How Did we Get in this Mess

Here, before you go through the analytics is the summary that we repeat at the end.

The Political crosscurrents in the U.S. are key ingredients. These two driving forces, MAGA thinking The US is going into a new more powerful role in the world and Bannon’s view that the US is going to retrench into strategic isolation. Trump and Musk in essence become operative Stoolies, and, their overleveraging style can only have one outcome, economic collapse.

This may be much more complex than the Republican voters realize. Like it or not, Trump is only a piece of this puzzle, albeit at the moment, the piece getting the most Air time. The Reality is Steven Bannon is the core formative figure in all that is happening. Musk, was a factor in the election victory, however his efficiency project has many aspects that are contrary to Bannon and MAGA goals. The MAGA crowd and their hopes finish out the picture. It seems like the vast majority of MAGA do not really focus on the big picture.

First in an analysis overview, maybe we take a look at the simple equation;

Bannon +Trump+Musk+MAGA.

For sake of comparison maybe a look back at where the country came from, the Biden Administration where Joe Biden viewed the world as a finely tuned structure that operates as a battle between brute faced force and a rules based order.

The Bannon Storyline.

Bannon’s view is America needs to shift away from running everything. The truth is the G-20, IMF, World Bank, NATO, all act as appendages of the US.
Bannon is anti-any immigration.
In a sense he is pressing for an Isolationist country.
Bannon believes regular Republicans are neoliberal neocons, which are really two distinctly different political ideologies. Neoliberals focus on free market principles, deregulation, and privatization. On the other hand neoconservatives emphasize a strong national defense, interventionist foreign policy and traditional values.
Bannon sees Financialization and Tech Elites as the crux of the US problem. The country is all about money and chips.
How the country achieves Bannon’s vision is where the media is now ensnared. Bannon sees this happening by disrupting authority and replacing it with Chaos. In a sense to unmake America from within.
Bannon uses the term Multipolarity to describe how he sees this new America fitting into the world, basically a spreading out of world authority. The WWII victory is 75 years old and out of range. The US cannot continue to run and save everyone.

As this unfold and plays out between three big egos there will no doubt be conflict. Also, how this conflict resolves will be affected by real world economics and world politics.

Let’s look next at the Trump Retribution component.

Trump is angry, first at the CDC for its rebuke of his lame pandemic response.
Trump is angry at the Justice system that took on his Coup attempt.
Trump is angry at anyone that tried to make him follow laws and rules in his first administration. That involves former staff and Democrat legislators and anyone involved in his impeachments.
Trump is angry at any part of the World that does not worship him.

Next, we take a look at the Musk Efficiency Component.

First we know what drives him, he is the wealthiest person in the world.
Secondly he believes that he is the smartest person in the world.
And thirdly it appears he has ADHD, and is rather restless.
Finally, he will do as he pleases until something or someone stops him.
Another aspect of Musk is that he is kind of considered the aspirational leader of the new Tech Right cohort, the group of Techies that were Tech Left back in the Obama years and have now done a hard switch. Rightly, many right sided conservatives don’t trust them. Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, etc, could be considered part of this group. They want no AI regulation and wide open Crypto. The following can be considered their motto at the moment: ““We want America to be the pre-eminent country in the world. We want America to be the global economic leader. We want America to be the global technology leader. We want America to be the global military leader.”

So how may this all workout, first keying on Bannon and Trump?

They agree on use of chaos to get the ball rolling on their goals.
They both agree on tough immigration measures.
The Isolationist goals of Bannon are really not held by Trump, however Trump’s Tariff and World Disruptive rhetoric may unknowingly for him push the country into Bannon’s goal.
They probably agree on traditional values for the peasants.
They agree on deregulation, privatization,
They totally disagree on the problems created by the Financialization and Tech elites. Trump’s personal “Gold Plated” mentality around wealth and any way to create it supersedes everything else for him.
They also totally disagree on interventionist foreign policy, stuff like Greenland, Panama Canal, Gaza. Bannon wants the US to pull in it horns and make things good for the peasants.
They both agree on less and more efficient government, but probably disagree on the means.
I doubt that Trump’s ego would allow him to be a part of a multi-polarity world government, he wants to run everything and have everyone else pay for it.

