Flying Bribery Palaces and the End of the Western Order
I am the rare person who thinks Trump’s authoritarian push has not, yet, gone as far as it might as quickly as I imagined.
I think that for two primary reasons. First, I expected far more violence than we’ve seen, both from jack-booted thugs and from Trump’s terrorists. While ICE has definitely done horrible things and wielded unnecessary violence, they have thus far limited their targets to people who are or look like they are migrants or those who’ve defended migrants’ due process. It doesn’t make what they’ve done right. It makes that violence an entrée.
That may change if Trump’s budget authorizing 20,000 more immigration cops–which should be viewed as a wholesale shift in the United States from law enforcement to policing–gets passed by the Senate. That may change as Trump and Stephen Miller continue to gin up violence targeting judges. That may change as Trump’s rubes begin to lose their livelihoods and need someone besides Trump to blame. But thus far, Trump has not wielded the kind of violence he has tested in the past.
The other thing I expected to happen more quickly was a solidification of an alliance with the great authoritarians of the world — the Middle Eastern autocrats who had been bribing Trump in plain sight throughout the Biden term, Russia, which had partnered with those same autocrats in Putin’s effort to destroy the United States, and eventually China. Such an alliance would leave Europe — already undermined by the Orbanist project — as the rump defender of once dominant Western ideals.
My concern about such a plight is more than my own parochial interest, living within that rump world protecting human rights and democracy.
If Trump joins such an alliance, it would turn all the tools the US has used to uphold a tainted version of the Western order for most of a century against itself, in precisely the same way Trump has turned the strengths that Made America Great — immigration, diversity, debate, science — against the United States.
When I wrote a post on the “terrifying complexity of tech oligarch obeisance to Trump,” I was thinking of the US power wielded through US tech giants, in the form of spying, platforming and promoting violent and fascist speech, and serving as the digital infrastructure for the world’s commerce and communication. I was imagining what Quinn described, where Trump wielded US power over Microsoft to cut off an ICC prosecutor targeting Israel and Russia, Karim Khan. I was imagining the tools once used against people the US called terrorists, now targeting human rights defenders as if they were terrorists.
It’s not just the Internet. So long as the dollar remains the reserve currency, it’s banking too, which Trump also used to debank Khan.
Trump has used the tools the US used to use against terrorism and dictators to instead make a prosecutor of war crimes a person non-grata. He has made it a crime to uphold human rights.
The reports of Khan’s targeting came out while Trump was in his triumphant Middle East tour, where oligarchs who want the ability to chop up journalists with bone saws with impunity feted Trump’s return and threw more bribery at him. Trump brought many of the tech oligarchs who had earlier bowed in obeisance, which turned it into an orgy of oligarchy. While there, Trump handed away American tech advantage on AI. While there, Trump assured the men who chop up journalists that he, that America, wouldn’t tell them what to do anymore. That was the message of his triumph. Probably Trump will, probably he did, share the intelligence that went into chopping up a WaPo journalist, but that didn’t stop WaPo’s owner Jeff Bezos from following along like a puppy.
And through it all, even Trump’s supporters criticized Trump’s plans to accept a flying bribery palace from Qatar, an expensive sign of how goddamned easy it was to purchase Trump with a bit of gilt.
But Trump has no self-control in the face of a shiny bribe, so he accepted it with no consideration of the symbolic and national security implications of doing so.
Trump is an insanely easy mark for ruthless autocrats bearing bribes.
Most commentators have been measuring Trump’s authoritarian project in terms of Orbán’s model, and they’re not wrong. That’s what Project 2025 had in mind. But Trump already went far beyond Project 2025 in key areas, starting with the gutting of USAID, including the projects Republicans favor, a move that likely eliminated good will to the US in areas threatened by authoritarianism.
But Trump seems to be pursuing an additive model, one adopting the excess of the Gulf. There was a video (I’m still looking for it again) of the end of a receiving line with Trump and — I think — Mohammed bin Zayed. Stephen Miller was last in line and whichever Sheikh it was shook Miller’s hand and then didn’t let go, embracing him, engaging in an extended discussion with him. There were smiles everywhere. (Update: From SteveBev, here’s that video.)
