The National Security Strategy’s Structure and Presumptions
Last week, the Trump Administration released the National Security Strategy that was dated from the month before.
In an effort to highlight how the Administration — no doubt led by Stephen Miller and his fascist allies — claims to have adopted a utilitarian foreign policy stemming from things called principles and based on wildly imaginary assessment of America’s current strengths, this post will lay out what is in it. (Note, the titles are links.)
Follow-ups will say more.
Pages 2-3: My fellow Americans
This is a letter from Trump bragging about what he claims his accomplishments since Biden left are. They include:
- Restoring borders (this does not explicitly talk about immigration)
- Kicking qualified trans service members and other “DEI” hires out of the military
- Making NATO allies pay 5% in defense costs
- Getting Congress to pay $1 trillion for a Golden Dome that won’t work
- Launching a trade war that has devastated soybean farmers, bankrupted many small businesses, and allowed China to acquire leverage by withholding rare earth products
- Attacking Iran’s nuclear facility and claiming the attack did more damage than it did (this makes no mention of the inconclusive attack on the Houthis or the murderboat strikes)
- Forcing Americans to prefer oil and gas over strategically smarter renewable energy
- Ending eight wars (he claims)
Among the things this letter does not mention is destroying USAID and America’s soft power, and obviously it treats some of the grave damage Trump has done with his trade war and attacks on science and universities as strengths.
Page 4: Contents
Pages 5-6: Ends over Values
Two pages describing that the US has been doing everything wrong since the Cold War, chasing “platitudes” (also known as values) rather than desired ends.
Pages 7-8: What Should the US Want
These two pages describe a bunch of things it claims the US should, normatively, want.
Just half of these are things Trump has actually pursued (and even there, some of Trump’s policies have gone beyond what Trump says is ideal):
- ¶3 Secure borders and controlled immigration
- ¶5 A lethal military in which everyone is proud of their mission
- ¶6 A Golden Dome
- ¶10 A reinvigorated American culture (code for white nationalism)
More than half of these are things Trump has affirmatively destroyed:
- ¶1 Continued survival of US sovereignty
- ¶2 Protect the country from human trafficking, foreign influence, propaganda, and espionage
- ¶4 “A resilient national infrastructure that can withstand natural disasters, resist and thwart foreign threat”
- ¶7 The most dynamic economy
- ¶8 A robust industrial base
- ¶9 Unrivaled soft power that “believe[s] in our country’s inherent greatness and decency”)
Page 9: What do “we” want from the rest of the world?
- A Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
- Halt damage an unnamed China has done while keeping stability in Indo-Pacific and keeping shipping lanes free and supply chains secure
- Impose Stephen Miller’s idea of civilizational identity on Europe
- “[P]revent an adversarial power from dominating the Middle East, its oil and gas supplies, and the chokepoints through which they pass while avoiding the ‘forever wars’ that bogged us down”
- “[E]nsure that U.S. technology and U.S. standards—particularly in AI, biotech, and quantum computing—drive the world forward”
Note, this section parallels the discussion of regions, below, with the exception of laying out how the US will remain the standard-setter in the world by being an asshole and adopting crank conspiracies.
Pages 10-11: What are America’s means to get these ends?
This includes a list of things the US did have when Trump took over (I’ve italicized those which he has squandered, though there are others he is squandering):
- A still nimble political system that can course correct;
- The world’s single largest and most innovative economy, which both generates wealth we can invest in strategic interests and provides leverage over countries that want access to our markets;
- The world’s leading financial system and capital markets, including the dollar’s global reserve currency status;
- The world’s most advanced, most innovative, and most profitable technology sector, which undergirds our economy, provides a qualitative edge to our military, and strengthens our global influence;
- The world’s most powerful and capable military;
- A broad network of alliances, with treaty allies and partners in the world’s most strategically important regions;
- An enviable geography with abundant natural resources, no competing powers physically dominant in our Hemisphere, borders at no risk of military invasion, and other great powers separated by vast oceans;
- Unmatched “soft power” and cultural influence; and
- The courage, willpower, and patriotism of the American people.
