This Unrealistic Mentality

VP:  I’ve told you already, I believe that if you think that you are the only world power, trying to impose on the whole nation the idea of their exclusiveness, you then create this unrealistic mentality in society which in turn requires an adequate foreign policy which is expected by society. And the country’s leadership is obliged to follow this logic of imperialism. And in practice this might go contrary to the interests of the American people. That’s my understanding of how things stand, because in the end it leads to problems, to deficiencies in the system. And it demonstrates that it cannot be in control of everything—that’s impossible. But let’s talk about that later.
OS: Okay, thank you.
Vladimir Putin, interviewed by Oliver Stone 

An American conspiratorial deep state would serve as a defense of the existing social order against a working class capture of any part of the state. In the past it has not even needed to be deep, perhaps covert, but usually just exercising its normal functions. A liberal cabal to defend the sorry remnants of the Republican Party and the Democratic candidate against Trump would be the purest of comedies. He is lying about this. He invented the rigged system trope before catching wind of the witch hunt. The lie is the bond between himself and his audience.

But the absence of a threat from a deep state does not mean he is free from peril. As we see played out daily, partisan electoral victories are fleeting. Each leaves an accretion in the state. With time, luck, and political skill the layers can become more significant but the greater structure is designed to respond to partisan forces while serving the dominant relations of production. In this sense the state is deep and it is capable of acting in secret but, as a whole, it is beyond the grasp of either party. Not that they don't try.

Trump's exposure is from the state's strong inclination to reject incursions of purely private interest. At all times the public interest suffers an array of private insults. These are occasional and they can also be systemic but recognition and resistance, effective or not, inheres in the system, often unexpectedly. The normal shadow of the state is the public corporation and an assortment of private institutions. These exchange personnel and policy and are well recognized as the official form of corruption. But their size and diffusion provide for  an open competition of greed that is widely deplored and accepted.

Privately held capital lacks this natural sympathy with the state. Economic and political crisis have weakened the dominant social forms and given an opening to wealth of a more primitive type. With his ascension Trump has captured unprecedented power and made possible unheard of levels of corruption. The public treasury is unprotected and the conduct of imperial affairs falls under suspicion.

In this situation even Trump's political appointees become deep state. Jeff Sessions is as loyal and reactionary as anyone in the administration but he has refused to extend protection to Trump's private interests. The veil of secrecy which he enjoyed and depended on as a simple capitalist is exposed on the stage of global power. 

He has relied on the support of his party which knows it is suspended over the abyss. But how has he held on, even solidified, his support? Although that support is political in appearance I would offer that it is more theatrical than partisan. And Trump's stage persona has everything to do with the enactment of persecution by the deep state.

His audience shares a world of uncertainty with the working majority of the American electorate. What distinguishes them is their absolute distrust of “the invading socialistic society”. His supporters, to the extent that they may be working class, are opposed to the political program of their own class. They are in flight from themselves and into the embrace of the boss.

Because this is America the entire rally pantomime must involve world affairs and key to this is the “unrealistic mentality” mentioned by Putin. Both parties must adhere to the universal status of this last standing claimant to world empire. The homeland must supply the rank and file of power as well as the treasure to sustain it. But recent decades have not been kind to the empire. Costs have risen and results have declined. Both parties lack explanations giving an opening to an antique vein in the Republican Party, America First.

Throughout the last campaign Republicans and Democrats with proper imperial credentials raised the alarm about Trump being beyond the Pale. They continue to do so and he continues to flip them off. Other nations are untrustworthy and, in the end, may simply need to be annihilated. By renouncing the cooperation which has maintained the universal claims of the American empire, Trump and his public may continue their unrealistic mentality but they have also found an unexpected ally, Russia.

Admiration for Putin extends to a third of Republicans. What ideological basis can we find for that? When the Soviet Union disassembled, the remaining Russian state lost its tattered claim to universal empire. Under Putin it has resurrected an earlier, pre-revolutionary, form of imperialism. Collapse and rebirth as a power in control of its sphere but not of everything, which is impossible. Realistic imperialism.

In Trump's telling the U.S. has undergone a similar process. Our own rebirth has been relatively painless, requiring nothing more than the election of Trump. But now that we've arrived it's a simple matter to join the ranks of Putin's 19th century empires.

The furor over Helsinki, however, demonstrates that it will not be easy. The constituency for the lost American empire remains powerful, indeed, still in power. It knows that its claim to global primacy carries, undoubtedly, a world of responsibilities but also rewards amounting to a large share of national wealth. In Trump's mind America has been cheated. His audience knows that they have been cheated. But neither he nor they will admit what they have stolen themselves. It is a conspiracy of the falsely aggrieved.

In this country we don't lack for imperial strategists. Both parties have their share and Trump has managed to scrounge his own from the leftovers. What his administration lacks is competent leadership in the execution of whatever strategy it is pursuing. It would be possible, even in the face of the Russophobe chorus, to put together some kind of understanding with the Kremlin. But Trump lacks the skill to do so and he has almost no allies in Washington for this. While he holds the White House we can expect a kind of imperial drift but removing him is unlikely to restore the status quo ante either.

Trump's bond with his audience has suffered few real shocks to this point. It is thought that Fox has protected him. But he has been unafraid to return again and again to the rally stage and work the crowd himself. There are, no doubt, some in his crowd who not only identify with him but who consciously share his class politics. But for others, and his crowd would be nothing without them, it is only his mask and his script that numb them to the contempt that is there behind the performance. Events and time are already eroding the suspension of disbelief which cloaks Trump on stage. I suspect we will find out he has less courage than more veteran and skillful performers when his audience begins to turn on him.