I’m So Bored With the USA: Is It Really Only 100 Days!? 

 

“When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose” 

 

 

Prior to the US elections in November 2024, I wrote a piece entitled, “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind”, a quote by Jim Morrison, lead singer with The Doors, and poet.  

I am not sure that Trump piety would allow him to be a fan of someone so louche as Jim, but he certainly understand the quote. 

Trump is on his way to becoming a totalitarian despot, but people shouldn’t be blind to the fact that he is capable of great charm one-on-one and oozes charisma. In fact, depots like him need to be something out of the ordinary to become the leader of X-million people, E.G., Hitler, evil, but, in his own way, both clever and charismatic. 

Perhaps we can console ourselves with the fact that, should be abide by the US constitution, we will be shot of him by 2028, but will he abide by that, or seek to subvert it? If so will the Republican party returns to normal, or will they continue Trumpism with Vance?  

 

‘Trump is on his way to becoming a totalitarian despot’

 

The actions of his first 100-days ensure that he will be more than a “footnote in history”. His impact domestically and globally is likely to change so much that dismissing him this way totally misses what is happening. 

Trump has effectively turned the Republican Party into a fascist, extremist cult beholden to him. His media has all but brainwashed poorly educated and dangerously misinformed Americans into believing that he is working for them. You read of people turning on their neighbours and friends for daring to disagree with them, or challenge their extremely distorted and delusional beliefs.  

Trump understands the power of propaganda, where, via the media, he is able to turn the biggest lies into the truth. And, just as Jim Morrison said, Trump understands that “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.” 

Allies such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk represent the new media. Having them in his corner gives him effective control of how many people, especially younger people, get their “news”. 

By controlling the owners of the biggest social media platforms, he controls what the users of those platforms hear. If you extend this to his control of Fox News, Newsmax, One America News and too many influencers and other extremists on the internet he has a substantial platform to control voters thoughts. 

This level of medial control extends to Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, who is now briefing MAGA influencers directly, a clear indication that the administration understands exactly how America forms its views on the  news and makes its voting decisions 

 

‘By controlling the owners of the biggest social media platforms, he controls what the users of those platforms hear’

 

Globally, he is trying to reshape the world order; Israel appears to have carte blanche in Gaza; China appear to feel sufficiently empowered that an invasion of Taiwan is likely; Ukraine has been bullied into giving up land to a belligerent Russia. Everywhere the invader is triumphing.  

Trump has his own territorial ambitions, threatening Canada, Denmark and Greenland with invasion or annexation. 

As the newly elected Canadian PM, Mark Carney said: “There is no going back. President Trump is trying to fundamentally restructure the international trading system and, in the process, he’s rupturing the global economy. 

“America wants our land, our resources, our water. These are not idle threats. Trump is trying to break us so America can own us. That will never happen.” 

I read some commentators saying that  these 100 days have distracted us from issues such as climate change, which is regularly accepted to be even more economic damage than trade wars. 

Trumps actions haven’t distracted people from the issue, he has simply removed it from the table; over 50 of his executive orders have been anti-green: removing the US from the Paris accord, allowing drilling for oil, gas and coal on Federal Lands, rescinding clean air and water legislation, dismissing carbon cost programmes and now sacking the scientists who were charged to write the National Climate Assessment Report, which was organised by Congress in 1990, to provide analysis of how climate change is affecting the US environmentally and economically every 4-years. Each report has provided more evidence and data on how the environment is changing.  

 

‘Everywhere the invader is triumphing’

 

Trump’s obsession with America First is an attempt at a short-term fix to strengthen the US economy. Within this, the immediacy of abundant fossil energy becomes part of an expedient solution. To enable the greater use of fossil fuels Trump has used his control of the media to set the narrative, silencing climate and environmental lobbies.  

International trade and supply chains are equally impacted. In “Be Careful What You Wish For” I wrote about potential shortages in the US, and today it was revealed that Trump’s erratic trade war has triggered a slump in shipments to the US’s most important ports, amid the growing risk of a recession in the world’s largest economy. The number of vessels scheduled to arrive at the Port of Los Angeles next week is down by almost a third on the same period a year earlier. 