It also includes a list of things that Trump thinks are good, which I’ve restated to reflect reality:
- “Instilling a culture of competence:” They’ve gotten rid of brown people and women who made them insecure
- “Unleashing our enormous energy production capacity:” They’ve forced America to stop competing in renewable energy
- “Reindustrializing our economy:” They’ve gutted the economy with tariffs
- “Returning economic freedom to our citizens:” They’ve exploded the deficit with tax cuts to oligarchs huge tax cuts while cutting the health care that drives the economy
- “Investing in emerging technologies and basic science:” They’ve destroyed America’s higher educational advantage and replaced it with state socialism
The strategy
Pages 12-15: Principles [sic]
This starts with a page of shite about Trump’s greatness. Then includes the following bullets:
- Focused Definition of the National Interest (Trump will ignore key parts of the world)
- Peace Through Strength (white nationalism)
- Predisposition to Non-Intervention (with excuses permitted for invasions of choice)
- Primacy of Nations (a nice way of saying they’ll gut international organizations)
- Sovereignty and Respect (in which the NSS protects projecting “free speech” demands into other sovereign nations)
- Balance of Power (China and Russia can extend their power so long as they allow America to do the same)
- Pro-American Work (claims utterly inconsistent with Trump’s catering to oligarchs)
- Fairness (code for making NATO, Japan, and South Korea pay more)
- Competence and Merit (White men should not have to compete with brown people and women, and especially should not have to compete with H1B holders)
Pages 15-19: Priorities
- The Era of Mass Migration Is Over: “Border security is the primary element of national security”
- Protection of Core Rights and Liberties: This is defined as “the rights of free speech, freedom of religion and of conscience, and the right to choose and steer our common govern,” but apparently does not include due process or similar rights for Europeans or the Anglosphere
- Burden-Sharing and Burden-Shifting: “The United States will stand ready to help— potentially through more favorable treatment on commercial matters, technology sharing, and defense procurement—those counties that willingly take more responsibility for security in their neighborhoods and align their export controls with ours.”
- Realignment Through Peace: The President will intervene everywhere and claim to have fostered peace
- Economic Security
- Balanced Trade
- Securing Access to Critical Supply Chains and Material
- Reindustrialization
- Reviving our Defense Industrial Base: We need to build drones in the US cheaply
- Energy Dominance (in oil, gas, coal, and nuclear, explicitly)
- Preserving and Growing America’s Financial Sector Dominance
Page 19: The Regions
A half page excusing largely ignoring key swaths of the world, as when you dedicate just a half page to Africa or mention Russia only in a section discussing Europe not as a place but a greatness to be imposed from outside.
Pages 19-23: Western Hemisphere: The Donroe Doctrine
- Enlist: Treat a swath of countries as agents insofar as they can help stop the movement of people and drugs
- Expand: Eight paragraphs on combatting “foreign influence” not named as Chinese, and three paragraphs imagining this can be driven by corporate investment
Pages 23-29: Asia: Win the Economic Future, Prevent Military Confrontation
- Leading from a position of strength: Asia has gotten strong through manufacturing and we will combat that with false platitudes
- Economics: the Ultimate Stakes: A claim that Trump’s disastrous trade policy will bring results the opposite of what have happened
- Deterring Military Threats: A lot of talk about deterrence, some in passive voice
Pages 29-31: Promoting European Greatness
These are the two pages attracting the most attention, and I will return to it. Note that Europe is not described as a place, like the other regions are. The only mentions of Russia (ten) are in this section, and Russia is defined as not-Europe (and therefore not addressed as a region at all).
Pages 31-33: The Middle East: Shift Burdens, Build Peace
This section claims the Middle East is no longer as important because it is not longer the dominant energy producer, and then explains that major conflicts (including radicalism) are no big deal anymore.
Half of page 33: Africa
Africa will not get aid. It will get investment and Trump claims of peace deals.
As a Canadian, do not look forward to being a vessel state of the clown country being run by Trump.
You guys really have to get your shit together.
You’re new here so perhaps you don’t understand that this site is and has been engaged in defense of democracy for nearly two decades — we are among those “getting our shit together.”
