A Diary on My Thoughts on the Collapse of the USA Empire (updated 9.7.2025)
27.5.2025
With anger and sadness I’ve read the news about the administration of USA. While it’s been obvious that the empire is collapsing, I never imagined that I’d see a day where the President of United States behaves like a president of banana republic.
But unlike actual banana republics, the USA still is massively influental on how things on this planet will unfold…
Well, at least this fiasco has taught me is a newfound appreciation for the generations of men who built up systems that made the USA an empire. They were damn smart people!
I had sneered a bit at the talk about how the USA was a “torch of freedom”, leading the way for nations globally; it’s actual foreign politics made it apparent how self-serving propaganda tool that belief is. But in retrospect I’ve come to feel that there was truth to it. Even if it fell short of them, the USA had high ideals and values guiding it’s actions.
I hadn’t realised what a privilidged position it was to judge the USA for falling short of it’s ideals. The option that the country’s leadership would altogether abadon those ideals wasn’t even on my radar!
(Falling short of ideals is pretty much inevitable anyway, as I’ve learned from growing up from the unrealistic expectations of youth. It’s the aspiration towards an ideal that gives the light of hope to the torch of spirit we each carry within; and actions towards the ideals keeps the flame alive.)
One of the things that made USA great was the system of governance where the power is divided between different institutions. It has granted the space for the power-hungry to compete against one other, while preventing only one of them from rising to the very top of the power hierarchy. It’s the failure (or rather: the deliberate undermining) of that system that has made possible the chaos that has now ensued.
I recently heard a marine saying that I think perfectly sums up the problem with the Trump’s politics: “The only direction a big ship will turn quickly towards is upside down.” The USA is a massive ship of war and commerce - if it sinks with a splash, the surge will be so strong that the other ships (nations) will also struggle to stay afloat.
Even despite these dark thoughts I have, I don’t think the USA’s sitation is hopeless. I’m certain there are still plenty of Americans who care about the great philosophical heritage their nation was built upon!
Quite obviously, the MAGA movement doesn’t understand the philosophical principles that once made America great. In fact - it seems to despise those philosophies to the extent that it wants to see them destroyed in favour of a dictatorship!
It’s like the relationship the movement has with Christianity. The Evangelical influence in the movement appears to want to use Christianity as a tool for power - not to actually follow Jesus’ spiritual philosophy (which consist of things such as “love your neighbour”, the parable of good Samaritan, and the rich man’s difficulty in getting into the kingdom of God). I think that if Jesus was alive today, these self-proclaimed Christians would despise Jesus for his “weakness” and would eagerly cheer on his symbolic crucifxion. It’s no less than the spirit of antichrist and the hypocritical pharisians manifested, if you ask me.
The fervorous madness of the MAGA movement has somewhat perplexed me. I see different psychological pathways of how it became manifest; but today I stumbled upon a clue that seems to put some puzzle pieces in place. I was searching for news related to all this when I typed in “maga”. Among the results was a translation box which read that in Spanish, “maga” = ”wizard”.
Oh.
OH.
I see.
Meme magic to cast spells;
subtly declaring the presence of manipulators.
Magical warfare over perceptions,
pulling clothes of illusions over the minds of unsuspecting;
so as to alter the course of reality.
Who are these magicians?
What is their aim?
I don’t know.
But to reference a great magician:
“You will know them from their fruits.”
I don’t find your fruits to be particularly good in taste,
my dear sorcerer friends.
***
28.5.2025
This morning I was reflecting on another big sorcery event in the history of the empire: the 9/11. (There have most likely been others too, but I am not familiar enough with them.)
I of course actually don’t know if deliberate magical operations were at play - but certainly the event has the taste of such in it.
As a theatherical event it was top notch aesthetics; the emotional impact it had on the collective psyche was magnificient. It achieved quite well it’s objectives of unifying and strengthening the Empire.
It also was act of pure evil.
Which is why it worked as well as it did: “pure” and “evil” are magical power.
But it also sew the seeds with karmic roots that began cracking the Empire’s foundations - that is, the faith that the Empire is truly dedicated in following it’s constitutional ideals. After all, lies and deceptions (which can be very effective on the short term) don’t have a long lasting karmic life time.
Now I don’t rule countries so I don’t really know; but I suspect that deception and capability for real evil are necessary for keeping a nation alive in the comptetion with other countries. But as ironic as it might sound, these traits needs to be in service of that which is Good, True and Beautiful. If they aren’t, that internal corruption will slowly start to eat away the nation’s strength.
When things get very complicated it can be tricky to distiguish when deception and evil are actually used for the good; but again, I think the advice “you will know them from their fruits” fits as a criterion of judgement.
(Well, there is the opposite pathway where it sort of works: embracing evil fully. The call of evil is universally tempting to some degree and some deranged individuals will fully yield themselves to it; but embracing evil fully would mean existence of pure suffering, despair and death, so most living beings have natural survival instinct against that. The only being whom I see it benefitting on the long term are disincarnate beings who exist in some really dark spaces of consciousness and use low-vibrational emotional energy as their “food”; the power-lusting individuals with weak moral compass are useful tools for these beings to use for predation. So yeah - let’s just not hang out with those beings, their company kind of sucks.)
Anyway, the MAGA political magic doesn’t appear to be clearly evil (yet?) like the 9/11 event was. It seems to be more about creating chaos and attempting to obtain power through that. After all, it’s a new Aeon of neural technology. The Trickster spirit is what charachterises youthfulness: it’s reckless (it’s not thinking very far into the future nor how complicated the interconnections between things are) and while it’s actions can be very mean they don’t yet carry truly deep malice in them (unless some older spirit is feeding it’s own resentment into it). Now that youtfull spirit full of (somewhat baseless) belief in itself appears to have inherited - with an old corrupt crook! - a collapsing empire before it has matured enough to handle the reins of it.
For Heaven’s sake Trickster, don’t embrace the banana republic path… that’s embarrassingly lacking in taste!!