Internally, the court of King Donald is rife with cronyism and insider dealing. 

His own crypto project is an example of this. He recently announced that he would have dinner with the top 220 holders of his $Trump cryptocurrency token – a pledge that promptly earned him and his allies $900,000 in trading fees in under two days. One senator called this “the most brazenly corrupt thing a president has ever done.” 

Before this there was accusations of market manipulation after posting on social media “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”. Less than four hours later, he shocked investors by announcing a 90-day pause on additional trade tariffs on most countries except China, sending share indexes soaring: the S&P 500 closed up by more than 9%, the technology up in excess of 12%. 

There is the example of his mate Musk’s companies, particularly Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity, and how they have benefited from C.$38bn in public support, including government loans, tax credits and federal contracts.  

In 2010, Tesla received a $465m low-interest loan from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) program. This funding was critical to Tesla’s survival, as,  without it, insiders later told the Washington Post, the company would have gone under. The success of Tesla’s flagship Model S, the expansion of its manufacturing base, and even the illusion of its early profitability were all bolstered by public money. 

Zero-emission vehicle credits and the $7,500 federal EV tax credit were equally pivotal. Tesla earned billions by selling regulatory credits to legacy automakers struggling to meet emissions standards. In the first nine months of 2024 alone, 43% of Tesla’s net income came from these credits. The company also profited from California’s emissions credit system through a scheme involving phantom battery-swapping infrastructure – credits that provided hundreds of millions in additional income.  

This is, of course, the same Musk that now derides subsidies and regulations as government overreach and has used Doge to slash many of the same types of programs, including renewable energy incentives and federal climate investments. The same ones that once saved his own companies from bankruptcy.  

 

‘the court of King Donald is rife with cronyism and insider dealing’

 

Musk continually claims Doge is there to eliminate “waste”, whilst his companies continue to benefit from government contracts. SpaceX has received more than $17bn in federal awards since 2015, including Nasa contracts and taxpayer-funded Starlink deployments in Ukraine. The irony could not be more profound: “Musk attacks the legitimacy of public spending even as his empire remains one of its top beneficiaries”. 

This display of hypocrisy and naked self-interest only gets worse when you consider his newfound advocacy for policy built on climate denial; Tesla was conceived in the shadow of climate change – and succeeded largely because US federal and state governments treated climate as an emergency, putting in-place regulatory frameworks which created demand for EVs. Emissions credit markets made Tesla profitable. Today,  

Musk has now aligned himself with climate deniers  who dismiss ESG concerns as “the devil”, and support deregulation plans that could allow polluting industries to ignore environmental rules,  making it harder for other EV companies to grow.  

Really, this is just another example of insider trading; Musk made his fortune as a climate-focused entrepreneur, and now he aims to protect his personal and political power through climate scepticism. 

Readers will likely be tired of me blaming neoliberalism for many of the problems faced by countries like the UK and US, but the inequality it has driven is at the heart of many problems. But, the impact of neoliberalism has other, more ominous, undertones.  

In the US, the separation of private wealth and public power, one of the key achievements of modern liberal democracy, has been reversed, turning the world’s most powerful democracy into something resembling an oligarchy. 

 

‘persuading many ordinary Americans that their suffering is entirely due to immigrants and China, while in reality, the blame lies with the likes of Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg’

 

Insatiable plutocrats such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg actively support Trump, who is equally happy promoting his own and his rich pals’ economic interests. As previously stated, the media platforms the plutocrats control has enabled Trump to set the narrative, persuading many ordinary Americans that their suffering is entirely due to immigrants and China, while in reality, the blame lies with the likes of Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg. 

It would be wrong to finish this summary of Trump’s first 100-days without mention of tariffs. One of the main assumptions when commenting in this policy is they are designed to return manufacturing jobs to the US. In which case, will they? 

The start-point is why were they offshored in the first place? The reason was lower labour costs, along with a casual disregard for the environment and public safety. All of those cost advantages disappear when on-shored. 