The project is larger than Orbán’s. Orbán’s was just a package to sell it to the Christian nationalists.
And Trump came back from the Gulf, determined to flaunt his flying bribery palace from Qatar, on the verge of ending sanctions on Russia having achieved absolutely nothing in the way of peace concessions to excuse it, even while 80 Senators support more sanctions on Russia. In recent days Trump has done several things (besides accepting the flying bribery palace).
He has floated draconian 50% tariffs for the EU. If imposed, they would treat the EU as a greater adversary to the US than China (which is exactly how Trump’s aides treated the EU when thinking of their short-lived campaign against the Houthis). He is complaining about more than trade. He is also complaining about non-monetary barriers — the kinds of rules that make EU life safer and more civilized than in the US — and lawsuits of the sort that impose limits on American tech.
And, under the same kind of dereliction Marco Rubio brought to dismantling USAID, Trump is now dismantling the NSC so as to eliminate the possibility that actual experts will advise him against stupid policies. Axios provided the propaganda version, but FT provides the best explanation of the import.
“By whittling down the NSC staff to almost nothing, you kneecap the US government’s ability to generate foreign policy options, or to potentially act as a brake on Trump’s preferences. All that remains is presidential power.”
That would be dangerous enough if Trump were smart, sophisticated, or fully cognizant.
He’s not.
As such, he remains suggestible to whoever is in his office, starting with Stephen Miller (who’ll expand his portfolio with this move), but undoubtedly including whatever dictator can get him on his phone, those autocrats bearing bribes.
Admittedly, Trump’s complete reversal of sanctions on Syria will provide the country needed relief. It’ll also help his Gulf buddies consolidate power.
We should expect to see more instances where Trump takes sudden actions that empower authoritarianism. And as he proceeds, he will look for ways to start chipping away at democracy where it remains.
How Trump can still hold a 45% approval rating in the polls is the greatest mystery and the most disgusting revelation of my lifetime.
I recently saw a screening of Downfall, the last days in Hitler’s bunker in Berlin, and I thought a lot about your point about Trump’s supporters.
Even as Berlin was collapsing all around them and Hitler’s delusional thinking was evident to everyone around him, there remained 1) true believers to the Nazi cause, 2) Hitler loyalists who opposed anyone attempting to work around him to face reality, and 3) those who remained personally loyal to Hitler while taking actions he opposed.
Everything was lost and yet they remained loyal. Not just those in the bunker but common citizens throughout the city lynching those they viewed as failing to fight or others determined to fight to the last bullet when there was nothing left to save or win.
There will be people who one can reason with and persuade. But there will always be those who will hold onto their ideals or their loyalty to a leader no matter what the reality of the world around them may be. The rest of us have to figure out how to deal with that.
What I have found hard to grapple with is my misunderstanding of what defines an American. I thought I had a shared understanding with my fellow citizens that at our core we believed in the Constitution, that no one was above the law, and that we were all free to pursue our own interests in life, etc. Clearly, I am wrong and I am still trying to figure out if there actually is a shared understanding of any kind.
Like “as Berlin was collapsing all around them and Hitler’s delusional thinking was evident to everyone around him”, almost 100 years later, they still REMAIN.
I got mine screw you is a widely shared understanding.
That thing Lyndon Johnson said about picking pockets. It’s not just for white people any more.
Unlike Johnson, who did it to his dog, Trump is picking up democracy by its floppy ears, to demonstrate – painfully, for democracy – what he can do with it, when and where he likes.
Americans are among the most-effectively propagandized people on the planet (by their own institutions!).
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To add a little juice to help keep his numbers up, consider the determined efforts by the White House to purge or hide as many presidential transcripts as they can get away with. As readers and participants here know, verbatim transcripts of Trump are some of the most revealing documents out there. Is there an independent online library of those?
This disgraceful ambush of the South African President has really made me question what is going on in the Trump White House. The film and the “documents” used by Trump were obviously not vetted for accuracy. One of the documents showed atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The “white crosses” were not mass graves of white farmers. Well-run White House’s or executive offices vet such “evidence” to prevent the President from being embarrassed. While I recognize that Trump cares little about facts, his staff should. Unless they know that what he wants is whatever confirms his prejudices. Or, they are gaslighting him for their own purposes.