Please don’t waste our time with exhortations like this because the problem isn’t here at this site. Canada also has its own problems and could easily slip into the same fascistic morass if Canada doesn’t get its own shit together. Electing fascists like the Fords and Poilevre while failing to address white nationalism, hate groups, corporate overreach into media, and excessive reliance on the fossil fuel economy are the Achilles’ heel leaving Canada deeply vulnerable.
Focus your energy more effectively. Welcome to emptywheel.
Rob Ford is dead. Doug Ford is a dickhead, but he’s not a fascist. Pierre Poilevre lost his seat, and had to demand one of the new representatives in Alberta hand him a seat so he could stay in Congress, and he’s now facing the Conservative Party of Canada turning on him because all he does is talk.
You still have a population willing to vote for successive Fords, since I have to spell that out more explicitly. And I guess you’re okay with Doug Ford who I find fascistic (ex. 1, 2, 3)
Poilevre should never have risen to a point in Canada’s politics that I even know his name. He remains a threat because he’s still in politics, in public life.
Do we have pols like Poilevre in the US? Certainly — but that’s one of the reasons this site exists, to call out the Poilevre-types in US politics and hold them accountable.
Canadian here.
Rayne, you’ve covered the topic well. Thank you. This blog is amazing.
Gavin, it is doubtful Canada will become a ‘vessel state” nor any other type of state. Canada is currently a tad more dysfunctional than the U.S.A. No American state is trying to leave the country, while Alberta is trying to even though a judge has already ruled that it is unconstitutional.
It looks like some Canadian Conservatives haven’t been paying attention to what’s really been going on in their country this year. They’re still cosplaying MAGA/MCGA in that special Canadian bubble, comfortable with a confederation that could bleed off a little national sovereignty and let the US call the dance (Connie Kaldor singing “Margaret’s Waltz” in the background).
I think that most of Canada understands that it can no longer afford passive diplomacy and being a clearly junior partner to the US in matters economic and security. But stepping into the role of being the most trusted and reliable partner in the Americas is going to take focus and hard work, not Conservative posturing. Trump, who has less than zero understanding of global supply chains and critical infrastructure/resources, looks at Canada the same way that bands of shoplifters look at a Walmart stores. And Trump is perfectly happy to rip off the store while Conservative leaders stand around the front entrance in their blue vests — smiling (and unaware that Walmart is now redesigning the vests).
Carney is clearly a spoiler in Trump’s dreamscape. Carney plays Trump better than any of the other international leaders, but it is uncertain how much of that Trump is aware of. The Trump II team has few players that have any interest in giving the boss a factual briefing, even in the off chance that a more than a couple of them understand what’s really going on here.
Thanks for the snarky welcome, Rayne. i’m not a posting type guy, (and have been reading Marcy for decades), but this NSS post has got me all in a dither. Also, your equivalence is false. Yes, Canada ha its issues like Ford, and the clown car that is the current right wing of our politics.
But we are not in the same galaxy of disfunction that the US is. It’s not close. Yes, the right is a concern that our politics are actively fighting against. But our single biggest issue is the United States. Not just this idiotic tariff regime, but their polluting us with their toxic form of politics.
A complete creep like Poilievre looks almost normal (okay, not really) compared to what’s going on down there.
“Whataboutisms” work sometimes, but not this time.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment as “Gavin” triggering auto-moderation; it has been edited to reflect your established username. Please check your browser’s cache and autofill; future comments may not publish if username does not match. /~Rayne]
Reply to Gavin McDougald
December 9, 2025 at 9:37 am
First, I told you not to waste your time scolding us here. You claim to be familiar with this site; you should then know this site doesn’t merit your scolding.
Second, I told you to go spend your time more productively, including in your own back yard. That’s not whataboutism, that’s a second kick in the ass.
Third, if you’re so familiar with this site, you know the rules re usernames. You also know I don’t tolerate entities from foreign IP addresses engaging in demoralizatsiya. Coming here and bitching at us twice about the US isn’t supportive, and you’re not addressing specific points in the post — hard not to see that as demoralization.
Find a more productive use of your time and energy.