***
30.5.2025
So finally an USA court has stood up against the Trump administration. I find it quite poetic that, according to the news, the law case was put forward by small business coalition and the court making the verdict was previously rather unknown to the general public. The court’s decisiding that the administration was overstepping his authority and that the power to make such decision over tariffs should be with congress is a clear attempt to set the checks and balances system back in place.
It remains to be seen how the power struggle continues but it makes me really happy to witness that among the Americans there is willingness to stand up to protect the ideals their country stands on. I had thought that there must be a sizable portion of the citizens (perhaps even the silent majority) who still believe in the fundamental ideals. I really hope it’s the appeal to higher ideals through non-violent means will be how things get resolved - with the USA:s liberal gun laws, things could get really ugly if the people would get violently divided over their President’s actions.
However things pan out there on the other side of the world, I think it’s indisputable that the administration has done significant damage to the USA:s reputation on the global politics. The USA has come across as undependable trading partner and military ally, as the country appears to not be currently lead with any repsect for previous agreements made or heck - even with a rational decision making! For the past months it has been circus lead by a ringmaster whose main motivators for holding the position of President appear to be 1) to enrich himself and his family, 2) to be at the center of attention, 3) to have power just for the sake of having power over others, and 4) to vengefully retaliate against those he percieves to have opposed him personally. That’s not the kind of nation you really want to depend on!!
Understandably, after this chaos many countries will be seeking to strengthen alliances beyond the USA to improve their economic and military stability. I hope that they won’t do this through jumping in a panic from a sinking ship to a pirate ship, but keep the clarity of mind to choose their close geopolitical partners with careful consideration over the undelrying philosophies that the ally country rests on. Just because an old partner has suddenly proven to be unreliable, it doesn’t mean that the other options have suddenly turned into good ones!
***
6.6.2025
As of writing this, the Trump-Musk drama is exploding. I would never have imagined that I would be witnessing something like this to happen at the top leves of the power hierarcy of the USA - there’s been so much ridiculousness but this lack of dignity is quite staggering. Well Trump rose to power partly through being obnoxious online, so I guess this is karma’s payback time.
I didn’t really follow what was going on with the USA before the tariff craziness started; afer all, I’m not American and I in general get interested in politics only when it starts to threaten my normal way of life. It was Trump with his infamous table of “reciprocal” tariffs - simultanously so ridiculous and obviously consequential - that I knew that I had to start to pay attention.
So: while I knew Musk was intimate with the White House, I just shook my head and, wanting to think that I wouldn’t have to actually watch the embarrassing ordeal going on, moved on. Now DOGE I did recognize as obviously a rather serious event; I thought it was unbelievably reckless way to handle thing. (The name “DOGE” really exemplified how chronically online / distanced from reality things have become.) I guess I should’ve been wise enough to see that the foretoughtless way of executing policies would extend to foreign affairs, too…
So: as the bromance drama began to implode, I felt forced to glimpse into the Musk things a bit. I was rather shocked to hear that when the data was released that USA’s GDP numbers weren’t looking that good, not only had Musk expressed an opinion that GDP should be calculated differently - a couple days later, a White House official repeated Musk’s idea!!
So I looked into it a bit and learned that, apparently, the suggested recalculation method wouldn’t be tampering with the numbers - it’s a way of calculation that is already used in some contexts. But expressing a wish to change the established method of measuring the country’s economy in order make one’s policies look better is rather unsettling, as it seems like an opening towards actual number tampering. (On a side note: if I was investing money, Musk making a statement like that would make me wary of the financial data his companies release.)
So I stumbled upon some info concerning the money flow [edit: favours rather than direct money I suppose] from Trump administration to Musk’s companies and, well… let’s say that Musk calling Trump “ungrateful” appreas to be quite a baseless accusation. Trump’s reciprocity for people who have donated him money or supported him politically actually appears to be almost virtuous - if it wouldn’t be a case of complete and utter corruption!
(On an apparently unrelated note: Musk’s seems to have the habit of fathering children without being a father for them. That could indicate how he tends to handle the important things in his life overall: good at starting things but not good at maintaining them, perhaps believing that enough money and power will solve all problems. (As a woman, I despise the repeated pattern of wanting to create children - especially with many different women! - despite knowing that he won’t be present for his children.))
I hadn’t actually planned to write about Musk. I’d rather focus on pondering the more philosophical aspects of things, as I feel that is more my cup of tea than the personal-practical level of politics. Well, on the meta level I suppose this drama is quite an apt expression of the Zeitgeist of our times.
***
9.6.2025
https://youtu.be/mbF0EKVduNc?feature=shared
[Murphy Slams Trump’s First 100 Days: This Is A Story Of Incompetence, Theft, Mind-Blowing Corruption by Senanotr Chris Murphy]
This clip is detailing about the extraordinary corruption that the Trump administration has engaged in. Some of the cases have been very public (such as the Qatar bribe plane); verifyng most claims would take a lot of work from me. However, if the claims are true then this draws a very bleak picture of what is going on in the governing bodies of the USA.
The mental image I got from the events described in the video was one of ravenous necrophages eating the decaying flesh of a big dead animal. Quite understandably, I was shocked by this image. Had the empire not just been decaying, but already become a corpse even before these guys came in? Was that the reason why it’s immune system (= the other branches of governance) did’t seriously step in to stop this shameless scavengering: the empire’s body wasn’t just old and sick but… already dead?
Upon reflecting this situation I was reminded the death of another Empire: the Soviet Union, which of course was the USA:s old arch enemy. After the SU:s collapse, the economically valuable pieces of the empire’s body were taken over by the oligarchs. This is what appears to be going on with the USA, too - the difference being that the scavengering has began even before the empire has been pronounced dead! [Edit: To be more precise, the USA empire is not yet being shred into pieces by oligarchs but they are doing the preliminary softening of the tissue. It’s possible that something happened in the SU before it’s death too, but I don’t know enough about it’s history to know.]
despite these dark thoughts, there’s also signs that the nation’s body might not be completely dead. That is exemplified in the successfull lawsuit against the Trump administration’s overstepping in authority with the sweeping tariffs, and in the Federal Reserve refusing to cut the interest rates despite Trump repeteadly telling it’s head to do so. (Now I’m first to admit that I do not understand the macro economics; but impression is that that the FR:s refusal - the will to stick the the philosophy of independence of the branches of state power, even when facing intense pressuring from the would-be authoritatian ruler of the nation - might be what’s keeping Money from seriously fleeting from the USA. Whereas the FR bowing before Trump administration might incite a global attempt to quickly pull vast quantities of financial assets away from from the USA, which would mean economic chaos all over the world and certainly an utter collapse of the USA:s financial system.)
