Trump Just Demolished 80 Years of Global Order

0:00There's a common analogy that conservatives like to use to illustrate their mindset on the world and why it has value. They say it's like there's a fence in the middle of a field. Now a progressive, or whatever word they're using for the other side, says it should be torn down because it's in the way and it serves no purpose. But conservative, however, says, well, let's find out why the fence was put there in the first place and then we can decide whether or not it should be torn down. And you get the message, building on the experience of a past, careful with change because you're looking for those hidden consequences. It's a fun analogy as far as it goes, things in life, of course, are rarely as simple as a fence in a field. But it highlights one thing very starkly in the modern era, whatever you would call President Trump and MAGA. And there are many suggested answers to that question, you cannot call them conservatives. Because Trump came

1:06into an office that had custody over all the fences in all the fields. He has been ripping through them as though the only purpose they could ever have been provided for was to provide firewood for his bonfire of evanities. And in so doing, he has decimated a lot of the ongoing realities of the previous century. Because yes, the office he holds has got that power. And he has done so in ways that means they can never be restored as they were. Whatever comes after Trump, all of these important aspects will be substantially changed or lost. Now, maybe it's for the better and that would be a happy accident because Trump has no plan for building something better in their place are only for disregarding and tearing down. So let's go through seven ways that Trump has completely changed the world and America forever. Number one, the uneasy ongoing truth between the

2:06United States parties and what I call forever issues. For decades, the US parties had politicised and polarised over issues that in other countries were generally not treated in that way. Specifically abortion and gun ownership. Political scientists refer to issue salience manipulation, which is not a phrase I'd suggest has ever passed Donald Trump's lips to describe how it was seen as a valuable to have issues that were emotionally hot but never resolved. Because a resolved issue demobilises your base, there is nothing left to fight for. An issue where the other side is always on the verge of potentially winning that keeps donations coming in and turn at high. In other words, both sides benefited more from the threat than they did from the idea of victory. And in so doing, it counterintuitively kept a tacit balance in place between them. Trump and MAGA, however,

3:10just want everything that they want. And so Roe v Wade was overturned, now adding itself had consequences for the issue, obviously. There are now a number of states where abortion access is heavily restricted. The amount of interstate travel to get abortions is much higher, but it was also an abandonment of balance. The final expression that the Trump political movement wants exactly and everything that they want. With no give and take with the other side only take, it's for civil war mindset that Brooks no compromise. Now Roe v Wade obviously will not be coming back, but neither will that degree of balance either. 2. The broad global consensus on free trade. From Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton, there was a belief that free trade and low tariffs would benefit the global economy, and heads for US economy particularly. Donald Trump not only reversed course on that,

4:12espousing higher levels of tariffs in the belief, not shared by most economists, that they would bring manufacturing back to the US and boost its economic fortunes, but also he weaponized America's economic power. He took the Reagan to Clinton era's worth of encouragement to everyone else, to integrate their economies to specialise production in those parts of the world that had the most advantage for that specific thing, on the basis that it would benefit everyone. And all the people who followed America's lead and encourage went over the decades to do that, suddenly found out they had that exposure weaponized against them. So it wasn't just that they suddenly woke up in a higher tariff world. They suddenly found that whenever they did something that a thin-skinned narcissist took offence at, they would get punitive trade sanctions levied against them. And so the world order started to shift in terms of trade. The old world trade organisation rules hold beneath a water line.