We spell it “vassal” here in what what was once a marginally fair polity.
Or is there something more personal going on?
Why would you assume vassalage, anyway? Aren’t you guys headed elsewhere? It couldn’t be fast enough for me if I lived there.
Here is the link to the document itself:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf
The links in the post all go to the document itself. Just not the WH.
I didn’t realize the boldface section headers were links.
I’m struck by the language of that cover letter. It alternates between first person singular (“My fellow Americans . . .” and “my administration”) and first person plural (“. . . we have brought our nation . . .”), sometimes in the very same sentence: “Starting on my first day in office, we restored . . .”.
“We rebuilt . . .”
“We unleashed . . . and imposed . . .”
“We obliterated . . .”
All that language of power is in the plural.
In the singular is this: “I declared . . .”
In this letter, Trump envisions himself as God, who declares things, and they come into being. Trump envisions himself as a king, speaking with the Royal We, ordering his minions around, to impose, unleash, and obliterate.
Again, I can’t but go to Dr. Seuss on this one: “I’m king,” declared Yertle, that Marvelous He,//”But I don’t see enough. That’s the trouble with me.” Substitute “Trump” for “Yertle” and the whole story is a very close fit.
Now all we need is Mack. And a burp.
Here’s the most important analysis of this FP policy paper that tells us everything we need to know about it:
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-welcomes-donald-trumps-national-security-strategy-11170196
“The strategy unexpectedly echoes what we have been saying…”
Medvedev’s “unexpectedly” could only have come with a volley of laughter, given that all Trump did was get someone to translate his “strategy” from the original Russian.
Maybe Medvedev got into some bad vodka, which can cause short and long term memory impairment.
All these guys in the pan-global fascist project are bad caricatures of themselves.
When it comes to Stephen Miller, all too often, that’s just the way the matzoh crumbles… into a half-baked cracker.
Stephen Miller’s family’s Jewish roots are relevant only insofar as he rejects them utterly, in favor of their moral and political opposite, 1930s German national socialism.
There is a lot in this document that is bothersome, but I was struck by one sentence in the cover letter
“President Trump’s first administration proved that
with the right leadership making the right choices, all of the above could—and should—have been avoided, and much else achieved.”
Is he admitting that his first administration was a failure?
They forgot the but-they-stole-the election-from-him clause. Maybe their chatgpt needs tweaking.
Trump and his people are constantly crowing about how they will make America great AGAIN, with a touchstone for the former (as they claim) greatness as the post-WWII 1950s and 1960s. Is this document not a radical departure from American policy during that era?
I write that while recognizing the obvious: Expecting logical consistency from these people is a fool’s game.
The Marshall Plan?
Around the World, China is Turning on the Lights
Importing China’s renewable energy technology, which produces electricity from widely available and extremely inexpensive inputs — sunlight and wind — has become far more attractive to the post-colonial world than importing fossil fuel technology from the United States.
https://www.workers.org/2025/12/89420/
?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=around-the-world-china-is-turning-on-the-lights
[Moderator’s note: link “broken” to remove tracking; readers from this site don’t need to be added to Workers’ score for their campaign without consent. Please pay more attention to this when sharing links. /~Rayne]
Follow up on China, etc., “Barbados PM Leaves BBC Reporters Speechless on Live TV“ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pom5yY-TTfU&pp=ugUHEgVlbi1VUw%3D%3D
I love that woman, she has perfect responses to every question. Would that our politicians could be so direct, so succinct.
“No administration in history has achieved so dramatic a turnaround in so short a time.”
– TRUMP: [pdf2/33]
huh..he actually admits it.
Is the “Donroe” Doctrine intentional or a typo? Funny either way.
Intentional. It’s what people are calling Trump’s invocation of Monroe.
Dung-row, more like.
“The Dung-row Doctrine, how America stunk up the world.”
I *will* take your oil.
And I will expect you to nominate for a Nobel (that is: real) Peace Prize for doing it.
It’s fascinating (for lack of a better word) to see a National,Security Strategy built completely on white conservative grievance. Like MAGA political philosophy, a set of contradictory goals that can simply be willed into being through assertion. You can’t really make an argument against this approach because there’s nothing to engage with, just bullying and bragging. The idea that the Republican party considers this a serious document should be absolutely terrifying.