The Senator at the video I linked is Democrat, but at the end he makes a call for action over bipartisan party lines. Whics is wholly appropriate, since this situation is not just about who wins within a political system. It’s about the fundamental supporting structures that keep up that very system.
My assesment is that the USA is crumbling from a nation following the separation-of-powers into an oligarchy. That prospect absolutely should shake into decisive action the Americans who in their hearts love and cherish the philosophy of liberty the nation’s foundations rest upon. I don’t know if the USA empire can be salvaged - but I believe that the constituationally sound nation for the American citizens can be.
Moving the lens away from the USA: the MAGA movement wants to spread it’s values all over the world. Considering the global economic chaos and the political corruption in the USA this movement has resulted in, I firmly think it’s influence over our politcal value system should be decisively deflected.
If you the non-American* reader think that I do not describe the USA:s current political situation accurately; and believe that the MAGA mindset will bear good fruits eventually; that’s completely fine. What I ask you is to step back and let things unfold for a while before committing into advancing the movement’s values. That way you can objectively show to the doubting what kind of fruits the MAGA tree is bearing. Do not trust just the rhetorics - watch the actions!
*Unfortunatley, I don’t an American reader has the luxury of time as it’s their politcal system that’s in the state of acute crisis.
***
10.6.2025
So the newest turn in the drama are the riots in Los Angeles… Now like with all I write, I have actually no idea what’s happening on the USA soil - I rely on the news and try to infere the picture behind them, hopefully coming up with useful ideas and interpretations.
Couple of days ago I learned about the masked, unidentified ICE agents just taking (assumed) paperless immigrants with them. That in itself is so classic totalitarian police state tactic that it’s the CITIZENS of the USA who should be concerned, no matter what they think of immigration issues. Even if a citizen trusts their state officials rightful conduct in situation like this, just try to think if it was you who’d get snatched. How do you even know it’s a police and not some criminal kidnapper pretending to be a police??
The people being snatched obviously have further worries. The Trump administration disregard of the legal rights of the immigrants is notorious. Even if you are someone who is legally in the country - what if they just disregard that and send you away anyway? Do you end up in some horrendous prison in a far-away foreign country, without any chance to legally defend yourself, just because you look certain way? What if you are legally in the country but your family member is not, so they get snatched away and there is nothing you can do to protect them?
When I first encountered the new about the masked ICE agents I thought that it might be just people spreading fear online. However, the government officials have admitted this is happening (to protect the officers from doxxing). In other words, it’s the federal state that is spreading fear among the immigrants. This might’ve been done delibirate, so as to create a situation where the people who feel threatened by the actions of the state will rise up to protect themselves.
Now while I don’t know if the rioting has risen organically; but considering all that is going on I think the probability to be high for there being government incitors among them. The Trump’s PR team has consistently used the power of viral image to further Trump’s political career; the image of masked young male (supposedly) illegal immigrants waving Mecixan flags among burning cars is just way too “good” optics for MAGA agenda to be arising completely organically, in my humble opinion.
It’s exactly the kind of image Trump administration would want to spread in social media, so that it’d strike fear among his supporters and they’d cling more tightly on Trump (probably not even realising that it was the administration’s unlawfulness in enforcing it’s policies that caused the social unrest). After all, his economic policies and blatant corruption has began to rise some criticism even among his loyalist media supporters. So if he can’t deliver on his ecomonic promises, he needs to double down on his deportation efforts so as to keep the voter base faithful to him.
That’s still pretty standard (suspected; conspirational) political manipulation of public perception. However, the deeper issues are that
1) the executive branch is consistently diregarding lawfullness in their actions, and
2) Trump sending the National Guard and Marines to the scene is the administration testing if there will be significant societal outcry if they order the military on the streets. (The immigrants illegally in the country are perfect target group used for this kind of testing due to their vulnerable legal situation and the disdain large segment of public (crucially, the Trump voters) has towards them.)
In my earlier post I wrote that we haven’t seen acts of true evil from this administration yet but we might be creeping in on it. The administration is testing if they succeed in turning the federation into a police state!! Things can get pretty fucking serious if the various existing governmental institutions won’t be able to stand their ground peacefully yet firmly against this assault, but succumb under it.
***
11.6.2025
https://youtu.be/LYkO5CvDG-k?feature=shared
[Edit: Trump deployed troops in LA to ‘break’ America and become ‘dictator’ | Joe Walsh by Times Radio]
Came across this video and it’s quite chilling to listen. Especially the part where he says that many Republicans* don’t even care if they are heading towards a dictatorship as long as they get their country back into something that appears to be an imagined golden age! But such age historically never was, as the past USA was built onto set of values that are the exact opposites to the values the MAGA movement endorses. (*The USA wouldn’t have fallen this low if the philosophical corruption wouldn’t run all across the party lines; but Republicans certainly are more open about it.)
Mr. Walsh makes a shocking claim that in his first term, Trump had already wanted to shoot at protesting Americans; and in this second term, the man in position to stop him from doing that has been changed into a Trump’s yes-man. Truly horrifying state of affairs if true!! Trump certainly isn’t standing for free speech. (Probably his understanding of “free speech” is that those on his side should be able to say the vilest insults towards those he wants to see destroyed, without having to fear consequences for their words.)