The above dovetails in with the kneecapping of the NSC. Why bother with the collecting and digesting of foreign intelligence when you already know the story you want told. When you are a Master of the Universe you create your own reality.
Those in the WH with most access to Trump, Susie Wiles and Stephen Miller, seem happy to give POTUS baby toys to play with–like those not-evidence-of-white-genocide videos–so he can keep plowing forward within his lanes of interest, which have narrowed to conspiracy theories and (mostly) grift.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, one of those toys is the American economy. As we all watch it sink after hitting Trump’s self-created iceberg, I keep wondering whether behind the scenes some kind of play is being formulated to take the reins away. This fact, the undermining of an economy that was otherwise doing well, probably saps much of the reactionary tendency that might lead to violence EW writes about.
It might just be that Stephen Miller and Susie Wiles have staked their territories and are less interested in the economy. So they let Bessent, Musk, Navarro, and Lutnick battle for supremacy. The 50% tariff floated by Trump and then softened by anonymous aides who helpfully announced it as a negotiating strategy suggests that Miller and Wiles are relatively hands off.
I hate to say this, but it’s obvious “what is going on in the Trump White House.”
It’s a criminal enterprise.
Like the North Korean destroyer that destroyed itself earlier in the week, the US is self-destructing.
And like Un, whom Donnie loves, Donnie is pissed.
A transnational criminal enterprise masquerading as a government.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, no president sat down with a head of state in the Oval Office without the relevant office at the State Department preparing a briefing book. This would be combined with similar briefing materials from other departments (depending on the agenda of the meeting or area of the world) by the WH – likely the chief of staff or national security staff.
State is likely still producing these briefing books, but they are either going (a) right in the trash or (b) in one of Trump’s ears and out the other. Given the materials shown in the oval office that day, I’d bet on (a).
Stephen Miller: “We don’t need State’s namby-pamby crap. We’ve got this covered.”
I agree, it’s most likely choice (a), the State Dept briefing books for meetings with foreign heads of state are going straight to the circular file.
As with Zelenskyy, the meeting with the head of South Africa was carefully orchestrated – that lying video most of all – to maximize racial animus and humiliate the target
The official WH-website versions of The felon Guy’s speeches are being disappeared, just like his memories of what he said and did.
Speech today, https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-warns-perils-trophy-wives-203603290.html
c) in one of Trump’s ears and dissolved into unrecognizable gibberish by his stable-genius brain before it could even escape out of the other ear
No. Trump has neither the interest nor the attention span needed to comprehend a briefing. In his first term people resorted to short, flashy visual presentations in hopes of engaging him. I suspect the current crowd doesn’t even bother to try. I don’t know what Wiles’ game is but Miller and Vought, among others, are doing what they want and letting Trump play monarch to keep him out of their hair.
I was struck by, but saw no press comment on, Trump’s open solicitation proposition to South Africa’s leader that Qatar had given him an airplane and what could he get from South Africa?
It would have been hard for South Africa’s President to miss the scale model 747 on the table less than a meter in front of him.
The Qatari 747 wasn’t a bribe…it was a tip!
A pity that the most carefully done and therefore the most terrifying presentations, such as this latest from EW, don’t register accordingly amid today’s reportorial and hot-take glibness.
As for the odd delay in use of violence, it may be explainable if one holds the view (as I unsuccessfully try like hell not to) that behind all the thuggish tumult and ego-driven goo that is Trump there actually are a handful of individuals who are quite purposefully developing and calibrating the barrage of the various pronouncements ranging from tariff chaos to the destruction of federal research to the elimination of transgender human beings.
In such a view, it then becomes easy to conclude that the element of violent confrontation has been deliberately held back for the most opportune timing of the needed Reichstag Fire moment allowing a full seizure of emergency powers into the executive branch in order to firmly face down all perceived opponents of this regime.
The recent uptick in taunts about violence and other recent framing coming out of the Administration may be hints the such a time is approaching.
We have not yet had really big protest demonstrations, especially no one central huge demonstration. On the one hand, one can lament that lack of organized, mass opposition; on the other, maybe it is a blessing that the protests have been local, scattered nationwide, many focusing on Teslas and Musk rather than Trump per se.
