“Prepare yourselves. In the coming years, the world’s disorder will reach the level of permanent hallucination, and everywhere lies and insanity will reign unchecked. I say this not based on any prophecy, but because I have studied the plans of the three global empires and I know that none of them possesses the slightest respect for the structure of reality.”
Olavo de Carvalho
“Barbarism and Philistinism cannot see that knowledge of material reality is knowledge of death. The desire to get ever closer to the source of physical sensation — this is the downward pull which puts an end to ideational life.”
Richard Weaver [i]
Since the New Year we have seen a U.S. commando operation in oil-rich Venezuela, an uprising in oil-rich Iran, an oil blockade enforced against Venezuela by America with several Russian tankers being seized. We also read reports of Ukrainian drones striking oil tankers carrying Russian oil from the Black Sea, Ukrainian drones striking Russian oil refineries, and U.S. talk of owning Greenland. The U.S. President has said he will take Greenland “the hard way” if Denmark fails to hand it over. Given the oil-related strategy visible in all the other moves, how is this Greenland policy to be understood?
Given recent events, you might think the United States is the winning side. The dictator regimes appear to be on the ropes. China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela are going broke. This tickles our optimism even as we forget that America is also on the brink of a financial abyss. Then we look at this Greenland situation and the picture darkens. We realize that the American president is an irresponsible crazy person; that is, a person who takes pleasure in harm, in disruption, in chaos. Trump is a disordered man in the context of a disordered world. And as Olavo de Carvalho predicted, “the world’s disorder will reach the level of permanent hallucination….” Trump is hallucinatory, detached from reality, overtaken by vainglorious absurdities. To demonstrate this truth we have a letter from U.S. President Trump sent to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre on 18 January:
“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT”[ii]
Despite the petulant childishness of Trump’s prose, letters of this kind belong in the Middle Ages. For example, a letter disputing Harold Godwinson as the rightful successor of Edward the Confessor served as the pretext for William of Normandy’s invasion of England in 1066. And now, it seems, Trump has concocted a narrative about America being the rightful owner of Greenland. Trump is disputing a thousand-year Scandinavian tie to Greenland because “we had boats landing there, also.” This is a bizarre claim, since America was not a country in the tenth century when the Vikings first landed in Greenland. Then Trump writes of what he has done for NATO, which supposedly entitles him to have “Total Control of Greenland.” He then underscores Denmark’s weakness. “Denmark cannot protect that land,” he explains. Therefore, it rightly belongs to America. He also brags that he has “stopped 8 wars” while writing what can only be characterized as a predatory screed. Making matters worse, Trump adds a veiled threat to the mix, saying, “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.”
If this were the Middle Ages, we might call him “Donald the Deranged.” From this letter, and other statements of President Trump, we see that he feels entitled to the Nobel Prize. By its very nature a prize is something given freely, like a gift. It is bestowed on those who deserve recognition. But given what he has written in this missive, he clearly deserves no such gift. Only a short while ago Trump was “the peace president.” Now he is the berserker president. Now he is a petulant child who questions the right of Denmark’s ownership of Greenland. “There are no written documents,” he says. America has as much right to Greenland as Denmark, he claims. It is “good and proper” for the United States to take Greenland. No explanation why it is “good and proper,” and there is no sense anywhere that Donald Trump knows what goodness or propriety are. And then there is this question nobody can answer: Why does Trump want this frozen, useless, glaciated, island? It is 1,700 miles from the United States. It sits astride the North Polar region. Of course, he says Russia and China will invade it. But then, Russia and China would be at war with NATO if they invaded. Apparently it is better, therefore, if Trump invades and goes to war with NATO.
None of this makes sense. It is the thought process of a chattering monkey. The American voter, attempting to steer clear of the pro-China, open-border, transgendered policies of the Democrats, is now treated to “national suicide by foreign policy.” Here is your choice, America: Die by the Democratic mob or die by the MAGA madman. Both sides are hallucinatory and deranged. As H.L. Mencken once said, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard….”
Some might argue, in Trump’s favor, that he has given us a wonderful victory in Venezuela. Some might argue that he is about to rescue the Iranian people from their clerical oppressors. But there has been no victory in Venezuela. The Cleric oppressors are mowing down protestors by the tens of thousands. Nothing of strategic significance has yet to transpire. These regimes are still orbiting Moscow and Beijing. What is significant, of course, is that the Western alliance is fracturing – with Tucker Carlson saying the breakup of NATO is good for America.
