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Knee-Jerk Reaction
Some people always assume I refuse to get mad about Trump because I’m Russian and I see him as a useful idiot. I do enjoy the Agent Krasnov memes as much as everyone else, and the whole delusional Russia-collusion lore is also amusing, but it’s all pure fiction. Others will assume I’m a generic Trump supporter who thinks he’s a great leader or even a moral beacon.
So let me explain.
Trump is Neutral
Trump is not particularly good or bad for Russia or any other hot-topic issue. He’s constantly in flux, alternating between sweet talk and tough talk, but there is nothing of substance in terms of a meaningful change of the general direction.
For someone from Russia, Trump is neutral. The “Krasnov” framing and Russiagate are just American domestic politics. Most Russians don’t think about Trump much, and the ones who do mostly see him as a buffoon.
I never saw any direct benefit to Russia from Trump’s presidency, and I don’t see any direct harm either. He’s a sideshow.
Dumb Lenin
I’d like to strip away the modern politics and look at Trump as a historical archetype. He’s a revolutionary and he’s clearly hungry for power. He’s willing to break every norm, every rule, and every institution in order to get it. He’s tearing the system apart, and he’s not subtle about it.
Lenin was the same archetype, but book-smart. Lenin understood that the old empire was a dead weight. He had a vague vision for what came after, but he was ready to experiment with everything. Trump has no vision. He just wants to be in charge, and he’s willing to destroy whatever stands in his way to make that happen.
Both of them are extremely rare and historically exceptional. Mere mortals who end up slaying mighty empires. It looks like some people come into history to break things. Others come to build things. Trump is firmly in the first category.
Empire Can’t be Saved
The American empire is in decline. That’s not even a controversial statement at this point. Empires rise and fall. It can either be fast and ugly or slow and painful.
Trump is accelerating that decline by tearing up trade deals, alienating allies, attacking institutions, politicizing everything, and transforming governance into a B-grade TV show. Every single thing he does weakens the institutional foundation that holds the empire together.
Now, does Trump understand that the empire can’t be saved? Probably not. He’s not that smart, but his instincts are right. The empire is too sclerotic and too expensive to maintain. Tinkering won’t save it. Only destruction will clear the ground for something new.
Dying Fast and Slow
A long, slow decline of an empire is the worst possible outcome. A fast death is cleaner. The institutions can be reset faster, leading to a clean start. The bad debt can be cleared and new power structures are expected to emerge quickly. It’s painful in the short term, but it opens space for new growth.
Trump, like it or not, is moving things toward the fast-death scenario. Tariffs, NATO military adventures, attacks on the Federal Reserve, all of it speeds up the process.
Destroyer vs Builder
History has two interesting archetypes: destroyers and builders. Destroyers tear down the old order. Builders construct the new one. They are almost never the same person. Lenin was a destroyer. Stalin was a builder.
Trump is a destroyer. There is zero chance he’ll build anything of value. He has no interest in institutions, no capacity for long-term thinking, and no vision beyond his own ego. His value is destruction, and destruction alone.
The interesting question is what comes after him. Will the next leader be a builder who manages to construct a new American system on the modernized foundations? Or will the destruction continue until there’s nothing left to build on?
I don’t know the answer, but I know the destruction phase is necessary. You can’t build a new structure on a rotten foundation. The rot has to come out first.
Conclusion
I like Donald Trump the way I like nuking the old legacy code and building something new without the constraint of the past and with the feeling that future possibilities are endless.
Trump is destructive; he’s chaotic. He breaks things that needed breaking, and he’s accelerating the decline of an empire that was already doomed to fail. None of that makes him a good person, but I see him as a fact of nature. He’s nature’s way of resetting the mess that was previously made.
The “Agent Krasnov” framing is silly and the “MAGA forever” framing is American delusion. The real story is that empires die, and Trump is making this one die faster.
Faster is better.