I watched some clip of Fox News(!) where the guest - after critisizing Trump’s tariff policy - said that “everyone” (including him) was afraid of Trump because Trump destroys careers of those who oppose him. I would be terrified to hear that’s the atmosphere cultivated by the people on the highest levels of political power! But - what a disgusting thought! - perhaps the tyranny-loving MAGA folks listening to that actually cheer on Trump even more.
Truly, the ideal of Liberty is desperatley gasping for breath in the USA. The Founding Fathers must be weeping in their graves over the death of the Nation they established!!
One things Mr. Walsh reapeats multiple times is that Trump is stupid. While before his second term Trump didn’t appear particularly intelligent to me, I couldn’t believe that an idiot could rise to such a position of power. Observing the tariff fiasco made me realize that damn, that might actually be the case. (I don’t think I was the only one who thought that such thing couldn’t happen. Trump’s online fans have spouted for a long time nonsense like “Trump plays 5D chess”; the logic appearing to be “Trump can’t be as stupid as he seems to be - which means he actually must be super smart!” lol.)
But after learning that the empire’s “immune system” had already collapsed, that state of affairs makes sense. Trump doesn’t need to be smart; it’s enough that he is charismatic, has the right kind of public image and doesn’t mind misusing power. The smart folks orchestrating Trump into power stand behind him… sometimes literally in the pictures taken of Trump! But many of them (such as the maga behind the MAGA magic) probably will remain unknown to the wider public.
In fact, Trump’s stupidity probably just makes him easier to manipulate. Be the manipulators some power-hungry American individuals wanting to take control over their nation; foreign nations wanting to take advantage of the former super power’s weakness; enemies of USA (internal or external) wanting to see the country go down in flames; or, as is most likely, combination of all these.
***
12.6.2025
Changed the title to be more precise description of what this subpage has turned into. The original was Some thoughts on the situation with the USA (because I quit twitter but still need to vent). Changes I make on the content this website don’t get timestamped or otherwise marked, so I try to keep track of the changes myself so that they can be tracked if needed to. I think the easiness of altering and deleting content on the internet leads easily into irresponsibile and flaky behaviour, so I try to deliberately do things to make it easier to track my public online activity. I want to be held responsible for my own thoughts and behaviour - if not by anyone else, by myself.
When I read Orwell’s 1984 I found the part of rapidly changing the contents of books to fit whatever was the political mood swing at the time to be rather unbelievable. In the era of print, burning books was easiest way of permanently altering information landscape to fit one’s opinions; altering editions as they come out was a slower path for it. However, the Internet makes information tampering super easy. Text can be altered subtly without anyone noticing but those who keep very keen attention on it; the developement of AI makes it easy to create fake video and audio. So even if I hold myself accountable and trackable, I cannot promise that the information associated with my name is actually made by me. (I don’t think anyone would have active interest in altering my content that way, but the world can sometimes be kind of crazy so who knows what will happen. So if anyone wanting to do that to me is reading his, I ask you to be respectful and refrain from such actions. Thank you.)
On the broader perspective, generative AI is crashing the value of digitally coded information. So hold onto your old books, VHS casettes and vinyls, folks! It takes much more effort to forge physical items than it’s forging digital information, so their value as source of information gets higher. Unfortuntely this applies only to old physical copies (although the more time-consuming it is to create a physical carrier for information, less likely the information is to be bullshit - or the deceiver would have to consider it to be really important that their bait gets swallowed!). The dangers of collective digital psychosis are getting more intense by day, so hold onto reality where you can!
All this unreliability of information applies to everything I’ve written about the USA:s situation. I don’t know if any of that is even happening!! I try to look for different sources of information, so even if it’s all fake I’m commenting on a misinformation project on the collective level (which will have large real-life consequences) and not some “for you” misinformation algorithm content (which would come out as just me being crazy, which would be rather harmless on the grand scale of things but utter waste of my time).
—
I had thought I wouldn’t write on the USA topic but I can’t resist commenting on the Mexican flags and reversed USA flags on the LA protests. I see it as very obviously stoking the flames of fear among the Trump supporters, which will increase the support for Trump’s deportation politics and turn the blind eye towards what seems to me like a military takeover agenda. (I listened to some news that claimed that on his first day in office the 2nd term Trump had asked about how to get troops on the streets but maybe that’s just a rumour.) My suspicion is that they were initally brought in by Trump administration’s own riot plants but the peacefully protesting crowd appears to have adopted the symbol, so I was wondering why they might do it.
My first thought is that it’s NPC virtue signaling: people just copy thoughtlessly whatever symbol is on the “right” side of the political divide. But that’s too dismissive of deeper issues, so I tried to take the point of view of the people who are protesting.
Let’s imagine that I would be an immigrant in a foreign country in a big city where there would be a big immaigration population from my country of origin, Finland. Many of those Finnish immigrants would have entered the country without proper paperwork but the local police doesn’t enforce the deportation laws on them. So most of them would work various jobs in the city (typically the one's the nationals aren’t so keen on doing). The population would get so big that there would be whole districts of Finns. Despite the unsecure legal status of the paperless, and perhaps certain degree of distrust between the locals and the Finnish immigrants, things roll on pretty peacefully.
Then there comes in a new President who talks very disrespectfully of Finnish people. In his speeches he paints Finland in a very bad light and does policies that e.g. economically target the country. As time passes, the administration led by this President starts to do immigrant deportantions haphazardly and illegally. This already is very scary political situation to be in, even for the legal immigrants in the country! And then - masked police officers start to round up people...
I would feel lot of anger towards the country of residence treating the people in my community like that. I would probably have a need to symbolically stand up for my country of origin and for the fellow immigrants coming from it. So I can understand the logic behind Finnish flags being waved in a protest similar to the one going on in LA right now! Reversing the residence country’s flag could symbolise the anger I’d feel towards the actions it has taken towards the community I’d belong to.
Nevertheless it’s a foolish thing to do. Waving Mexican flags in protest will only strengthen the Trump supporter’s perception that Mexicans are invading the USA, which will play into team Trump’s favour and worsen the situation for those immigrants who are peacefully trying to defend their legally established rights. It will also deepen the divide between people of the USA; “divive and conquer” is the classic way to gain control over a population, and thus favourable situation for the wannabe-tyrants trying to overthrow the Constitution so as to take complete power over the USA.
