Amerika

Some people understand the concept of structure more than others. They realize that appearance is the surface, but underneath, a series of interactions and relationships denote the actual form of any object, process, or thought. For the average person, only categories and sensual attributes make sense.

Structural thinkers appear in many different disciplines. In computer science, there are those who visualize the relationships between the necessary parts of a program immediately; in literature, some can see how the struggle within a story flowers into narrative. If their area of study is group psychology, we call them managers.

Managers understand the structure of human relationships as expressed in group psychology. Good management matches incentive structures to organizational goals. A really excellent manager finds out how to fit people together into a smoothly-functioning ecosystem where each benefits from what the others do.

History will record Donald J Trump as a great many things, but it will note that he has an understanding of structure, to the point where his actions are baffling to most of us until we understand what his goal is and therefore, which parts of the structure he is manipulating. Consider his assessment of NATO and its results:

Suggesting at a rally in South Carolina that he would “encourage” aggressors (for example Russia) “to do whatever the hell they want” with Nato countries that fail to pay their dues has prompted an immediate condemnation from the White House.

The mainstream media wants you to ignore the “that fail to pay their dues” part because that is the lynchpin of what Trump is doing here. He is saying that instead of being a free ride program for European nations, backed by American cash, NATO has to become an actual fighting unit where everyone does their part.

In particular, they need to commit 2% of GDP to defense every year instead of starving their militaries for weapons and tactics while using them as employment programs for diversity, much as the US military has been doing under sleepy Joe Biden. They either join in at the same level as others or they are parasites on NATO itself.

All of Europe wants this system to continue. If the US pays for their defense, they can take the money and use it to buy votes with cradle-to-grave social benefits systems. They can spend it on diversity and importing new citizens to prop up their economies. They can use it to subsidize unstable but lucrative industries.

During the years since the Soviet Union fell, Europe has disintegrated. It can no longer defend itself. It manufactures little except high-ticket luxury products. Its citizens, entitled to a lengthy list of rights and subsidies, do almost nothing and achieve little at jobs that are more pro forma activity than purposeful labor.

If Trump brings us back to the Cold War years, where every NATO nation tossed in a lot of money for military and weapons, then all of this fru-fru nonsense goes away and these economies revert to capitalism from their mixed-economy but mostly socialist current state.

Should NATO decide to require equal contribution from its members, the fabric of European life would change. Instead of everyone sitting around and helping themselves, people would have to engage in quid-pro-quo or at least contribution to the social order. Jobs would not be procedural, but goal-oriented.

Trump knows how to bring NATO members back into the fold, namely to threaten them with abandonment if they refuse to pull their weight. He redefined NATO membership to mean not only signing the treaty but being ready with military strength. This changes the game in Europe.

Naturally, the press is trying to frame this as a withdrawal from NATO when in fact it will strengthen NATO by making all of its members ready to wage war. That also provides the best deterrent to war in Europe. However, the mainstream press wants you to believe that Trump wants to abandon NATO entirely:

Just 22 Republican senators broke with Trump to approve the aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other US allies – yet another sign of how thoroughly the former president’s America First vision has supplanted the party’s consensus toward internationalism and interventionism.

There has long been an isolationist strain among hardline Republicans who contend that investment in foreign entanglements risks bringing the US closer to war and diverts money away from domestic challenges. But then Trump came to power and sidelined the defense hawks, ushering in a dramatic shift in Republican sentiment toward America’s allies and adversaries.

His fellow Republicans, most of whom are not isolationists at all, have joined with him because they realize he will create a revitalized NATO that is an actual deterrent to Russia-China. They are so desperate for something to use against him that they rely on willfully misinterpreting his words.

We can see why they fear him. Like Reagan and Thatcher, he intends to end the comfortable system of bureaucratic socialism with runaway consumer markets that has made rich everyone who got vested in the system. He wants to stop taking that money out of the economy and the hands of productive people.

This transcends politics in what it does. It savages the bureaucracy and removes false goals of all sorts so that government can focus on function again. Ideological governments have separated themselves from real-world results so that they can bedazzle voters with symbolism instead. Trump wants to stop that system and replace it with a better one.

If Trump forces NATO nations to contribute the right amounts to their own militaries, he will end socialism in Europe and by ripple effect, in the USA. This will remove ideological government, and that will remove the bureaucracy. Only through that transformation can normal life exist in the West again.

Tags: donald j. trump, NATO