanyl. (Permits for extra aggressive posture in direction of Beijing. Extra tariffs incoming.)
  • Whites are below assault in South Africa. (A stress marketing campaign on South Africa that targets a BRICS founding member and a location the US needs a naval base as a way to management delivery lanes and preserve naval dominance as a way to include China.)
  •  Muslim terrorists are on the march. (Let’s ethnically cleanse Palestine, improve presence in Somalia in struggle over Pink Sea and maximize stress on Iran.)
  • Latinos stealing your jobs. (Militarize the border and supply testing floor for surveillance and inhabitants management tech however after all not go after the foundation of the issue: American firms that need low-cost exploitable labor. )

This a part of Trump’s enchantment for the oligarchs: he’s fostered sufficient anger and project of blame for the deterioration of American lives to overseas actors and enemies at residence that maybe sufficient immigrants shipped off to Guantanamo and public shaming of DEI supporters can suffice whereas the looting of America can double its tempo. Hassle is, the oligarchs envision a world during which everybody will grow to be as susceptible because the undocumented immigrant.

Blaming the overseas additionally helps enlist People within the struggle towards all these enemies around the globe, together with accepting propaganda like the concept that we should bow down on the altar of AI as a way to win a race towards the evil Chinese language.

[AI] Arsenal of Democracy

As their FPMC floundered, Collective Biden was additionally busy redistributing an historic quantity of wealth from the general public to weapons firms — $1.3 trillion over 4 years — which Biden bragged about in his farewell tackle (navy spending is about to soar greater below Trump). They resurrected speak of the “arsenal of democracy” to defend this. In all probability finest summed up by former Beneath Secretary of State and wrecker of worlds Victoria Nuland:

Collective Biden additionally tried to jumpstart the US chip trade, which is critical to “practice” AI, whereas on the similar time stopping superior chips from stepping into the arms of the dangerous guys in China.

Constructing on that, there at the moment are calls below Trump-Musk for the US to grow to be the “AI Arsenal of Democracy.” What does that imply in observe? Right here’s Jack Burnham, a analysis analyst within the China Program on the Basis for Protection of Democracies, offering a pleasant abstract of the suggestions rising from suppose tanklandia and Trump World lately:  

  • Extra export controls in an effort to limit China’s entry to sure applied sciences.
  • Separate the world into opposing AI blocs
  • ”Preparation to deploy and scale future personal sector improvements that can additional tilt the longer term stability of navy and financial energy in Washington’s favor.”
  • Extra information facilities even when that “frustrates” housing and group growth and federal lands for information heart development.

In fact. This final level highlights how these FPMC and America First divert vitality and a spotlight away from what John Maynard Keynes actually advocated for (spending on social packages) and as an alternative propagates the concept of “navy Keynesianism.”

And the US can’t even do that each one that effectively anymore.  One downside that the Biden FPMC bumped into was that the US doesn’t even have the workforce anymore to construct sufficient bombs to maintain up with all these raining down on ladies and youngsters in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and varied different US proxy wars.

It signifies that the Pentagon contracts Normal Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Programs (a US firm) to construct three 155mm projectile metallic elements traces in Texas, however the firm must name in Turkish subcontractors. Because the Division of Protection itself notes, the “superior weaponry and supporting gear essential to dominate in trendy warfare require extremely refined manufacturing, but the home workforce has suffered for many years.”

Perhaps it’s a expertise scarcity, possibly folks don’t need to make bombs, possibly they don’t need to work in a poorly ventilated manufacturing facility throughout an ongoing pandemic, or possibly the roles aren’t as enticing as they was. As Taylor Barnes factors out, “…[the defense industry] dropped common salaries, and battered its unions in current a long time, which means that, from a labor perspective, a job within the military-industrial complicated simply isn’t what it was.”

Meaning the US at the moment depends on parts made in China for plane carriers and submarines. It means a trillion {dollars} in protection spending helps enrich China – the very nation which is supposedly one of many factors on an axis of evil behind the elevated protection spending within the first place.

However that’s nothing that extra neoliberalism can’t clear up on the AI Arsenal. The Trump administration is now engaged on bringing in additional “expert” foreigners for the AI workforce. Trump already sided with Silicon Valley over his MAGA base within the H1B visa struggle, and now we get this:

A lot of the reporting on the “Gold Card” targeted on the likelihood {that a} bunch of rich folks will flock to the US, however a more in-depth have a look at the transcript reveals that’s not likely what the order is designed for (rich might already purchase their method into the US in any case). Right here’s Trump:

An individual comes from India, China, Japan, a lot of completely different locations, they usually go to Harvard, the Wharton College of Finance.  They go to Yale.  They go to all nice faculties.  They usually graduate primary of their class, and they’re made job affords, however the supply is instantly rescinded as a result of you haven’t any concept whether or not or not that particular person can keep within the nation.  I would like to have the ability to have that particular person keep within the nation.

These firms can go and purchase a gold card, they usually can use it as a matter of recruitment.

So it is a software for US firms to herald the employees wanted for the AI Arsenal of Democracy. And what a democracy it will likely be. A bunch of hierarchical South Africans nonetheless stewing over criticism of their daddies for his or her function in apartheid recruiting for his or her hierarchical AI undertaking.

AI and Monopoly “Guardrails” Vs. Authorities for AI and by AI

Let’s have a look at one noticeable shift.

