It is all about that old but proven winning doctrine: Power and a will to use it. It’s not about co-existence and diplomacy; that’s for the sissy. Nuances, persuasive arguments, and give and take are what you would do when you had no dominant power. When you do, you get results without bothering about keeping your promises, being consistent, maintaining other people’s trust. After all, if you can get result by kicking the next guy in the balls, why bother with the teachings of old guys philosophers, ethicists, moralists? You can lie, cheat, turn back on your promise, deceive, and do all that and make sense. Why should you care about the criticism that you lack character? That is the modus operandi of a bully in a barrio. They feel omnipotent, their ego caressed. They can exhibit their power and do whatever they want, for some time at least – if they stay in the barrio.
When it is translated into politics, the principle is the same. Character matters when it helps you win. In a game, you obey the rules. If the rules are about character, you lose if you do not have character. Politics in America right now is the same as life in a barrio: power, not character, reigns.
MAGA is a coalition of special interest groups. The white supremacist group who wants to kick out all immigrants and even people who were born in the U.S. but don’t look the “part”. The isolationists who don’t want to have anything to do with anyone or country that is outside of the U.S. And the old-time millionaires/billionaires who suddenly lost their rich and high society status and feel they are too small a potato when around them new billion fortunes have been created repeatedly by “strangers” who came from abroad or are dropouts from colleges. They have waited for years even decades to inherit their money from their parents and here a boy of 24 years old is paid $250 MILLION to do research on AI. Look at the length of their yachts, and their residences, not a miserable mansion on Fifth Avenue, but private islands!
They came together to find an answer to the question of how to reverse the situation. Simple answer: power. How to get power? Washington is where, to paraphrase a bank robber, the power is. I have discussed the question of how to get power in a previous article. Briefly, it is, as AI may have advised MAGA, racism stupid.
Now that MAGA’s got power. What have they been using it for? To consolidate and maintain power, and to benefit members of the MAGA coalition even if the benefiting seems to be outright corruption. But to MAGA, that is true service to the base, meaning each member must help the others to make the most out of the system.
A serious weakness in any society, or even family, is boredom. In a democratic one, if the citizens get bored, they just run naked in the street. But in a dictatorship, they revolt. MAGA can’t let its base get bored. Actions are required and it has won small skirmishes such as slapping the name of their leader on an institution bearing the name of a revered Democrat, or demolishing half of a building symbolizing the Democratic America. They are the tests. Which force is more powerful than the American citizenry? But it bows and submits easily to MAGA’s whimsical actions without objection. Power can be measured by how much the one holding power can get away with doing whimsical, ugly, even unethical or illegal acts without consequences.
But those are relatively insignificant. MAGA must have bigger plans – not just to impress the base. The bigger a plan, the more power it gets accumulated. How about lifting a foreign leader out of his bed in the middle of the night and sending him to prison in our country? What a fantasy! But with the U.S.’s huge intelligence and commando ability supported by AI, it was achievable. And indeed, it was triumphantly achieved.
Such achievement causes giddiness in MAGA. Such giddiness with power may lead to catastrophe not just for MAGA but for the country. The war with Iran is the case in point.
We understand the Israelis’ deep fear of the existential threat as their country is situated in the middle of an ocean of Muslim hostility. We could have provided them, as our allies, means to fight their enemies and they would have been able to do so on their own. If Iran was their next target, they could have sent bombs to Iran as accurately as our own armed forces. And if Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, as it has, here come the white knight United of America sailing up the Strait on the Star-spangled Banner flying USS Abraham Lincoln to mediate and maintain the peace. The Iranians would have been too happy to welcome us.
But out of hunger for power and showing off its power, MAGA wanted to take credit for clobbering the Iranians just like it wanted to take credit for the Gaza operation. The outcome is disastrous: Iranian hatred for America has gone deeper and the U.S. has lost the role of a powerful arbiter. It is now a party to the conflict and must commit not just weapons but possibly manpower betraying its campaign promise of no more war involving our country. It has found itself in an awkward position of asking for help from its allies whom MAGA disparaged only a few months ago.
The other problem is how to disengage from the war without losing the country’s honor and credit. Iran and its citizen are not just a few individuals opposing its government from Beverly Hills. It is a country fighting invaders since the time of Alexander the Great. The deliberate killing of thousands of members of their leadership has certainly caused fear in the Iranians but also reinforced their suspicion and hatred for foreign intervention. One wonders if MAGA has taken into consideration the tradition, pride, and deep-rooted resistance from such people when it decided to start the war. The fact that it continues bombing and giving then postponing deadlines for Iran to come to the negotiating table, like coaxing your youngest child in the morning to go to school, seems to indicate that it did not. If it did, it did not give it sufficient thought on the ramifications of an open conflict with such a country.
Such confused conduct in the war and in dealing with other countries poses real danger to the stability of the world and security of our own country.
JOHN P. LE PHONG (This article appears on X, Facebook, and thelephongjournal.com)