Europe and Canada need to stop purchases of U.S. weapons systems. The U.S. MIC will immediately begin to push back against Trump because they have hundreds of billions of dollars at stake. That money is real leverage, but whether Europe can get their shit together to actually do anything substantial is another question.
Meanwhile, he’s abandoning Taiwan and Japan to Chinese hegemony, with plans to ‘give’ Asia to China. I wonder what India thinks about this? And how does this fit into his plans for Japan’s enormous investments in AI infrastructure here in the U.S.?
These people must be heavy users of hallucinogens, because this crap reads like a techbro fantasy.
PM Carney has been flirting with the idea of purchasing Swedish fighter planes along with the F35s already ordered. The military chiefs are aghast (two separate logistics chains), and I’m not sure he’s one hundred percent serious. Depends on how bad things get in the next 12 months with Canada’s closest ally and biggest trading partner. But if the trading partner continues to try and deep six the Canadian economy, a realignment would make sense.
The anti-Trump, anti-US government feelings in Canada are very real, and also very strong.
These sentiments are driving a lot of political decisions in ways that would have been hard to imagine 10 years ago. Yes, it would be stressful on the military chiefs, but I suspect that the things they are seeing and hearing from their counterparts at the Pentagon would make dealing with a double logistics chain seem like a walk in the park.
Peterr, the feelings up here on the border are beyond strong, they’re visceral. We’ve taken the Canadians for granted for far too long, and it’s going to bite us in the arse; this won’t be repaired any time soon.
Canadian here, and yeah; we’re all PISSED THE FUCK OFF at Trump and his big mouth. Government’s working on deals with other countries and plans to bypass the US entirely on raw resources.
Anti-US sentiment in Canada is quite strong. But this is also true among most of your former allies.
Consider Matt Gurney’s summary of his experience attending the Halifax International Security Forum a few weeks ago.
Some of the FUD regarding the F-35/Gripen dual supply chains is coming from the mouths of retired senior Canadian military officers who are on the payroll of U.S. defense firms. The Gripen deal would include full licensed production rights in Canada which, from a risk management perspective, allows redundant capabilities on both sides of the Atlantic. So in that dual supply chain “issue”, which is more favorable to Canada?
The Saab GlobalEye “AWACS” aircraft is already flying on a Canadian air-frame and is being sold to several countries. The commercial relationship is already established. The recent visit by the King and Queen of Sweden was more than just symbolic.
This isn’t my area of expertise, but it’s my understanding that high-end weapon systems (and the F-35 would qualify) are programmable enough that you really don’t want to buy them from a potential adversary. If things REALLY go south, you might find yourself with a bunch of bricked fighter jets that won’t take off.
I’m now wondering whether anyone is thinking about Israel’s next play, if we’re also selling F-35s to Saudi Arabia, for instance.
The standing joke is that car dealers break even selling cars, but make a mint selling services.
A similar business model applies to govt weapons systems. Many don’t work without constant updates, upgrades, maintenance and service. As you point out, they can also be bricked.
And us suckers in the UK, largely on the basis of counting pennies, stopped most of our European defence collaboration to buy, often off the shelf, kit that it is not safe for us to use. Because we trusted the USA. I, in a slightly r earlier day, certainly did so.We are in a really, really bad place if they will only help us if we elect Reform, which is most unlikely to happen once everyone else gets their minds round the basic racism of Reform.
There’s a fair bit of buzz about this, but this is serious stuff.
The US can hurt us (Canadians) far worse than they have so far (and may yet).
I do not envy Carney nor his diplomats what it must be taking to stay sane here.
[Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8-letter minimum. Please be sure to use the same username and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. /~Rayne]
I wonder what Japan thinks…
Build nukes? Dominated by China? Build nukes? Dominated by China. Build nukes? Dominated by China…
ew: “Ending eight wars (he claims)”
A REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT [Today]
M23 rebels entrench their rule in east Congo even as Trump claims peace
U.S. President Trump says he has ended the long war in eastern Congo. But despite signing
peace deals, Congo’s M23 rebels have tightened their grip on power by enlisting more soldiers, building a parallel administration and seizing mines rich in critical minerals.