And lastly what are possible final outcomes?

Peak Financialization is looming, may have already occurred in December 2024.
Peak U.S. deficits are looming and fixing them will lead to massive deflation.
The Tech Elites are on the opposite page of Bannon.
The AI bubble peak is upon us. Probably a thousand years from now will be compared to the decimation of the Incas.
Reform measures will be the bedrock issue for whatever Political Party that arises in the US, whether a New Republican Party or a New Democratic Party.

The Bannon / Ultra-Right Backstory:

In a sense the Bannon world is what populism is.

For Bannon and the World in a macro sense Brexit was the first event in this changing world. That means Europe is way ahead on this global change wave especially if an Isolated US generates a repeal of Brexit as Europe coalesces.

For America, and we are talking about North and South America, not just the US. Bannon’s pressure could have unexpected consequences.

The immigration attack could lead to a number of unexpected directions in Latin America. The return of its workers, workers who have been exposed to the western world could be a catalyst for an industrial boom as investors realize the potential.

Canada, another country being attacked by Bannon Populism, is with its rich reserve of commodities and materials in a good place to do its own thing.

China has its own problems at the moment, but with a weakened US outlook could be energized to take on the challenge.

Bannon is the brains behind the Great Disruption and continues his influence through his “War Room” show which he refers to as his way to speak to the peasants, kind a recreation of 15th-16th century European peasant rebellions.

While Bannon was a key figure in the Brexit vote, the well reported immigration issue was only a small part of the story. Bannon is a restless person.

He has dabbled in Traditionalism, started by Rene Guenon. Traditionalists aspire to be everything that modernity is not. While Bannon is not viewed as one of them, many of his far right followers are. His ideologies are due to what he owes to his own experience and his loyalty to “legacy Americans”. In a sense his philosophy is kind of a backlash to today’s financialized and tech based world. He sees these aristocrats as disconnected from the blood, sweat, and sense of a deep spiritual purpose that made America great.

Other traditionalist critics of the current state that are friends of his are Jair Bolsanaro, Victor Orban and Russian philosopher Dugin.

Bannon says America is not an idea, it is a country with people. He believes real Americans are the victims of liberalism and globalism. They are not the modernists trying to spread democracy around the world. They are being screwed by an elite that does not care about them and is not them.

Pat Buchanan’s 2002 book, the Death of the West, is a key early pivot point in all this. He was against American Imperialism and the Managerial State and was called an Isolationist. He ran against George H.W Bush in 1992.

A lot of Bannon’s problem with the Financial elites syndrome revolves around the dollar being the exchange value of choice. He wants the dollar to lose its major role and thus the U.S. lose its imperial powers. At the moment to many people the geopolitical system is running on autopilot. The Ukraine war proved Russia did not require the dollar to survive, its agricultural and manufacturing sectors did just fine without it. A key contrary factor here is Trump’s Treasury Secretary stresses a strong dollar.

As to Trump and Vance, Bannon sees Trump as he says, “a fucking moderate” while Vance fits in with the weight lifting young man crowd.

Bannon sees the financial and military direction of the U.S. sapping the vitality of the nation.

The whole civil war on Capitol Hill is about money and power and how much debt can be laid on the American people.

Bannon even sees populist Democrats as “neoliberal Neocons”. To be serious in his mind, one has to be anti-imperial.

He feels unless one is willing to take on Wall Street and the Banks, nothing can be accomplished.

He feels that working class citizens feel something is wrong but they cannot put their finger on what it is. Bannon sees them as the army of the awakened. People like Bannon did not invent resistance to the Global Order. He feels Global order has survived only by public perception, and that perception is now cracking.

