Trump, Mafia Tactics and Totalitarianism: "He sees the world as a place that can be carved up between what he imagines are the great powers: the USA, Russia and maybe China"

It is St. Patrick’s Day as I write, and the bad news is that Donald Trump is going to speak to Vladimir Putin tomorrow.

Were you among those who harboured illusions that Europe – or even (perish the thought) Ukraine – might be involved in negotiations about the terms on which the brutal, murderous and viciously destructive Russian invasion of Ukraine might be brought to an end?

Well, this is your answer. Trump prefers to deal autocrat to autocrat, dictator to dictator, bully to bully. Today, it was him and Conor McGregor. Tomorrow, it is a sweetheart phone call with the butcher of Saint Petersburg. Next week, the rumour is that they are exhuming Vlad the Impaler for a face to skull meeting. Elon Musk is said to be working on resurrecting Adolf Hitler, with a summit conference of mutual admirers in mind.

Beautiful idea. It’s going to be lovely if we can make it happen. Nice man. But we’ll see. We’ll see.

VALUABLE SHIT

I get the impression that the world is finally beginning to understand what is really on Donald Trump’s global agenda.
But just in case, let’s take a closer look.

We need to understand is that the current President of the United States of America has no problem with a powerful country – like, say, the US – deciding that it wants to seize, annex or lord it over territories it considers of potential strategic importance. He also believes that a powerful country – again, in fairness, like the US – is entitled to control the politics of places that are deemed to fall within its so called ‘sphere of influence’.

He is not, of course, the first American President to think or act like this. What, after all, was the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion all about, when President John F. Kennedy authorised the US army to support the rather misleadingly named Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front in an attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro?

That fiasco almost caused World War III, with the Premier of the then-Soviet Union, Nikita Kruschev, threatening to nuke America, until the necessary diplomatic niceties were resolved and calm restored. But that did not stop the the USA from meddling over and over again in Central and South American politics.

In 1973, the CIA backed the overthrow of Salvador Allende, the 28th President of Chile – frequently described as the first Marxist to be elected as President in a liberal democracy in South America. This especially egregious example of US chicanery should never forgotten. The paranoia in Washington about the potential impact of socialism was such that they supported fascistic military coup-de-tats in numerous countries, including Brazil in 1964 and Argentina in 1976.

The US has also tried to exert control over the political process in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti, and Grenada (which the US invaded in 1983). As anyone who lived through that era will know, the idea that America has ever been the great global guardian of democracy is bullshit. It is far more accurate to say that they supported and encouraged dictatorships, military juntas and brutally violent regimes in which people were disappeared, assassinated or massacred by the State.

But Donald Trump is certainly taking all of this to a new, more obviously mercenary level.

A major difference between Trump and his predecessors is that he seems to be perfectly willing to allow the same kind of latitude to Russia. In fact, as is becoming increasingly clear, he sees the world as a place that can be carved up between what he imagines are the great powers: the USA, Russia and maybe China.

A second difference is that he is shameless and deliberately provocative about pursuing an imperialist agenda. He has no problem whatsoever targeting countries that (a) have been long-term allies of the United States; and (b) where there is a full and transparent commitment to democracy. On his first day in office he talked about making Canada the 51st state. He has also threatened that he will ‘get’ Greenland, because it is in the long-term ‘security’ interests of the US; and that he will ‘take back’ the Panama Canal from Panama, as if the US has some hidden rights that had somehow been forgotten or neglected.

And of course, he wants to turn Gaza into the riviera of the Middle East – and to own a chunk of it himself.

Where Greenland is concerned, by long-term ‘security’ interests, he – of course – means the cash that is to be made from the huge oil, gas, mineral and rare earth resources which are likely to be uncovered if mining is allowed in the biggest island in the world – a vast land-mass, measuring 2,166,086km2.  A lot of it may always have been under ice (now conveniently melting), but Greenland is the 12th biggest country in the world, just behind Algeria (10th) and DR Congo (11th) and ahead of Saudi Arabia (13th) and Mexico (14th). In fact, it is bigger than Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom combined.