As an example, I am told that the Philippines, has a minimum wage between $7.42 to $11 USD, whereas typical US factory wages in the US with FICA(1) and benefits roll up to around $50 an hour. Domestic production would lower transportation costs and provide greater access to automation are the key ones, but these are not sufficient to offset the additional labour costs. 

As a result, if production was brought back to the US, one of three things would need to happen: 

 

• Increase prices, which would be inflationary 

• Cuts in wages, likely to below the poverty line 

• Automation which would see the jobs disappear 

 

Another theory behind the tariffs is a return to the days of the robber barons, were tariffs replaced taxes, with the cost of the state, or what is left of it, is borne by consumers. 

Whilst this would be an ideal solution for the court of King Donald, the rest would simply remain poor 

In summary, in these first 100-days Trump has laid the ground for creating a totalitarian regime, enacting his policies by decree, effectively bypassing the other facets of government that are intended to act as checks and balances. He is King in all but name, acting in exactly the way that the US constitution was expressly written to prevent. 

The people that voted for him continually fail to understand how dangerous this is. They have been suckered by a snake oil salesman who told them what they wanted to hear. 

 

“He’s a bastard, but he’s our bastard”

 

An interesting analogy was made by a commentator in the US who compared Trump’s style of government with how the US used to conduct diplomacy in the cold war. In order to take control of a country, a leader would be identified, such as Batista or Marcos who could subjugate the local population, while giving Uncle Sam what he wanted. “He’s a bastard, but he’s our bastard”. This is how rural America sees Trump. In their view there’s something fundamentally wrong with the government, their solution; burn the house down. 

Trump celebrated his 100th day in office by holding a campaign-style rally in Michigan for his diehard supporters, telling them: “Nothing will stop me.” 

Perhaps some of his devotees are starting to realise the king has no clothes on; the venue, a sports and expo centre in the city of Warren, near Detroit, was only half full, and a steady stream of people left before the end of his disjointed and meandering 89-minute address. 

Selected lowlights from his rant included: 

“Democrats have vowed mass invasion and mass migration,” he said. “We are delivering mass deportation.” 

“We cannot allow a handful of communist, radical-left judges to obstruct the enforcement of our laws and assume the duties that belong solely to the president of the United States. Judges are trying to take away the power given to the president to keep our country safe.” 

I will leave the last word to Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee: “Trump’s pathetic display tonight will do nothing to help the families he started screwing over 100 days ago.” 

 

“I’m an ordinary guy
Burning down the house”

 

Notes: 

1. Federal Insurance Contributions Act, which refers to the payroll tax in the US that funds Social Security and Medicare 

 

‘It’s hard to believe Trump II has only reigned for 100-days.

His orgy of mass-destruction makes Liz “of 49-Days” Truss look like an amateur.

It’s hard to find any reasonable comparisons; Hitler’s creating a dictatorship in Germany by totally legal means, is one. Another might be Louis XIV, “the sun king”, or as the Guardian refers to Trump, “the sunbed king”.

I have no doubt his legacy will be some form of new world order, although it might not be quite as he envisages. “Make America Great Again”, might end-up being “Making Everyone Else Great Again”.

Domestically, we have both local government elections, and a by-election.

The clear losers are already known; the Tories. The most likely winners are Reform. Labour will struggle, and I expect upside surprises from both the LibDems and Greens.

Also, there were the unhelpful comments on the climate situation by former PM Blair. Like his mid-90s acolytes Oasis he wasn’t as good as he remembers, and clearly is no longer relevant. At least with Oasis there is the likelihood of an onstage fight as a welcome distraction from their overhyped tunes!   

Readers will note that in recent articles I have used the phrase: “a group of people with nothing to lose, meaning they have little to regret, and will happily burn the whole system down”, to describe people who vote for populists such as Trump and Farage. It was pointed out to me that Bob Dylan used a very similar lyric as “Like a Rollin’ Stone”, as such, we open with that.

To close, what else could it be but Taking Heads and “Buring Down the House”

Enjoy, we are living through history! Philip’

 

@coldwarsteve

 

 

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

 

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