Those local demonstrations are nationally organized. Most people can’t afford to travel to DC or NYC to demonstrate for the national news to see.
This post is a welcome long-view pause in commenting about the everyday episodes of depravity in the administration. He is an idiot but there are enough malevolent people around in the administration who seem to have a plan, and the direction is not reassuring.
In retrospect, the western order is also being undermined by many of its local actors who have long been tolerated to hold too much power. Under the guise of respect of great principles like private property, freedom of speech, self-determination, which the Supreme Court has complete perverted, these outsized actors were not satisfied with the status quo but always want to reshape the world to suit their unless hunger for more power.
Our world is at was with itself. Is it normal that someone “owns” a fortune of $500 billions (much of it acquired with the help of government subsidies)? Is it normal that this person can “speak” without limits during a political campaign, and essentially purchase power? Is it normal that such a person has relatively speaking more power today than RAMSES II who was a demigod? We are all humans, and we have only one planet. If the planet becomes unlivable, we will all perish. These extreme outliers are not normal, and if we are to survive this, something will need to be done about this.
“ There was a video (I’m still looking for it again) of the end of a receiving line with Trump and — I think — Mohammed bin Zayed. Stephen Miller was last in line and whichever Sheikh it was shook Miller’s hand and then didn’t let go, embracing him, engaging in an extended discussion with him. There were smiles “
Most likely the State Dinner in Abu Dhabi UAE
Hosted by the Crown Prince of the Emirate Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and President of UAE
https://www.youtube.com/live/TI6dD95Nm8U
Greet line begins 19:51
Miller hurries to join line 21:27 from right
21:35 Trump introduces Miller to Crown Prince
Extended conversation with Miller Trump and Crown Prince , including shoulder pats from Crown Prince to Miller
22:05
There were indeed smiles.
Also nods and emphatic, appreciative pointing at Miller
And though it is difficult to hear over the ?air conditioning, it is fairly clear that Trump concluded the convo by saying “…and he’s the man I’m telling you!”
“…and he’s the man I’m telling you that we need you to bonesaw.”
I agree that Trump has not gone remotely as far right as he will. He has only until the end of 2026, assuming that election happens, to proclaim the America he and his patrons want to see. So, it seems likely there will be much more to come.
After that, his ability to wield unchecked power is up in the air, owing to the probability that he loses one or both houses of Congress. Not that he asks Congress to do anything, but pass an outrageous budget and ignore his ignoring the constitution and federal law.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/05/supreme-court-wilcox-harris-humphrey-executor-ignore-roberts-trump/
SCOTUS overturns precedent to allow President to fire officials from other branches of government, makes exemption for Federal Reserve and FOMC, BUT not for Supreme Court.
The Fed and FOMC exemptions are because the justices might be harmed financially and heaven forbid that should happen. The other agencies have little impact on them personally. If I sound cynical, it’s ’cause I am.
That was my exact thought when I saw that. Roberts is fine with ending the American experiment, but dammit… We must try to maintain financial stability for my investment accounts.
Must be first on speed dial when Donnie abruptly announces he would add on or back down on his tariffs.
Because Project 2025 was such a dominant topic during the campaign, we may have lost sight of what the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) accomplished. They were especially involved in workforce demolition through Scedule F.
“Over 86% of the 196 federal policies that AFPI drafted and recommended in 2022, while Republicans were still in the wilderness, have been advanced or enacted during the first 100 Days of the Trump administration, RealClearPolitics is first to report.”
…..
…”Schedule F,” the expansion of executive authority was an Institute brainchild. Its mastermind, a policy wonk named James Sherk, went with Trump into the White House. So did many of the AFPI staff, and while some in the beltway will quibble over who originated what policy idea, what is undeniable is that the Trump think tank maxed out the maxim that personnel is policy.”