Experts say there’s a chance Congo faces an enduring fracture.
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/m23-rebels-entrench-their-rule-east-congo-even-trump-claims-peace-2025-12-08/ December 8, 2025 6:00 AM EST
We have to come up with an accurate name for these “peace deals”.
Just returned from the Rwanda-Congo border, and things are pretty quiet along the border. The conflict, as noted, is more interior to Congo with access to coltan being a dominant factor.
“Failed diplomacy”?
“Faux-diplomacy”?
“Peace-iness”?
‘Peace-Lite’
Peaces of shit
Declarations of peace?
Trump treaties?
TrumPeace™?
Dolchstossen?
Maybe Megadeth called it 40 years ago. Peace Sells…but Who’s Buying
Concepts of peace?
Thank you all for the funny and on-point contributions!
This is what I’ve come up with—a bit long, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ …
Let’s Make A [peace]Deal!
From Chapter “C. Promoting European Greatness” (p. 25-27, pdf 29-31, here p.26/30) :
That means support of whatever kind for right-wing parties like the AfD in Germany.
Some of the fascist allies made happy would likely include Flynn and his network.
Here is Ezra Cohen-Watnick’s initial reaction to the document, congratulating everyone who did this:
https://archive.is/lkGKi
Here is a set of 2016 campaign emails from Paul Vallely (MG, US Army Ret.) and connecting to Flynn, about needing to partner with Russia on Middle East solutions:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/flynn-bannon-manafort-private-emails-mueller
(p 47 – 60)
Vallely also discusses US allyship with Turkey and competing oil pipelines in the Middle East to be routed possibly through Turkey, and from Russia routed through Turkey. Flynn, of course, also has that relationship with Turkey which is tied to the Zarrab Iranian oil-for-gold scheme to bypass sanctions.
Cohen-Watnick, Flynn, and Vallely, are all ultra Iran-hawks, Pro-Russia, and key names wrt Qanon, something that I believe has origins in Iran regime change operations.
The NSS is a disaster of a document. I agree with everything that has been said and will add two points. The document explicitly states that this the job of American emissaries to be on the lookout for opportunities to lobby for American corporation to exploit resources. The document states:
“All our embassies must be aware of major business opportunities in their country, especially major government contracts. Every U.S. Government official that interacts with these countries should understand that part of their job is to help American companies compete and succeed”
The Trump Corollary is basically a return to the Cold War idea of Superpowres having “spheres of influence” where they should not be challenged. That is why I think the Kremlin is happy. The discussion simply does not make sense. My two cents.
If international organizations are bad, I asked on Xitter, why are multinational corporations good?
“blah, blah, blah, market, blah, blah, blah, profit”, undoubtedly.
steal underpants
???
Profit
That’s too funny, painfully accurate. Example from Bloomberg today: “Netflix (NFLX) shares drop after President Trump says the proposed Netflix and Warner Bros. deal would “create a big market share” and “could be a problem.””
Jeebus. He can’t even say the deal is monopolistic and could violate antitrust laws. No, instead he’s “blah, blah, blah, market, blah, blah, blah.”
Only American multinationals. We have seen what they do to Korean multinationals who do what TRump asks and move production to the USA.
Most of the world, then and now, would not regard Henry Kissinger’s leadership of US foreign policy “chasing platitudes.” He sought specific, desired ends, but they were not as fascist and brutal everywhere as Miller-Vought-Rubio’s.
Also, I bet Henry Kissinger did not expect his policies and actions to be approved by Jesus.
Your reference to the “state socialism” Trump has made of American higher education would dumbfound Gooper congresscritters, who use socialism as a generic epithet without knowing what it or Communism are.
Did any of you happen to view the Rick Steves’ (tv travel series) episode on fascism? I just viewed it two days ago. Highly recommended. Also, Rachel Maddow’s latest book/podcast about WW2 and what was done to the U.S. Japanese citizens (who and why did it).