5:17Lots of bilateral deals, everyone trying to protect themselves from exposure to the US, and to others who may choose to do the same in the future now. Trump could disappear tomorrow, and that is not going back to how it was before. Three, NATO and the Transatlantic Alliance, NATO preserved the peace in Europe and kept the world from another world war for 75 years, all based on a seriousness of intent, a solid and unshakable commitment that an attack on one in the alliance would be treated as an attack on all. Now we suddenly found ourselves in a clown cartoon world, whether United States could insist for the best part of the year that it was prepared to use force against another NATO member in order to take over its territory. For fact that that threat wasn't acted on, at least not yet, that's neither here nor there. The belief in Europe is clearly that the US commitment of a mutual defence clause of NATO is dead. Trump has no hesitation in disregarding any prior

6:24commitments, including the ones that he himself made, if he feels that it's in his interest. So no enemies are going to believe that the US would put itself into a serious hard fought war on behalf of allies, and neither will the allies. And that fact alone means that NATO is over, not yet in name, but certainly in reality. Hence why European countries, and now talking about how the French nuclear umbrella could be extended to more of Europe and how that might work, and why various other countries are coming to the conclusion they need to have nuclear weapons all of their own. I mean, if Iran had had nuclear weapons, as indeed North Korea has nuclear weapons, we can probably safely assume the US and Israel would not have just killed its leaders and be currently bombing its territory. Everyone else has noticed that as well. For, the ethical norms for

7:25public life in the US, particularly for 50 years of accountability norms that were established in the wreckage of Nixon and Watergate. Trump has trampled over all of that and has been seen to do so with relative impunity. He fired 16 or 17, depending who you ask inspectors general, shortly after taking office, he's destroyed the independence of every agency that's meant to keep its distance from the executive, such as the Department of Justice, the FBI, with the current exception of the Federal Reserve, although he's been working on that one and he still is. His overt and holy obvious corruption has been breathtaking. Cryptocurrency ventures allowing payments to the Trump family at a heart of trace. He accepted a $400 million jet from Qatar, got a gold bar from Switzerland, instructed his DOJ to pursue prosecutions of his enemies under the flimsiest of excuses. Just about every day has been an outrage to what was supposed to be the norms of the institution,

8:29and the acquiescence of his own side to that, and the determination of MAGA that these things are acceptable, but only when they do them. So this is just an abandonment of submission to objective norms, which is arguably the end of rational governance in the US. That is not something that easily changes back with a change of government, assuming that is ever allowed to happen. So a new democratic government would need to decide whether it consciously participates in the downward spiral, does to MAGA the same things that Trump tried to do to it, or whether it upholds the old rules, which would actually involve a lot of prosecutions of what came before, which would be taken as just the same by the other side anyway, because they can't tell the difference. Democratic norms are built by agreement. That agreement has disintegrated, and that didn't start with Trump, but he saw its fragility and took a sledgehammer to it.

9:29Five, and this is really the big one. The rules based international order, 80 years of post-World World War II global governance has been demolished in the last year. Whether it was Trump, siding with Russia over the Ukraine war, giving vocal blessing to the principle that the strong do what they can, and the weak do what they must. A principle that he has started this year to invoke more vigorously on his own behalf. Add to that, America's withdrawal from 66 international organizations thoroughly rebelling against the idea that collective action for the global good is a thing that should ever be tolerated, never mind aspired to. So the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council for Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and many, many more. Trump has sneered at the concept of international law, suggesting that

10:31his only constraint is his own morality. So no constraints then. That is a fundamental break, not a pivot, not an evolution. It's a complete fresh start from 80 years of US foreign policy. Loyalist friends of a president are given ambassador positions where they compete with each other to be rude to the host country, military forces used by the US with impunity, and with no regard for the universal principles underpinning the United Nations, the only alternative. Trump has put his weight behind is his so-called board of peace. A vehicle for him personally that no democratic countries have touched with a barge pole, because it clearly has zero legitimacy is meant to undermine the United Nations, and they're not ready to give up on that yet. Then the remaining two are geographically specific, but still pretty important. So number six, obviously playing out before our eyes right now is for transformation of a landscape in the

