Allow me to expand on my statement that Trump *could* emerge as an ally for those longing for peace. Which is running counter to the bulk of the 'realist' observers at this moment in time, myself included. Realists cling to 'logic', diplomacy, and structured, timely solutions to threats. World leaders like Putin and Xi fall in that category, where they are close to an 'Open Book', for those who learned to read and write.
That closing remark in the last sentence points towards a serious flaw in the structure of our Western society, drowned in various forms of entertainment and propaganda, using 'One Liners', video, soundbites and technical 'solutions' to play with our perception. Trump is proof of that. It rubs realists the wrong way. For as long as I've been around, realists tried to expose all the lies we were told, doing their utmost to 'educate' people. Not convert them to their individual belief-system, if they have any, but to find common ground and create the conditions to find reasonable compromises. In my previous contribution I mentioned Brian Berletic, who is getting increasingly frustrated because the 'Collective West' keeps expanding, liberally using lies, deception, propaganda and (extreme) violence.
From his, and my own reasoned approach, it is mind-boggling that 'the people' refuse to open their eyes to the fact that they are going to pay a hefty price when they insist on paying more attention to 'show news' than to all the threats around them. I'm considerably older than Brian, and 'been there, done that, got the T-shirt'. Yet I always *refused* to resort to 'more effective means' to allay my fears as the world I'm part of was moving in the direction of more war and destruction, since that would require lying, deceiving and cheating, and in the end possibly even using violence myself, 'for their own good', becoming a moron like the people leading us to all these forever wars. And all the rest of these nefarious acts. But there is a 'class' of people who gave up on debating and reasoning, and showering people with knowledge, often knowingly and decisively benefitting from playing all these people like a fiddle, while never leaving sight of what was true, worrying about those who went beyond profiting handsomely.
As a rule, these people do not return to being a realist, and advocating for diplomacy and structured solutions, but instead they tend to join the 'opposition', eventually morphing into being the same kind of moron they were fighting. Why would Trump be any different? I do *not* hold high hopes that he will turn out to be all that different, yet there are strange twists in his (destructive) behaviour which allow me to leave that possibility open. His fans 'explain' all the lies, all the deception, and all the rejection of clearly observable facts as Trump playing 'Five-Dimensional Chess', and being brilliant at it. Which translates into: 'We don't understand what he is doing, but we trust him'. I do not place my trust in people who make a living manipulating me, and ignoring the facts, and neither should you. But look at him. Our deceiving leaders, organised in NATO, the EU and WEF, thriving on 'Manufactured Consent' as described by Noam Chomsky in his 'classic', only accessible to people who know how to read and write, and making good use of that skill, fear him. And with good reason. Trump exposes their hypocrisy all the time. Why does he do that?
Our leaders, following the 'Scripted Path', as exposed by Brian Berletic when he talks about all these policy papers, which describe these horrible strategies towards world domination in black and white, and often in great detail, trusting that nobody will read them anyway, fear him. Does he bully them to show them who is boss? After all, his agenda, and his rhetoric are overflowing with self-aggrandisement and lack of realism as he posits the US as an invincible power, and himself as the Emperor of that nation, not even shying away of presenting himself as the Pope. Clearly many who voted for him, and are devoted to him, see him in that same light. On the other hand, quite few others do not. They trust him to recreate the American ideal of 'Perfect Isolation' and neutrality, of anti-colonialism which positioned the US opposite to the UK, that island in the Atlantic with it's dreams of creating a Global Empire.
Now take note of his recent actions, and lies. He released the US Air Force to bomb sites in Iran, in line with the 'Scripted Path'. But nothing was destroyed, according to the latest assessments. Yet it allowed him to bully Bibi into agreeing to a ceasefire. And yes, I know, Israel needed that ceasefire more than Iran, because it was getting pummelled, and running low on air defence missiles already. But in a cynical way that could be the 'beauty' of it. Especially if Trump 'somehow' warned the Iranians in advance, although we must not forget the duplicity of the US which sided with Israel as it unleashed its war, and killed various officials in Iran, clearly seeking regime change, with Trump not exactly distancing himself from that outcome at first. Various realists have had it with Trump, and insist that he is firmly on-board of the team working on the 'Scripted Path'. But the entire debacle exposed not only Bibi, and those expecting regime change would be a given outcome of this futile expansion of the 'Forever Wars', it also exposed NATO as complicit.
Trump published a personal message sent to him by Mark Rutte after the strikes on Iran, which were a dud, and possible deception, which read: 'Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran, that was truly extraordinary, and something no one else dared to do. It makes us all safer.' So, the NATO-chief has no use for international law, or the non-proliferation treaty, which is no surprise, but here we have it in black and white. Moreover, while Europe is acting as if it is abhorred by what Israel is doing, that is clearly theatre, only meant to keep the Muslims in Europe, and their 'Left Wing' admirers, sucking their thumb. Then there was Trump who said that 'Article Five' within the NATO-treaty was not a guarantee that the US would rescue Europe if a country was attacked, no matter what Rutte said, since the provision left room for 'interpretation'. And finally, Trump's bullying made those Europeans bend over and commit to serving the Military Industrial Complex by donating five percent of their collective GDP, somewhere between thirty and fifty percent of discretionary public spending of those countries, to pay for things that explode, or are dumped in those 'Forever Wars' towards the 'end date' of their operational usability, rendering the people of Europe poorer. Which is a ticking time-bomb for Europe, because eventually people losing their job, and savings, will start to wonder WTF happened?
Now, I'm with Brian when he insists that none of that pain is necessary, if only the people paid attention to what was real, and what was fake, and why their leaders refused to use diplomacy to find solutions for conflicts in the world around us. And what the Hell were they thinking when they declared it was their 'right' to expand and rule over people who clearly rejected our 'liberal hedonism'? And I understand how Trump's 'mode of operation', creating confusion and chaos, could be 'part of the plan' in some way, or a 'Scorched Earth' tactic, or the expression of Trump's desire to take over from the Neocons and establish himself as 'Big Brother'. But there is a slim chance that the 'Orange Man' is truly siding with the 'forces for peace', as he claims. We, realists, simply cannot be the judge of that, since realism, and 'logic' within our society are limited to fairly simple structures, while the real world is *far* more complicated. Even if we limit ourselves to our personal relationships, it is rare to find people who abide by 'logic' to guide them in their everyday life, finding partners being their equals.
A surprising outcome may not surprise everybody.