Doubtless, then, there’s a lot of valuable shit buried there. And as we know, Trump doesn’t give a damn about the environment. He has promised to “drill, baby, drill” – and he is planning to do it in Greenland, whether the locals like it or not, in search of copper, diamonds, gold, graphite, iron ore, nickel, rare earths, titanium-vanadium, tungsten, uranium and zinc, all of which have been detected there.

AI-generated vision of Trump's Gaza

LIE AFTER LIE

Which takes us back to Ukraine. It has become increasingly obvious that Trump intends to do a deal with Putin that will be a complete betrayal of Ukraine – and of Europe. Which is why he and the deeply creepy US Vice-President J. D. Vance have been flooding the zone, putting all sorts of anti-Ukrainian and anti-European shit out there.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a dictator. He’s not grateful enough. He didn’t say thanks. Ukraine shouldn’t have started the war. Joining NATO is a non-runner. Getting their land back isn’t realistic. America has spent much more supporting Ukraine than Europe. There should be an election in Ukraine. Russia has surrounded the Ukrainian troops in Kursk. We have asked Russia to spare them. (Wouldn’t that be nice?).

Strengthening Russia’s negotiating position at every turn.

Ambushing Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Accusing him of disrespecting America. Telling him he is talking too much. Making remarks about his clothes. Threatening him. You’re not ready for peace. And then, throwing him out. Come back when you’re ready for peace.

If he doesn’t make a deal with Russia, he won’t be around for very long. Trump’s words a few days later. Or, to paraphrase, he should do what he’s told. Forget security guarantees. Sign the deal.

Ah, the deal. Now, we don’t know exactly what the latest version of this contains, but you can take it that it involves extortion by any other name. US ‘negotiators’ – henchmen – went to see Zelenskyy, armed with a contract which, mafioso style, they insisted that he should sign immediately. It would have given the US the right to 50% of everything mined in Ukraine in the future, by way of repaying the alleged ‘debt’ incurred by Ukraine for US military support to date.

The truth is that, under Joe Biden, all but $9billion had been donated, not loaned. Trump knows this.

“Europe has given $100 billion. The United States has given $350 billion,” Trump claimed, inaccurately, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. “But here’s worse — Europe gave it in the form of a loan, they get their money back. We gave it in the form of nothing, so I want them to give us something for all of the money we put up.”

Inevitably, Trump’s figures are all wrong. Without going into the more arcane details – so far – Europe has allocated $140billion and the US €121billion to supporting Ukraine – with both jurisdictions having voted further aid (at a level which would still leave Europe ahead of the US in terms of overall financial commitment) that hasn’t been drawn down yet. The $350billion mentioned is double the amount that the US has voted. It is a figment of Trump’s imagination.

And on and on it goes. Lie after lie after lie. The guy is so twisted that he has to screw himself out of bed in the morning.

Even today, with Trump ignoring both Ukraine’s rights as a sovereign nation, and Europe’s vast financial commitment, by excluding them from talks with Putin, there has been no evidence that the US is putting meaningful pressure on Russia. Instead, on March 3, the Trump administration suspended all military aid to Ukraine. On March 5 – the same day that President Zelenskyy joined European leaders at a summit in Brussels – Trump ‘paused’ sharing military intelligence. Russia, on cue, bombarded Ukraine. By March 8, Time Magazine reported that, “As a result of this pause, there are hundreds of dead Ukrainians.”

Trump opened the door and waved the Russians in.

“I think he’s doing what anyone else would,” Trump said of Putin. He omitted to say “and which we had agreed”, but he might as well have. If the Americans hadn’t factored “what anyone would do” into the decision, then they are even bigger fools than we thought.

Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump.

CRIMINAL CHARGES

So where does Europe  stand in all of this? To say the EU and the UK have been sidelined is putting it mildly.

I’ve said it here before, but it bears repeating. Trump and Putin have in common that they hate the EU. They hate the idea of a united Europe. They hate the economic power that the EU can potentially exercise if and when it gets its act together.

And as the invitation to Conor McGregor to join Trump in the White House – to pose for pictures, and to indulge in a racist Great Replacement-style rant about immigration to the assembled media – confirmed in an Irish context, while they might play-act as being buddies with Micheál Martin, and wear shamrock socks, it is a core policy of the current US administration to openly support the far-right anywhere and everywhere across Europe, including in Ireland.