***
14.6.2025
[Editorial note: I realised that I hadn’t given the title and creator of the two previous videos I had linked, so I did that today. Usually edits in these [ ] are done in the same day.]
https://youtu.be/XtYSyb6fCxo?feature=shared
Naomi Klein on Trump, Musk, Far Right & "End Times Fascism" by Democracy Now!
This was very interesting video as it talks about the mythical meta-narrative behind practical politics. I had thought that part of the MAGA madness was due to the Evangelical’s influence - a movement that can be very anti-government and prone to conspiratorial thinking yet simultanously demands unquestioning belief in it’s own interpretation of events. I have also previously analysed in my Twitter account how the Zionist Christian Nationalism (as the different movements are merging into one massive monster) fits the archetypes of both Antichrist and Babylon in the Evangelical’s own “End Time” story.* So it was very interesting to listen how Klein analyses the unifying worldview within the MAGA movement to be doomsdayism.
(*A very cruel interpretation of the Evangelical mythical story would be that the “true believers” have already been raptured and this is the Anti-Christ’s religion that the “left behinds” believe in during Tribulations. I obviously don’t believe that to be the case - not just because I’m not Evangelical, but because in my personal experience Jesus Christ is Agape (Universal Love) perfected. The very logic in “rapture story” is incompatible with that experience I had of Him.)
This ties to another aspect of this I’ve been pondering: the loss of American optimism. Americans used to be known for their optimistic view of the world - they stereotypically didn’t have the deepest of charachter or thought, but they did have an unwavering faith in their capability to build a better brighter future (the “American Deam”). I suppose that the USA empire’s Zeitgeist of youthful-belief-in-oneslef has eroded before the cold hard adult realisation that, sometimes, one turns out to be the one on the wrong side of a story - no matter how bright-eyed intentions one might’ve had when entering into the messy turbulances of life.
I think that I’m - and maybe the world at larger is? - almost of missing the energy of “that annoying guy who’s too full of himself but is at least trying to do the right thing”. (As someone funnily put it: “Americans always do the right thing - after they’ve tried everything else”.) I think there is something truly valuable to be salvaging that kind of collective optimism… although now, after having all the harsh life lessons of past, maybe there could be a bit more maturity in it :)
***
15.6.2025
I was going through news about the LA riots. As things have calmed down, the new news about it appear to be coming from Fox News - which is expeted, as this event aligns exactly with their political agenda. But what I felt perplexed over was that despite there being “violent” riots I hadn’t heard much news about the victims of it. Why wasn’t the Fox News blasting about the hero officers who had been hurt in protecting the city from dangerously violent rioters? The only info about a hurt officer was a picture of a police who had been inflicted by tear gas and was taken care by an Salvadorian restaurant officer; the source of tear gas almost certainly having being the police forces themselves.
Neither had a I really heard anything about the protesters being hurt - expect for news reporters being shot by rubber bullets. There was reporingt that a dead body found nearby but since there was no more news coverage on it, the death probably was unrelated to the protests.
Overall, the only news about LA riots with serious violence I came across were about the 1992 LA riots.
So it’s interesting to come across this article:
https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/los-angeles-protest-police-riot/
What I Saw in LA Wasn’t an Insurrection. It Was a Police Riot. by Laura Jedeed, The Nation
I found it very interesting because - while I can’t know if it’s a true account of events - the way the details are described makes it seem like an actual event where actual people were in. I’ve been in some protest during my lifetime and (while I’ve never been in a protest where there were any acts of violence, property destruction or looting) the descriptions are relatable; unlike news coverage, which by it’s nature turns events impersonal and sometimes even quasi-mythical. Like these were bunch of people who got out to protest and things unfolded from their part in a rather unplanned manner.
Now obviously the alleged overreaction in use of police power against protesters is the most serious issue; but very interesting is the implication that the police might have been deliberately targeting the press:
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/06/10/los-angeles-immigration-protests-journalists-rubber-bullets/84128426007/
Multiple journalists injured by police nonlethal rounds while covering LA protests by Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY
Why’d the police do that? Was it intimidate the press? (Jadeed claims that was the case - it’s safer for the journalist to report things from the police’s side rather than from the protestor’s.) Was it to create an image that there was so much riot violence that even reporters got caught in crossfire? (That’s the initial impression reading the reports about injured reporters gave to me.) Or was it an organic expression of distrust against the press among the police? (The media certainly has lost much of the trust and pedigree they used to have due to people believing they just spread propaganda and misinformation.) Dunno.
Overall I stick to my tin foil hat and, until proven otherwise, think that this was pre-planned event by Trump administration in order to justify ordering the military on the streets. The “who benefits from all this” analysis simply weights almost completely to the administration’s side of equation - and further, there’s been been behaviour to support that analysis on their part, while expressing no behaviour that would suggest otherwise.
These guys are not draining the swamp… they are the swamp.
***
16.6.2025
So yesterday there were the “No Kings” mass protests against the Trump administration. I of course find this to be heartwarming, especially as the protest appear to have unfolded mostly peacefully. (Demonstrations of that magnitude - occuring in 50 states and, according to the organizer’s estimate, 5 million people participating - having 0 events of unrest would be next to miraculous.)
I’m happy to see that the Americans took a stance for their country’s very founding principle: no authoritarian rulers. That is the core ideal of The United States of America, it’s very philosophical corner stone.
If we conceptualise a nation as a game that the citizens are playing, it’s the first rule of the game upon which all the other rules of that game were built on. Ideals are the goal of that game; the philosophical structure is how the ideals are established as the basic rules of the game. Playing the game abandoning the goal and/or not adhering to the philosophical rules will change the nature of the game - i.e. the nature of the nation - fundamentally. It becomes some other type of game. Trump and his administration clearly want to play the USA game with some other rules than those which were constitutionally established; personally, I’m glad to see that other players in the game won’t just quietly accept them arbitrarily changing the rules.