If we should give the Biden administration any credit score, it was the staffing on the Division of Justice Antitrust Division and Lina Khan and firm on the Federal Commerce Fee. And naturally the plutocrats revolted. Even these minor protections for People have been an excessive amount of, and the shift of Silicon Valley cash to overwhelming backing of Trump has not less than been partially defined by the need to punish Democrats for the Biden staff’s gall at considering it might regulate them.

It seems the problem of antitrust continues to be not fully settled within the Trump administration.

There are forces within the administration — represented by the JD Vance – Peter Thiel wing — that favor some degree of enforcement. They see some monopolies — comparable to Google — as purely lease seekers. Others are helpful after they create new merchandise and assist American capital unfold its dominance around the globe. Vance, Thiel, and the pronatalist motion need much less financial burdens on People to allow them to produce extra offspring for the civilizational battle to return (and who is aware of, possibly extra pristine blood for Thiel’s longevity?).

On the opposite aspect are enterprise capitalists like Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen who’re extra basic libertarians who need to abolish authorities and privatize a few of its capabilities. They and others like Steve Bannon consider that almighty unfettered American capitalism received WWII (it’s an fascinating thought train to think about how the US would have fared towards Nazi Germany with no authorities intervention within the financial system and with out the us doing all of the heavy lifting) and that any authorities interference would have misplaced the Chilly Warfare and can lose the New Not So Chilly Warfare. This ahistorical view ignores how the federal government has been foundational in nearly each vital trendy tech advance.

However most of all, they consider folks exist to offer them revenue and be used as lab rats of their AI experiment. They don’t consider in a public commons they usually don’t need any of their cash touched for it.

The Biden administration’s modest proposals on antitrust, regulation of crypto and AI and taxing unrealized positive aspects, have been destroying the enterprise capital trade, in response to Horowitz and Andreessen. And of their telling which means destroying America itself and condemning it to lose the New Chilly Warfare.

For them Trump is nearer to Obama and Clinton than Biden and represents an awesome leap ahead on the nation’s neoliberal highway to victory over labor and anybody on the earth that oppose domination by American capital. Beneath Trump 2.0, all’s proper with the Silicon Valley universe once more:

The American elite are in nearly common settlement that their US requires a strong financial system, technological supremacy, and a powerful navy. Any debate is basically over whether or not the federal government ought to do something greater than shovel cash to self-declared geniuses in Silicon Valley after which get out of the way in which. One can see why the likes of Horowitz and Andreessen view this model of battle capitalism as the important thing to American supremacy. As Malcolm Harris wrote in Palo Alto:

Warfare Capitalism might placed on a blindfold and run right into a maze of horrific, absurd plans with confidence as a result of it had class energy echolocation for a information: So long as the wealthy strengthened and the working class weakened, then issues needed to be entering into the proper path. It didn’t matter that capitalists have been investing in finance sugar highs, monopoly superprofits, and a world manufacturing race to the underside fairly than sturdy jobs and an expanded industrial base. The twenty-first century was going to be all about software program anyway, child. The robots will determine it out. Silicon Valley leaders sat on high of this world system like a cherry on a sundae, insulated from the melting basis by a wealthy tower of cream.

It’s all so silly, it will be humorous if it weren’t going to be devastating for therefore many. Right here’s only a transient abstract, courtesy of Blood within the Machine, of America First’s embrace of Silicon Valley merely changing into the federal government:

However, silly or not, it’s a {powerful} fiction. It joins the echelon of different AI tasks helmed by Musk and his cohort, just like the “AI-first technique” DOGE is implementing, the federal government chatbots they’re constructing, and the programs designed to routinely take away pronouns and DEI verbiage from authorities web sites. The very concept that DOGE’s AI can streamline and automate the federal government is already getting used to justify the hollowing out and the reshaping of the federal workforce. Leaning into the status of generative AI, which has been touted because the so-powerful-it’s-terrifying future by Silicon Valley and the media, and into his meme-agency’s mission of finding efficiencies, Musk has offered his operation as the longer term, and he has finished so emphatically sufficient that GOP is more than pleased to run with the charade.

So we’re transferring in direction of the automation of presidency on crappy hallucinatory AI, “AI coding brokers” writing authorities software program for various companies and being educated partially on present authorities contracts. Ai huckster termites are consuming away at every thing just like the DOGE staffers at HUD who’re from an AI actual property agency.

The objective seems to be a US model of the neoliberal shock the US directed at Russia within the Nineteen Nineties, which led to a collapse of actual wages and life expectancy worse than the US Nice Melancholy.

The US capitalist system and those that run it are making nice use of Trump. A big chunk of the inhabitants worships him and consider he’s main a rethink in US overseas coverage and rooting out waste in authorities. The opposite half thinks he’s a moron managed by Moscow. Silicon Valley is laughing all the way in which to the crypto financial institution.

However he has drawn Silicon Valley “efficient accelerationists,” conservative and libertarian suppose tankers, and each monetary and industrial capitalists to his aspect (which helps clarify the deafening silence coming from Workforce Blue). The Democrats at the moment are possible hoping for dissatisfaction amongst a faction of the oligarchs to come up.

If some plutocrats circle again to Workforce Blue, Democrats can be there ready. They received’t roll again the good AI looting experiment, however they could present a band help for a flesh wound as they rebrand the identical plutocratic insurance policies below some new model of FPMC so the entire “world’s best democracy” present can go on.

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