We saw it in J. D. Vance’s ignorant and utterly hypocritical hectoring of European leaders at the Munich Security Conference about democracy being under threat on this side of the Atlantic. We saw it in Elon Musk’s Nazi salutes and support for the fascist AfD party in Germany. And now we’ve seen it in the red carpet being rolled out for McGregor by Trump, on Ireland’s national holiday, providing a platform for the absurd spectacle of Conor McGregor railing against migrants to Irish-Americans – all 40million of whom are themselves migrants or descendants of migrants.

So here’s the challenge. It is cleaar now that Trump, Vance, Musk and the Secretary of ‘Defence’ Peter Hegseth aren’t going to be satisfied with establishing an authoritarian state in the US – they are determined to use far-right ultra-nationalism as a vehicle to bring down the EU and to spread authoritarianism across European nation states. And to achieve that – along with Putin – they plan to use social media, as an attack platform, spreading fake news and repeating lies so often that they become ingrained.

Well, the time has come for Europe to change the game. In the current issue of Hot Press, the Irish Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, James Lawless, agrees that social media companies should be treated not as platforms but as publishers. For a long time now, it has been clear that Facebook and X, among others, are making editorial decisions. And Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are publishing their personal editorials all the time, via the media they own. We know from Sarah Wynn-Williams’ book Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work that the Meta algorithms are gamed to ensure the maximum exposure and engagement for Mark Zuckerberg’s every edict, including about freedom of speech, for which he is such a zealous advocate. Until someone says something disagreeable about him or his company.

The great free speech ‘absolutist’ Elon Musk took a legal action against the Center for Countering Digital Hate when they pointed out that hate speech had increased on X since he became owner. Zuckerberg meanwhile is trying to prevent the publication of Wynn-Williams’ book.

Treated as publishers, Meta and X would have to answer for everything they publish. They would – finally – be held accountable.

They should also be subject to fiercely rigorous regulatory oversight, with mega fines and – where appropriate – criminal charges if they fail to manage their publishing houses properly.

There is no other way of stopping the flood of disinformation, propaganda and lies being poured into the social media and internet space.  Russia, China, the Christian far right in America, the Israeli propaganda machine, Islamic extremists and legions of other grifters and con-men and women are pumping this shit out and paying to have it promoted.

The idea that neither Mark Zuckerberg (worth $210billion) nor Elon Musk (worth €325billion) can afford to pay editors and moderators is a joke. We all have to do it, so why not them? It is even crazier that they should be able to make vast profits out of an ongoing assault on democracy – not to mention out of the sea of lies, pile-ons, defamation, vendettas, incitements to hatred and promotion of self-harm, anorexia and suicide which they have routinely allowed to be published.

James Lawless also acknowledges that the harm being done by social media far out-strips the good. This is not the word of some far-out radical. He is a mainstream politician of moderate, largely centrist views. But he is right.

A TIPPING POINT

The sad truth is that politicians and regulators have been wined, dined, bought off, played for fools and generally given the run-around by social media companies for far too long. The tech bros have been treated like gods, while they have behaved like parasites. They are the ultimate liars, shams and hypocrites, pretending to be about community and the common good, when all they really care about is making obscene amounts of money, no matter what form of totalitarian, fascist or human rights abuser is writing the cheques.

And they are successfully spreading totalitarianism. It is working in America, which is being turned into a mafia State, with Donald Trump openly defying the courts and calling for the impeachment of judges who challenge the legality of his actions.

I’ve said this before too. We have seen a huge change in politics in Europe over the past decade or so, with the rise of the far right. This would not have happened if it hadn’t been for social media and the way the companies that run the world’s biggest media businesses are happy to spread what they know to be lies and disinformation as long as someone is paying them to do it.

This ongoing, sustained attack on democracy, human rights, equality and the rule of law is being advertised and promoted by every class of bad actor, and social media companies are raking in the cash.
We have arrived at a tipping point. There is no excuse whatsoever for European politicians and regulators sitting around twiddling their thumbs or poring over their Instagram feeds.  We know what’s at stake. The time to act is now – before the damage is irreversible.