“The AFPI people are everywhere in the White House and in key positions across the administration. By their count – and reported here for the first time – no less than 73 institute alumni now work for the president. The most prominent can be found seated next to Trump in the Cabinet Room.”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/05/19/maga_think_tank_staffing_trump_20_america_first_policy_institute.html
“MAGA Think Tank Staffing Trump 2.0: America First Policy Institute” | RealClearPolitics, 5/19/25
List of some administrators who came from AFPI:
Pam Bondi – Attorney General
Doug Collins – Veteran Affairs Secretary
Kellyanne Conway- AFPI polling
Kevin Hassett – National Economic Council director
Keith Kellogg – Special envoy to Ukraine
Linda McMahon – Education Department
Kash Patel – FBI Director
John Ratcliffe – CIA Director
Brooke Rollins – Agriculture Departmen
James Sherk – Schedule F
Scott Turner – Housing and Urban Development Secretary
Lee Zeldin – EPA Administrator
Immigrants are deported to die in foreign gulags while USers are targeted to die while “free”, from NYT, The Environmental Protection Agency has drafted a plan to eliminate all limits on greenhouse gases from coal and gas-fired power plants in the U.S., according to internal agency documents reviewed by The New York Times.
As the saying goes, first they came for…, and then they came for me and there was no one to speak for me.
The major proponent of Schedule F, James Sherk, a white male, immigrated from Canada and settled in Michigan when he was in middle school. He received a BS degree from Hillsdale College.
So, like that other white male immigrant, Elon Musk, he felt compelled to rip apart a democratic institution in the adopted American homeland that provides him with employment. And he wants to replace a system of due process with a partisan system of spoils. I wonder if any of the public servants who have lost or will be losing their jobs because of James Sherk think of him as a kind of domestic terrorist.
https://fedsoc.org/contributors/james-sherk-1
It isn’t going to be quick. The ethnic cleansing of North America is 16 weeks into a multi decade project and it’s barely touched the one ethnic class which is the ultimate target. No sense boring or setting people off with dystopian possible futures. Instead imagine your own and multiply by 5 or 10.
The blood lust of American rebels, the manly men, is off the charts in America which hasn’t seen the blood of war internally, civil or otherwise, for 160 years. 80% perhaps just Walter Mitty daydreams while cleaning their guns. It’s the other 20%, many in uniform, who the other 80% will end up supporting which will tell the tale.
I may be wrong, but aren’t Hegseth and Rubio in many of their comments using the word “war”?
I don’t recall many administrations before using it so often.
“at the point of a gun” by Donnie https://bsky.app/profile/acyn.bsky.social/post/3lpwmgsej3227
When the DOJ ask DA to do something unethical/illegal, the DAs can and sometimes do resign in protest. I’ve not seen any district judge do the same when they see the SC creates new law out of whole cloth or overturns precedences using shoddy or false reasoning. So why is that?
Because to do so is to give up what little power remains.
Remember that if the district judge resigns, Convict-1 / Krasnov replaces that judge with a FedSoc bot in a lifetime gig. It’s better if they stay and issue rulings that parse out SCOTUS inconsistencies and dissenting opinions.
An individual judge can do that with their rulings, but I’m wondering if there’s something judges can do en masse.
I humbly suggest you overstate a larger agenda for Trump. His handlers Miller and Vought, sure, and they are complimentary enough to work together, so far. But everything Trump says and does looks like he considers the Presidency as just another bust out operation, where he extracts wealth and eventually walks away from the rubble. Violence is a tool, not an end in itself. Establishing anything at all is outside the scope of everything he’s done and is capable of. With his handlers enacting their agendas through him it may be a difference that makes no difference, it highlights my real concern, that the threat to democracy is not Trump, it’s the Republican Party. Trump is responsible for the collapse of the American empire, apparantly accidentally as a side effect of pursuing “deals”, bit when Trump is gone the party remains, with Miller and Vought in it.
You’d think that at some point Trump will tank the economy so badly that his approval will drop below 30%, but till that happens the Congressional Republicans will just let the Trump Show go on and on. (Sigh)
In the broadest perspective the groveling of American politicians before these tinpot kings and princes is so out of bounds of anything that could possibly be American you couldn’t even sell it as parody. It’s like we are living in Toontown.
In actual old fashioned Realpolitik sense these oil kingdoms exist by our whim. Well, it’s complicated. Driven and enabled by fundamentalist religions on all sides. Fighting the future since 1750. Any by golly we just might end up back in 1700, with better weapons widely distributed.