Now after the shared acceptance of the basic rules of the game have been established, the normal bickering over the less structural ideals and rules can start. What kinds of economic, military and social institutions we should have? Should we have this or that law? Should we implement policies this or that way? People will have different ideas and beliefs over how ideals should flower from the branches (insitutions) of the trunk (fundamental philosophical structures) of their nation; that, in fact, is part of the core ideal of the broader “democracy game” many countries have agreed they want to be playing.
Now the metaphorical nation tree can be axed down different ways. It can happen through an internal authoritarian change, or an external invader might take over. It can even be done legitimately within the bounds of a democracy game, if a sufficiently large majority wants to see the fundamental rules of the game to change - or even if they don’t agree but remain inactive as they see the ax coming.
The USA is a remakable country in that - unlike most nations - it was not established on a legacy of blood, language, land or religion but purely on the ideal. Truly a revolutionary expression of consciousness!! While the French with their revolution had ignited that kind of political philosophical fire in the minds of men, in the USA the very game was established on such universalist principles.
I say this not to idealize or idolize the nation; lots of evil things obviously has happened under it’s wings throughout it’s history. But that it’s roots are grounded in the ideal is remarkable and, I think, deeply respectable aspect of the USA.
Now I personally live in a country that was based on the ideas of shared blood, language and land (although on a rather idealized version of those - the unified nation of “Finland” is an idea that didn’t truly exist before the 19th century nationalist movement). If the generations before me hadn’t believed in those ideals during the darkest moments in Finland’s days of youth, I would’ve been born in a satellite nation under the rule of Soviet Union!! But thanks to their hard work and sacrifices, I have lived all my life in an independent and wealthy country that - besides the “nationalist” game - has agreed to play certain forms of the universalist games such as “democracy” and “capitalism”.
Observing the situation unfodling in the USA has been a big learning experience for me. Personally, I root for the people of the USA who stand for the philosophy of freedom underlying their constitution, hoping that they will be able to defend it in a way that is peaceful and leads to true prosperity of their nation.
—
Addendum: Immediately after publishing the above I ate an apple and inside it was a seed that had sprouted. I have never before seen a sprouted apple seed - and I have eaten lots of apples during my lifetime! I happened to have an empty sprouting pot, let’s see if it’ll grow.
Quite remarkable synchornicity - or, in more classical language, a very promising omen!
***
20.6.2025
Today I realised how much better I feel after I quit Twitter. I found it quite fascinating place and it really helped me to grow courage in my self-expression. However, I feel like it has grown more difficult to create interactions with other people compated to whenI started. It might’ve been due to things like my profile picture (your avatar pic has real impact on how people interact with you!) but I felt the place was overall growing less interactive.
A big reason for that must be the heavy push for right-wing content on the platform, especially the normalization of expressing the more extreme ends of it. It becomes less and less appealing discussion space for the “normies”, including the right-leaning ones, who have more moderate centrist views on things. This leads into the spiral where the more extremist voices take more and more space, and there’s fewer and fewer moderate views to counter and balance their perpective.
While initially the movement towards the right political side was healthy reaction to some of the strangeness coming from the left political side, that was taken over by the more extreme voices on the right. In my opinion, in Twitter that hasn’t been organic. Last fall (i.e. before the USA presidental elections) I installed the X app on my phone and on the “For you” page the algorithm was pushing so much nationalist-racist right-wing content for me that I had to delete the app. On my computer the “For you” algorithm gave me content alike to what I’d liked on my computer (e.g. historical Christian art); so I assume that on my phone, the “new” app (even though I had logged in with my usual account) was serving me content that the X algorithm was serving on it’s “default mode”.
Considering the “ungrateful” compensations Elon Musk received upon Donald Trump entering the White House second time, it’s quite obvious that wasn’t just an organic right-wing movement but an orchestrated propaganda effort to get Trump elected. I don’t think it’s even necessary for me to even infere that - these folks aren’t even really trying to hide the fact that Twitter was used to manipulate the voters. Well I guess some could argue that it was enough for Musk, with his internet superstar status, to publicly endorse and financially support Trump… but I think Twitter, with it’s inherent ability to directly and personally influence minds, was the main game that was being played.
I at the time didn’t realise it was politically motivated influencing I was facing on my phone. I’m not American, so I thought it was none of my business whom it’s people would vote for. I did stop following some accounts because there was too much election content coming through - all of it was pro-Trump, now that I think of it. I thought that political perspective was just a natural consequence of me following certain kinds of people; but now I wonder if there was also some sort of suppression of Democratic content, or if the people who supportet Democrats had left the platform, or if the suporters were afraid to speak aloud their opinions due to a flood aggressive verbal attacks they’d receive on the platform (by the human X users too - but I wouldn’t be suprprised if there was an army of propaganda bots being employed).
I didn’t realize at the time that the USA:s system of chekcs and balances had lost it’s teeth. In retrospect, that alarm was loudly sounded by many Americans. To my defence, I didn’t know much about those issues and thus didn’t know if the reason Trump walked away unimpeached was because the courts had done their job correctly or because they had failed to do it. But surely I too was influenced by the internet propaganda - and the excitement of the unexpected.
There was an atmospehere of ambivalence: was Trump fighting the system of political corruption… or benefitting from it? In retrospect it seems to have been the latter - the con man was able to pull of his con.
—
Other things came up irl so I published the above a bit unfinished. For example, of course I knew the far-right influence through my phone was political - I just didn’t connect the dots to deliberate effort to covertly influence voters.
I also have wanted to write how now that I’ve searched for news in YouTube I’ve noticed how much the titles are about Trump being “humiliated” (either by his own actions or by others). I find it very distasteful - even if I dislike Trump, I don’t see a point in taking malicious delight from his humiliation. It’s part of the other, bigger issue with the USA:s politcs: treating politics like it’s a reality tv. Even the attempt towards respectful sportmanship - shaking hands with your opponents after a good competition - seems to have been often replaced by a constant flipping of the finger. The drama in itself seems to be the point, which layes a very bad ground for doing any actual practical political work.