Bannon does not believe America is really an Imperialist Nation, he says we don’t train Imperial top down managers at the national level. He thinks actually governmental things seem to happen more by accident. He also believes imperialist countries actually benefit the working class.

Bannon sees the economic battle to be between national capital and international capital. He feels international capital and military power are inextricably linked. And he feels the national capital is being lost to trade deals. Bottom line, it is an economic problem as he sees it.

Moving on, Bannon believes that immigration is the core factor in disrupting the west’s liberal and global agenda and that key Democratic disrupters like Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Elizabeth Warren are reluctant to tackle the issue.

Bannon sees it is a global revolt to retain the country’s spiritual character while splitting away from a social safety net and climate change initiatives.

Bannon looks for the dollar to suffer, and with that the country’s military will have to be in reduction mode.

Some further Right Wing issues.

One of Right Wing beliefs is that rootedness and tradition resists global capitalism along with the military/industrial complex.

The view that U.S. southern scotch/Irish hate all this, yet fight all our wars, is becoming prevalent on the right.

Eric Prince foresees a privatized military force to handle special projects, like cartels, around the world.

transhumanism is the idea that liberalism, tech, and capitalism have come together in a sort of unholy trinity to distort natural human reality in our new age. “The important connection between the pro-populist and anti-transhumanist in Steve’s Bannon’s mind, “is that Steve is sticking up for the legacy Americans. And legacy Americans are very much creatures of tradition and, by and large, creatures of traditional religion.”

“Steve Bannon is extraordinarily hostile to the excesses of capitalism,” he said. “To use a loaded term,” he continued, Bannon saw the entire complex of capital, empire, and tech as “unholy.” This may sound vague, and it may sound illogical, but if there is one thing to understand about the global populist movement, it’s that to many people involved in it, this feeling arises implicitly, without need for explanation. “We each found our way to it,” Bannon told Russia’s Dugin during their 2018 meeting. “The tradition.”

MAGA Voters Beliefs, Hopes and Dreams

They see a new Roaring 20’s, Economic Prosperity
They see a lower cost of energy
They want a complete stop to illegals.
They want economic relief for the bottom third.
They believe Trump has changed, God gave him a second chance, and he is going to be a uniter.
They believe Trump will not deport illegals without a criminal record.
They don’t think Jan 6 was a Coup.
They believe gender identity issues need to be squashed
They want conservative values to be front and center.
They don’t think Climate Change is real.
They want government deficits reduced.
They don’t view healthcare as a priority, God will save them.
And lastly, they want a renewal of American hegemony which refers to the dominance of the United States in the global economic, political, and technological spheres. The United States became the global hegemon after World War II thanks to its economic and military power. The United States promoted neoliberalism as the only acceptable way to think about economics, and its cultural exports (such as Hollywood movies and rock music) became dominant around the world thanks to cultural globalization

Summary Analysis

If you have read all of the above you see that the crosscurrents are between MAGA thinking The US is going into a new more powerful role in the world and Bannon’s view that the US is going to retrench into strategic isolation. In essence Trump and Musk become operative Stoolies, And, their overleveraging style can only have one outcome, economic collapse.

NATO countries have the view that pressures coming from Russia and China will drive a stronger trans-Atlantic alliance, Bannon’s approach throws all that up in the air. NATO will need to accept that and work internally, probably be stronger for it.

However, what if this all ends up creating a totally different world order, with before now unheard of alliances with kingpins Europe and China dividing up the rest of the world. Countries and areas like Mexico, Canada, Japan, Latin America, Middle East, Africa, and more will be in play.

In summary our macro model is monitoring the potential movement of capital away from the US as 2025 progresses.

This could make Bannon’s wish come true. A smaller, weaker, isolated America. MALA, Make America Little Again.

Maybe this is where we all end up. With US withdrawal into a multi-polarity world, we would be able to cut military costs dramatically. Maybe just pull all our ships and planes back to the mainland. Maybe stage them just inside International waters on the east and west coast and gulf.