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When Trump first appeared on the scene as a politician, a brilliant observer compared him to a character in the Asimov novels called The Mule. This was a character called the “destroyer of worlds” because he literally destroyed whole worlds, but he also destroyed the conception of the world. In fact, his very existence was a threat to accepted understanding of the universe, because the universally accepted conception of the universe precluded the existence of The Mule.

This has been the issue since Trump arrived on the scene. The people atop the post-Cold War world and the post-Cold War world itself, were all based on the assumption that a political character like Trump was impossible. The days of populist, nationalist and picaresque political actors was done. The present and future belonged to the Davos persons, the boys and girls who were produced by and benefitted the most from the managerial ideology that dominated the West.

What Trump’s success in 2016 represented was the nullification of the managerial order because according to the logic of managerialism, men like Trump had no place in the system, so they could never be a threat to the system. Instead, they were marginalized to the fringes of managerial life, the place where things are made, fixed, and created to keep the mechanics of the world going. They had no place in the world where decisions were made by the great and the good.

It is easy to forget that the best and the brightest smirked at the very idea of Trump running in the Republican primary. They were sure he was just another foolish businessman from the fringes, who thought he understood how things worked, but would quickly learn he was in over his head. Instead, the destroyer of worlds first destroyed the Republican primary. and the conservative ecosystem that controlled it, then he destroyed the system itself.

Like all monster movies, the story of this monster had that period where the good guys think they finally killed the beast, only to find out that it was still alive. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, the regime was sure they were done with Trump. Then he reappeared, determined to run again in 2024. It turns out that the destroyer of worlds can never be destroyed because his mere existence depends entirely on his fulfilling his mission as the destroyer of worlds.

Thus, we have entered the final chapter of The Mule. The first two weeks of Trump’s return to Washington have been revolutionary. Things not thought possible are happening on a daily basis. The latest happening is the assault on the financial structure of the neocon war machine. Right now, members of Elon Musk’s team are combing through the records of USAID, the hive mind of the NGO collective that has controlled American foreign policy for decades.

Few appreciate the enormity of what is happening right now with the vast not-for-profit network held together by government entities like USAID. Suddenly, their very existence is threatened due to the suspension of funds from the American government, but also by the revelations to come about what they do with that money. There is a reason Elon Musk is posting about USDAID being a criminal organization. They were doing much more than keeping the Kagan family in donuts.

The vast informal network of formal and informal power centers that make up the real government, the shadow government, is now under assault. This is something that could never happen according to the logic of managerialism. With the owners of American society marginalized and the workers under control of the synopticon, who could possibly challenge this system? The answer is The Mule, the figure who should not exist in the managerial system.

It is hard to imagine it possible, but this is the calm before the storm. The tariff war with Canada and Mexico is just getting started. The system of free trade created forty years ago, which benefitted the ruling elites of all three countries, but was paid for by the people of all three countries, is now under direct assault. It turns out that the great sucking sound Ross Perot warned of thirty years ago was not a sucking sound after all, but an early warning of something terrible to come.

Team Trump is moving quickly to dismantle the post-Cold War world and the understanding of it. Marco Rubio is out giving speeches about how the unipolar world was an anomaly and we are returning to a multipolar world. On the domestic front Trump’s team is quickly working to dismantle and anathematize the bizarre social fads inflicted on the people by the managerial class. When the president blames diversity for a plane crash, the world has truly changed.

It is a bit ironic that the concept of The Mule was created by a man who was the creation of a world that emerged in the 20th century America. The post-national, post-liberal world that arose with the American empire was only possible with the evolution of the managerial ideology. Progressivism evolved to give managerialism moral agency, and together they made the American empire and for a while, came to defined the post-Cold War world, but now that is coming to a close.

What we are seeing is the long-anticipated end of the 20th century. Russia and China have moved into the 21st century, but America and the West have remained moored to the prior century, convulsively resisting any attempt to abandon it. That world, however, is gone and now, thanks to The Mule, it is being destroyed. For now, the destruction is the show, but soon, what comes next is what will matter. Everyone needs to remember that The Mule is the destroyer of worlds, not the creator of them.

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