Politicals opponents are painted in as unflattering light as possible. That’s one way I’ve observed even legitimate Trump criticism to be countered in Youtube’s comment sections - “you guys think that men be women” or something in similar lines. Which obviously is a stupid response but probably reflects the level of political smearing that has been going on: everything the other party engages in can be dismissed on the grounds that they are alleged to belong to the “camp crazy”. (This obviously goes for the those who voted Trump, too.)
At worst this results in dehumanisation, which is the most worrisome part of all this. This was expressed recently, when after the shooting of Democrat politicans a Republican Congressman made a Twitter post mocking the event and alleging leftist conspiracy behind it. It’s one thing when the anonymous internet trolls do it - but a person in an actual position of political power thinking that is somehow acceptable behaviour is so appalling and disrespectful that I struggle to express it in words. Well - when the President himself didn’t have even a veneer of compassion when discussing the issue, a political discussion culture is truly hitting a disgusting low.
***
26.6.2025
In my earlier post I made a remark on how the Federal Reserve not bowing before the executive branch pressuring might be one of the things that is holding global economic chaos at brink. I still do not know how the things actually work in the world of macro economics, but psychologically the question is rather simple:
If you were a foreginer investing in the US assets, would you consider your Money to be in a safe secure place if Powell would cave under Trump’s pressuring?
My undestranding is that the USA government backed financial assets have been considered the “safe investments” basically until this administration came in. This spring’s erratic policies - which appear to lack rational, long-term, in-depth, big picture considerations - is defienetly not expressing the qualities you would want the Big Bank securing the value of your Big Money to have!!
Of course, this ties to the deeper attack on the philosophy of having governmental structures preventing the rise of an authoritarian ruler; which again is what has in part has made the US assets valuable. Those “rules of the game” protect the Money, too, from being subjected to the whims of oligarchs.
But part of this is about Trump himself. Despite successfully branding himself as being a successful businessman, his actual dealings in business have repeatedly been unsuccessful. Becoming a reality tv star was the most successful business move of his life, as it led to the image of being successful businessman; which in turn lead to his Presidency, which by far has become the most lucrative business opportunity he has ever had (which obviously tramples all over the very basic rules of the “let’s not have a corrupt government” game). So yeah - I wouldn’t be happy if my money would end up under the power of such con man.
***
27.6.2025
So I wrote in the previous entry about Trump being unsuccessful in business. In all fairness, I haven’t looked too deeply in such matters and so I could be misinformed…
… on the other hand, any information I have about Trump possible wealth doesn’t come from any “number data” about his companies. Besides being the reality tv star, the image of Trump being wealthy is based on him owning companies that sell showy luxury. But that doesn’t mean that the companies are profitable (or that investors see future profit potential in them). They might stay afloat for other reasons than Trump’s mad business skillz.
It was the image of wealth that many Americans voted for. They hoped that Trump would be able to negotiate good deals on their behalf. But it seems to me that Trump is making good deals for himself and his buddies - not for the average Americans, or for the USA as a nation. Trump saying that Walmart should “eat the tariffs” exemplifies this. The President told to an American for-profit corporation that it should pay the price of HIS administration’s policies. That certainly is not a pro-business attitude!! It’s about Trump knowing that if tariffs rices prices on grocery stores, his support goes down. [lol @ typo, but thanks to it I learnt that rice grows in the USA.]
It seems that many of his voters didn’t even understand what tariffs are. Apparently many believed that the foreign country would paying the USA:s tariffs; that the tariffs would punish the foreigners “ripping off” Americans. This attitude implies deep confusion and misuderstanding about very basic things on how the global market place operates. Have they even checked the labels indicating country of origin on the everyday stuff they buy??
Yes: it’s true that China and other countries get “punished” by the tariffs - the corporations making stuff in those other countries will be losing is sales because it becomes more expensive for Americans to buy their stuff. That could benefit Americans through increased job opportunities - if the USA would already have an operative industry that offers similar products with similar-enough price. But the “Trump tariffs” are just nonsensical, they were way too high and implemented way too fast.
The more sophisticated argument in favour of these tariffs is that they are not even meant to take place as they are - they actually are just a negotation strategy: the administration places outrageous demands on the other countries so as to negotiate them down, but to a higher level than what the starting with a more reasonable starting point would’ve yielded. Ok, I guess you can do that, but here are dowsides to it:
1) It’s a very high-stakes tactic that could end up doing significant damage to the USA:s economy if the bluff doesn’t work out flawlessly.
2) These tariffs don’t seem to have realistic end goals beyond bullying the other countries to bend before the USA:s [Trump’s] will.
2) I don’t think this tactic - even if it’d achieve it’s economic goals, whatever those are supposed to be - is worth the reputational damage it has brought upon the USA.
It seems to me that very destructive emotional energies are motivating much of this administration’s poltics, which reflects the mentality of it’s supporters. I get the feeling there’s a sense of victimhood arising from a feeling that one didn’t get what one was entiteled to; which in turn results in taking delight from feeling of regaining power through revenge and bullying. That kind of energy is not suitable for the return of the American Dream, which would require optismistic faith in one’s capability to build better future through one’s own hard work and preservance. Brewing in malice and resentment will but poison that Dream!!
***
30.6.2025
One thing that has gone down the drain during this Presidency is dignity. It’s one of those things that I took as granted before this US administration: that Presidents (or similar head representatives of significant institutions) carry themselves with certain dignity. That dignity arises from the recognition of the power that comes along with the duty=responsibility they have assumed towards the people they now rule over. They let go of undignified behaviours that might’ve been acceptable (or even might’ve helped them to gain the position!) before assuming the leadership position.
It appears that during the first Trump administration there existed people and structures around Trump that kept him more or less checked in his behaviour. Now he seems to be surrounded by power-drunk yes-men who do not try to balance but follow after his undignified behaviour. Calling people names and launching hostile verbal attacks upon them is never particularly dignified* but I think it’s especially undignified for a President who is representing and acting on behalf of the whole of his nation.