Why is Trump squandering opportunities in Venezuela and Iran? That is the real question before us. Why is he alienating Europe and Canada? Many people believe the Kremlin is holding some kind of blackmail over Trump, perhaps having to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Other people think he is a clown. Trump’s letter to the Norwegian prime minister is Exhibit One, showing that Trump is a crazy person. And everyone knows you cannot blackmail a crazy person. This madness of Trump promises to result in the demolition of his party, his country, and the Western alliance. In the end his actions are also self-destructive. In Moscow the Russians are applauding him. At the same time, in Washington, there have been calls to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.[iii]
To understand why this is happening, why America is saddled with such a leader, we need to look at the big picture. There is a crisis unfolding, as unprecedented as it is terrible. America is in decline. Common sense is no longer common. We have an American leader who shifts back and forth. He has policies that contradict each other. He talks as if the Venezuelan regime has already fallen, yet the regime remains intact. He says he has done more than anyone for NATO, yet he acts to destroy NATO. He says he is on the side of the Iranian people, yet he has his picture with Tucker Carlson at the White House – the same Tucker Carlson who recently asked, “Could the Iranians obtaining the Bomb wind up being a good thing? Whether anyone in the foreign policy establishment admits it, North Korea’s nuclearization has undeniably stabilized the Korean Peninsula.”[iv]
Yes, Carlson. What a genius you are. Let us give the world’s most evil regimes nuclear weapons for the sake of “stability.” Accommodating evil is always such a good idea. In this way we prevent nuclear war by giving mass murderers nuclear weapons. It is so brilliant we cannot believe we did not think of it before.
But Carlson’s idea is not a new idea. Western leaders have often clinked glasses with mass murderers. And few people see the harm in it. Think of the Tiananmen Square protests in China. How many were murdered by the Chinese Communist Party in 1989? Did the West cut ties with the murderers? No. The West’s politicians and businessmen continued to build China into a great economic and military power. This is the form that our madness has taken. With Trump, of course, the madness worsens; though Trump is more depraved than his predecessors because, unlike them, he called on the Iranian people to storm government buildings. Then, shamelessly, he turned his back on the Iranian protestors. He has left them to their fate as he considers various business options. What do we call this kind of brutality? Does he understand the seriousness of making pledges? With Thomas Szasz, who wrote The Myth of Mental Illness, we can say that the term “mental illness” is a metaphor. Narcissism expert Sam Vaknin once confessed that calling someone a malignant narcissist may be a fancy way of saying he is evil. Why not say, in plain language, that there are no madmen heading governments? So let us simply say it. Trump is evil. I believe he takes pleasure in creating chaos, in breaking promises and letting opportunities slip through his fingers. It is not possible that this man is filling the office of George Washington. No. The last real president was George W. Bush. And the Republic is gone. It ended in 2009 with the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama. These last presidents of ours have been frauds, hucksters, reality TV fakes.
What comes next is an ocean of blood. Weapons of mass destruction have been distributed to North Korea, and probably to Iran, and also, (we should expect) to Venezuela. The Russians and Chinese will have many nuclear surrogates now. And there is no rolling them back. The Brezhnev doctrine is in effect. They only advance. We only retreat.
What kind of world are we making for ourselves by allowing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to crush the Iranian people, who were once our allies? What is America’s strategy in this situation? It is to bloviate, to posture, to make self-aggrandizing statements; and then, to do business with the murderers. Reuters is reporting that Trump is taking a “wait-and-see” approach to Iran. Rather than deploying strike units to the region, the United States has ordered personnel out of regional bases if only to avoid casualties should the clerics lash out with missile attacks (or even launch nuclear attacks).[v]
Perhaps, in all his dealings, Trump is operating behind a mask – behind a stratagem. Think for a moment. Any meaningful American intervention would require a significant commitment from the American people and Congress. In this case, the American people will not support another intervention in the Middle East. What, then, is Trump’s strategy? Does he even have a strategy? Is strategy even possible for the United States? Trump is forced, therefore, to rely on stratagems.
According to Carl von Clausewitz, “Stratagem implies a concealed intention, and therefore is opposed to straightforward dealing, in the same way as with the opposite of direct proof.” When we look at America’s so-called “strategic” moves, everything has an equivocal aspect. One might say that Trump’s foreign and military policy is full of bluff and bluster. He has only stratagems, not strategy. On the one hand, Trump appears to be sabotaging NATO by threatening Greenland. On the other hand, he appears to be strangling the dictators of the socialist camp by coordinated interdiction of oil supplies. But appearances, in this case, are deceiving. Taking six oil tankers does not constitute a serious blockade.
On the one hand, President Trump has been exceptionally patient and gentle with Russia while provoking Canada and Denmark/Greenland into guarded hostility. Canada has begun to take steps to make China its “strategic partner.” The Chinese are now calling Canada an ally. This is a remarkable achievement. Now the United States is sandwiched between two hostile countries – Canada and Mexico. By what stratagem has this been accomplished?