11:34Middle East, with Trump taking over the rebuilding process in Gaza with his desire to turn it into a Riviera over the heads of its inhabitants. Through to the current assault to bring an end to 47 years of Islamic republican governance in Iran, killing the Supreme Leader Kamini, or leave a second leadership transition since 1979, establishing a precedent without blinking of the United States targeting and killing the head of state of another country, calling for regime change, but with no plan, no competence, no responsibility to bring it about. When George W. Bush was looking at the prospect of invading Iraq, one of his advisers then told him, it was like the store rules, you break it, you own it. Well, Trump is smashing up the China shop, and then marching out, leaving wreckage behind him, forgetting all about it, and wandering off for a game of golf. That isn't just about the smashing up, it's about the lack of ownership for

12:39consequences. And seven, seven is a tad more speculative, because it's arguably what's next, which is Cuba, 66 years for US has had a Cold War stalemate with the Castro regime and its successor. Trump ordered a naval blockade that cut off Cuba's fuel supply, something that was partially lifted just a day or two ago. It showed very clearly how close to collapse Cuba is, how easy it would be for Trump with his new willingness to throw military and economic power at problems to bring it down. He has been floating what he describes in his fantasy world style as a friendly takeover, you know, in the same way that mobsters give you friendly advice to pay the protection money. As with all the others, there is no plan, there is no strategy, just an awareness that he has leverage, and Trump cannot see such leverage without wanting to

13:43use it to the maximum extent. So whatever plays out with Iran, and assuming it doesn't go so egregiously badly as to bring Trump down, expect Cuba to be next, because it looks like an easy win. One that takes the status quo of many decades and makes it fall apart in Trump's hands, which is now what he loves. To be the person who can say, see, they said it couldn't be done, but all he and he did was a president like me. Of course, what I actually said was you couldn't smash these things up, and leave the world in a better state. But that's not the part that Trump or MAGA ever paid much attention to, apparently. So he is systematically tearing down institutions, ripping up agreements, ignoring frameworks, and putting nothing there to replace them. The aim is simply that he can follow his impulses on a day-to-day basis wherever they lead him, and have as few impediments to doing so as possible. Now he has not yet made the United States court

14:49system subservient to him. That barrier still endures, although it is under pressure. He has destroyed much of a U.S. science base, but arguably that is rebuildable in the future, as soon as leadership changes to someone with some degree of a grasp of reality. For the rest, it's pretty much in ruins. If good things get built from now on, it'll be because others see the situation, do what human beings have done throughout history, which is to work out how to rebuild or how to adapt, and to create what they can. By the way, this piece was inspired by an article by Alexander Burns on the Polisco website who covered 6 out of V7, although most of the specific statements I make here are mine alone, so if you disagree vehemently with this video, it's likely me not him you should be blaming. I give a link to that article in the video description below. So if all of these are indeed changed forever, what does come next? Well, it's up for grabs,

15:53but historically it tends to lead towards a breakdown in democratic norms, and a period where you have to navigate all that entails. As historian Matthew McIntosh put it, taking the example of a way, Vimer Germany collapsed and led to the rise of the Nazis. He said this, when law ceases to function as a restraint on power and becomes instead a technique for its expansion, constitutional government decays from within. And similarly when authoritarian regimes like Iran or Cuba, maybe in the future of the United States, when they fail, democracy rarely rises up to fill the vacuum. Political scientists suggest that around half of all authoritarian collapses lead to new authoritarian regimes, and democracy in recent years has been in decline worldwide, and the Trump revolution is likely to speed that up, not slow it down. Now look, Trump is 79 years old, even if he overcame the US Constitution one more time to extend his

16:56period of office beyond two terms, which is likely beyond him, but even if he did, the time he has left in office is clearly too short to build anything, only to finish the job of destroying stuff, chopping up all the fences in all the fields and throwing them on the fire. That does at least mean that the age of rebuilding will likely take place without someone who is completely divorced from reality in the most powerful office of the world. The world has seen such moments before. Yes, it takes time to work through it, but people very often rise to the situation on hand, there's no reason not to expect an aspire to doing so again.