(*I’ve done that online too so I’m not claiming the moral high ground here - although I do guard against myself so as to not use such words as emotional response or as unjustified weapons of offence. I also ofc do not represent or act on behalf of anyone but myself.)
The way he continutes to paint Democrats as the “evil enemy” I find quite appalling. He has a position where he ought to be uniting the nation and guiding it forwards, but intead he continues to sow division among it’s citizens! Well, even when aimed at non-citizens it causes an atmoshpere of division: the USA is a nation built by immigrants, so to me the haphazard deportations seem like a strike at the grounding ideals of the American Dream. (Ofc the establishing of the nation happened through conquering the land from the Native Americans, so perhaps the now-native Americans fear that the same fate of being conquered and pushed to margins is falling upon them.)
If Trump is Russia’s mole then he’s doing pretty good... But as the wisdom says: do not to assume evil intent when incompetence is sufficient explanation. It’s enough to have a massive ego and a massive thirst for power - the betrayal of the core values of the nation just happens to be the unfortunate byproduct of it.
The final note on lack of dignity is how Trump loves even very obvious flattery while attacking in vile manner against those who question him even on legitimate grounds. It’s embarrassing behaviour and makes him seem like an easy target for manipulation.
***
1.7.2025
One thing I forgot to mention when I analysed the basic flaws in the tariff implementation is ofc that they are universally applied to all stuff coming from a foreign country. It doesn’t take into an account that the other country might be selling stuff that you can’t make at home. So the companies and citizens are forced to pay higher prices because the other option is simply to not have that stuff any longer.
That might not be that big deal if the bananas become more expensive - perhaps you will start to by local apples instead! But if it’s raw materials that many industries rely on or products that are essential for the invisible-for-public structures upon which the society relies, then a sharp increase in price can eventually cause serious disruptions in everyday life as the effect will not be contained within just the companies selling bananas but all over the place. (Of course, the banana companies struggling will have all sorts of downstream effects globally - but things get really complicated as the distance from the point where “the butterly fluttered it’s wings” increases.)
The way the administration tried to avoid outcomes like this was giving exemptions to the stuff they regarder to be essential. But that’s doing things backwards!! The global economy is extreamily complicated; you are in your every day relying on all kind of stuff of which’s existence you aren’t even aware of. So in my opinion it’d make more sense to target with higher tariffs just certain, clearly defined stuffs - that way it’s possible to actually analyse what the downstream effects are likely to be. With universal high tariffs such analysis of effects is pretty much impossible, as the systems in question are so complicated and interconnected that the pool of outcomes becomes effectively infinite.
But I have a hunch that the people who came up with this idea didn’t think that far ahead. (Because, again, no reason to assume ill intent when incompetence is sufficient explanation… well, I do actually assume there was some ill intent of being a bully, so perhaps it’s better to say that there’s no reason to assume evil intent when the lack of foretought is sufficient explanation.)
***
9.7.2025
So the tariff drama continues, with many new twists. The only common thread I can see in the news about them is that I don’t see them being in alignment with the USA:s best interests.
Yesterday, Trump announced that there’d be 50% tariff on copper. (The way he apparently can just throw out very consequential announcement and threats is quite telling of the decline of the nation… where’s the deep state when you’d need it?? lol.) This is exactly one of the themes that my previous entry was about. Stuff like copper, steel and aluminium are the material basis which - often invisibly but sometimes literally! - hold the current societal structures afloat.
While the announced intention of bringing back the production to the USA would be in the country’s own interest, the abrupt high increase in the price of importing these materials seems to me like a destructive hit for the nation’s economy. The USA does produce all these materials domestically; but it’s impossible to quickly ramp up production and refinement to cover up to ~20-50% that’s currently being imported. Building up new mines and production will facilities takes years, even decades - and will require large amounts of the very materials that are going to be more expensive to import!
I doubt that most companies will not be able to pay the high tariffs for any extended period of time. They will scramble to buy from the domestic sources, which 1) won’t be able to supply the goods in high enough quantities and 2) will anyway lead to rising prices due to the companie’s desperate willingness to pay. This would mean layoffs and bankrupcies in the very manufacturing industries that the administration allegedly wants to boost with these tariffs! The subsequent loss of products to sell and thus the workers’ lost income would have ripple effects on the other businesses on other fields, too.
Now there’s lot of unnecessary overconsumption going on - toning that down a bit wouldn’t be bad in itself. (It’s true that a children don’t need 30 dolls, even though it’s quite fat coming from a person whose businesses sell the most unnecessary of luxuries it’s.) Again, it’s the abrupcy and apparentl lack of long-term planning in these policies that make them so dangerous. If mass layoffs come, it will mean social unrest - especially as “the Big Beautiful Bill” aims to cut programs like food stamps and medical support for the poorest! Peasants won’t be happy with the circus if they have no bread to eat.
Also: the threatened 200% future tariff on medicines is quite interesting when combined with the Medicaid cutting. While I actually think many drugs do more harm than good, there of course are medicines that people truly rely on. So not only will they be cut out of the medical safety net - but many medicines might become so expensive that it’s impossible for a common person to pay for them? In a country that’s already notorious for it’s expensive health care system?? It seems like an incredibly cruel thing to do for the citizens of your own country!!
(To speculate: I think that the underlying/unconscious motivation of these folks might be the hate of the poor. Even with immigration policies! The very rich foreigners willing to pay millions of $$ are more than welcome to become citizens of the USA; whereas the hard-working common folk who keep the farms and constructions sites running are not. Even though it’s the latter who embody the original ideal of the American Dream!!)
This is very dark, dangerous path the nation appears to be verging on. Will this administration use state violence to quell the discontent if the common people start to revolt? They have already dabbled with police state tactics with ICE and National Guard; there was also the military parade that seemed to be more about stroking an aspiring dictator’s ego than about honoring the military. Seems like quite a bleak situation.
I truly hope the classic pattern of authoritarian states - the masses suffering of hunger + the state using violence to control them - can be averted through the sensible people in the White House having more positive influence on the executive branch’s policies.