A thought about Miller and the rest. I do not see Miller (and ditto the others visibly around him) as being the intellectual sort and I do not see him as having large brain powers. I do not see him writing such document(s). He/they may be the ones publicly voicing the views and he/they do seem to totally buy into it, and he/they appear to completely lust in this power (and the financial enrichment it brings them — which is what I do believe is one of the ultimate/main goals, like the lust of the Nazis).
But who is mentoring/leading/directing Miller and friends. Is it the same group of men (updated version) who during the 1930s/1940s sought to have the U.S. support Hitler/fascism? A group who hate the freedoms of women, etc.
The problem many opponents of Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Stephen Miller have is to underestimate him.
He may have all the help he wants to write such things. But as a graduate of Duke, he certainly considers himself an intellectual.
I think Miller probably has a “feral intellect”, and can probably write and articulate ideas better than Trump, who is essentially a performative bullshit artist. At best. I have a college friend (now a professor at Rutgers) who had the occasion to interview Stephen Miller when he was still working for Jeff Sessions, before the 2016 election, as part of a grant research project he was working on. Miller told my friend that he couldn’t believe how feckless Democrats were and he was sure Trump was going to win the 2016 election and his boss was going to have some kind of role in that upcoming administration. And the rest is history. So Miller is a “long-gamer”, been working up how to transform and implement his racist strategies into actual policy for many years now.
For who is mentoring Miller, I recommend Hatemonger, the best book I know of about the origins of his worldview. It is an especially important read now, as it seems he is more fully directing policy as Trump sundowns into a miasma of greed and bloodlust.
Thank you for this reference: https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/video/tv-show/fascism
Will be watching.
I think there are alternatives to “historian” Rachel Maddow, creatively speaking, or otherwise, for instance, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (2009).
…Or the parents of my classmates in Central California schools.
OT flash:
Alina Habba steps down after botox job goes too poochey:
https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/12/08/justice-department-habba/
She’ll have to wait her turn to be Ambassador to Greece.
And Kristy better take note!
How does one resign from a position one never held?
The press doesn’t seem to get that. It keeps flailing about Habba “resigning” or “standing down,” any euphemism but the correct description.
“Face-planted” ?
“Auto-incinerated”?
I think what they mean is that she submitted her resignation, and that’s an important detail because by ‘resigning’ rather than ‘accepting the judge’s ruling’ she’s making clear the opinion that she was properly appointed, and all those silly judges can pound sand. It’s a subtle detail, but an important one.
Brian Tyler Cohen and Adam Klasfeld discuss Alina’s “resignation”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG8b87oS6yQ
There really is no bottom too low for this “greed is good” crowd. Thanks for this summary, Marcie. And for providing the document without me having to visit the WH site.
I noticed the “[sic]” after “Pages 12-15: Principles”. I’m going to assume it’s because this lot seems to have no principles other than taking whatever they can.
(My internet connection came back this evening! Wooohooo!)
It looks to me, that among all the other things this document does, it also turns the US government, into big techs bitch. I mean, it’s not that we are not there already with Vance and Feinberg, this just makes it obvious at the end of page 18.
[Welcome to emptywheel. Please choose and use a unique username with a minimum of 8 letters. We adopted this minimum standard to support community security. Because your username is too short and common, your username will be temporarily changed to match the date/time of your first known comment until you have a new compliant username. /~Rayne]
So, Trump/Miller/Rubio negotiated a division of the world with Xi Jin Ping and we get the Americas, China gets everything else and Russia is now an afterthought that a (hopefully in their eyes)Theocratic Europe must deal with on it’s own?
That was my take.
Gawd, what an evil mindset this document lays out.
I mentioned earlier I watched the Rick Steves’ episode about fascism (I think he has several episodes on fascism). I note that the fascism Steves details did not survive long in the countries reviewed. Here in the U.S., Trump may be having fun envisioning himself (facially) as Mussolini, but neither U.S. history nor European history seemingly favors Trump’s long-term political survivability. My observations about the U.S., with its complex composition of people and histories and capabilities, are it’s not Europe or like anywhere else.
My two cents (which I hear may be going away soon, stupidly).