According to Clausewitz, stratagem “is itself a deceit … but differs from what is commonly called deceit, in … that there is no direct breach of word. The deceiver by stratagem leaves it to the person himself whom he is deceiving to commit the errors of understanding which … suddenly change the nature of things in his eyes.”[vi]
In evaluating the moves and countermoves of President Trump we are confronted with deceptive public statements as well as military feints (i.e., in the Caribbean). In which direction is Trump advancing? In which direction is he prepared to defend? Will he take Venezuela’s oil or Greenland’s mineral wealth?[vii]
Previously Trump threatened sanctions against Russia which were delayed – since early May. In October he finally sanctioned Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. Assets were frozen, U.S. entities were blocked from doing business with these companies. Secondary sanctions were also threatened against foreign companies, especially in China and India. But Rosneft and Lukoil only account for half of Russia’s total oil exports so that Russia can export oil by shifting to other outlets. How is this satisfactory in terms of punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine? As with everything we observe, Trump’s sanctions on Russia are equivocal, with expert opinion differing on the policy’s effectiveness.[viii]
The reason Trump has given for half-sanctions against Russian oil is to minimize the disruption of global markets. Here, most certainly, we are confronted with a contradiction. We also see the tip of a philosophic iceberg. What foolishness placed us in this position to begin with? Where were the wise men of the West who might have steered us away from trading with our enemies and thereby coming into dependency? Neither liberals nor conservatives nor social democrats said anything wise about the supposed fall of the Soviet Union. All embraced this as a godsend (each in their own way). At last, we can invest in Russia, said the capitalists. At last, we can gain access to Russia’s natural gas and oil. The West ended up doing business with KGB bosses and communist apparatchiks – all the while believing that these had become good democrats and liberals. So, the West gave Russia investment and technology while becoming addicted to Russian gas and oil. Three decades later Russia resumed its militaristic course, threatening the whole of Europe with nuclear world war. The West’s elite, guided by a massive phalanx of credentialed advisors, has proved to be a pack of fools.
So here we are, unable to fully embargo Russia because the “world economy” might fall to pieces without Russian oil. And this happened because the West allowed itself to become entangled with the Russian and Chinese economies, because we allowed ourselves to believe the Russian lies – supinely ignoring communist takeovers in oil rich Venezuela and mineral rich South Africa, Congo, etc. These mistakes were not merely economic. They were strategic mistakes. And there was a “philosophy” at the bottom of all this: liberalism, which James Burnham called “the ideology of Western suicide.”
To draw a fine distinction: The West has not become communist, yet it has inched ever closer to socialist constructivism[ix] which deeply compromises all social strata (not just the ruling class). This movement toward socialist constructivism (by way of the welfare state) represents a spiritual and intellectual disintegration which has been progressing steadily for decades. The strategy of the United States, and the actions of American presidents, have often been compromised by this disintegration. This is the general situation that frames Donald Trump’s stratagem in Latin America, Greenland, and the Middle East. It is a disintegrative policy carried out by a disintegrated person on behalf of a disintegrating society.
In Part Two, next week, we will examine the ideas of Richard M. Weaver to explain why we are headed into a period of political fragmentation, revolutionary change, and civil wars.
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Notes and Links
[i] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago: Phoenix Press, 1948), p. 27.
[ii] What is the full text of President Trump’s letter to J…
[iii] Calls To Invoke 25th Amendment Grow After Trump Norway Letter – Newsweek
[iv] https://tuckercarlson.com/january-20-2026-morning-note
[v] Iran warns of retaliation if Trump strikes, US withdraws some personnel from bases
[vi] Carl von Clausewitz trans. Anatol Rapoport, On War (New York: Penguin Books, 1982), p. 274.
[vii] Greenland’s mineral wealth is humbug. The Arctic is too cold and getting colder, not warmer.
[viii] https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/28/energy/us-russian-oil-sanctions-china-india-intl-hnk-dst#:~:text=US%20President%20Donald%20Trump’s%20attempts,newly%20sanctioned%20firms%2C%20analysts%20say.
[ix] Friedrich Hayek criticized “constructivism,” which is the belief that complex societal institutions can and should be deliberately designed by rational planners. Hayek argued that constructivist planning ignores the dispersed nature of knowledge, especially economic knowledge, leading to centralized planning in all spheres. Hayek, like others who believed in human freedom, championed spontaneous processes where institutions emerge organically through human action (not by design). Hayek wrote,
“The universal demand for ‘conscious’ control or direction of social processes is one of the most characteristic features of our generation. It expresses perhaps more clearly than any of its other cliches the peculiar spirit of the age. That anything is not consciously directed as a whole is regarded as itself a blemish, a proof of its irrationality and of the need to completely replace it by a deliberately designed mechanism. Yet few of the people who use the term conscious so freely seem to be aware of precisely what it means; most people seem to forget that conscious and deliberate are terms which have meaning only when applied to individuals, and that the demand for conscious control is therefore equivalent to the demand for control by a single mind.”
See F.A. Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies in the Abuse of Reason (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1979), p. 153. It is a fact that the social sciences in the West have largely adopted a collectivism methodology which grants first place to conscious control or direction of social processes. This is the basis of today’s social engineering and the deconstruction of all organic institutions (i.e., on the grounds that they are sexist, racist, and classist).
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