Thou shalt not say no to Donald Trump!

To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God – these are the words that Christian minister Paula White-Cain – the White House Senior Advisor and head of the White House Faith Office said in 2025. These words stirred much uproar among Christians of many denominations. They rightly stated that no man can be adored like God, no man can be looked up to like he is a deity.

The White House’s main resident – Donald Trump – a psychological reincarnation of Benito Mussolini – received a powerful boost for his ego from this female minister. Paula White-Cain is said to have been contacted by Donald Trump many years ago, before his first presidential term. He is supposed to have been struck by the profundity of her preaching. No wonder: like draws like. Paula White-Cain is every inch as narcissistic as the American president is. She was heard (and recorded) on an occasion to say: “Wherever I go, God rules. When I walk on White House grounds, God walks on White House grounds. I have every right and authority to declare the White House holy ground, because I was standing there and where I stand is holy.” Her self-esteem is just staggering!

Paula White-Cain, born in 1966, a Christian minister, has been married three times (to Dean Knight, a musician, with whom she has a son; to Randy White, a preacher; and Jonathan Cain, a keyboardist and songwriter). She herself is from a broken family, with her father being a suicide. Despite those life hardships she managed to amass a fortune, complete with a real estate and a private jet. She generates money through her evangelism (including televangelism), book writing, and various business ventures.

Why, Donald Trump has also tried his hand at various enterprises and – what a coincidence! – he also has had three spouses (Ivana Trump, the mother of his three first children; Marla Maples, mother of one of his daughters; and Melania Trump, mother of his youngest son).

Paula White-Cain’s evangelism attracts thousands of followers. She makes believe she “speaks in tongues” and she delivers people from bad spirits causing the people to fall on the ground during the process and behave in uncontrolled ways. She acts self-assured and – you guessed it right – she does all those things for the good of the poor, including the poor in – yes! yes! – Africa. (You will have noticed, dear reader, that all the philanthropists of the world are somehow concerned with the Dark Continent, but never mind.)

Isn’t Paula White-Cain just the right person to accompany somebody like President Donald Trump? They both look for narcissistic supply of admiration from the masses of people, they both know how to ingratiate themselves with the common man, and they both have been extremely successful in enriching themselves and gaining social status.

One can wonder which is worse: a Leonid Brezhnev taking cues from Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx’s political-cum-philosophical tenets or Donald Trump being influenced by Paula White-Cain’s ministry and hr interpretation of the Holy Scripture. One can also legitimately wonder whether Leonid Brezhnev really cared about Marxism-Leninism, and, similarly, whether President Donald Trump really cares about religion, any religion. Rather, both leaders use(d) the ideology or religion for their self-aggrandizement. When Ivanka, Donald Trump’s daughter (from his first marriage) married Jared Kushner, she converted to Judaism, her husband’s religion, which shows that she was not raised by a genuinely Christian father.

President Donald Trump needs a bunch of ministers in the White House precisely for the purpose of raising his status in the eyes of still believing American Christians. The words said by Paula White-Cain that you cannot say no to Donald Trump because that would be like saying no to God himself turn the American president into a Caesar-like figure. We know that Roman emperors enjoyed the status of being divine. The United States is an echo of the Roman Empire: we have the senate and the senators, we have the Capital, we have the eagle as the national emblem (all the trappings derived from ancient Rome) and Latin inscriptions like the familiar e pluribus unum (out of many – one) seen on coins and paper bills.

Roman emperors were not deified within a day. It was a process. Are we witnessing something like that in the case of present-day America?

Christians, as said above, were enraged by what Paula White-Cain said about President Donald Trump, but some of them – and we think about Christian Zionists – had done the same long before they heard those words from the female minister. It is the Christian Zionists who notoriously deify the nation of Israel. They are used to saying that ‘who touches Israel touches God’, which is a loose quotation of Zechariah 2:8, which says: ‘For he who touches you touches the apple of His eye.’ It is then the Christian Zionists who have long ago equated one ethnicity with God himself. Why should they be bothered so much when the deification is extended to Donald Trump? After all the incumbent American president is Israel’s best friend, waging wars at the behest of Tel Aviv. If Donald Trump is doing his best to Make Israel Great Again, why deification should be withdrawn from him? Doesn’t he deserve it?

But jokes apart. Deification of a nation or an individual is a path into the abyss. History knows of such deifications and the results they entailed. Woe to the world in which a nation or a man is equated with God.

Would you like to be the American vice president?

The talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, have come to a grinding halt. 21 hours bore no fruit. Americans, despite having lost the war to Iran, raised their demands and obviously sought no settlement. It is highly likely they are trying to regroup and strike again: they are playing for time. They have done so twice before so we may rest assured they will do it again. They will strike while the negotiations are in full swing if they are resumed, and most likely they will be resumed.

Yet, it is not the negotiations that we’d like to focus aur attention on. It is the person of the American vice-president JD Vance. He was sent by President Donald Trump to Islamabad to carry out the talks. One might think JD Vance is the second most powerful man on planet earth. Sadly, far from it. JD Vance had absolutely no empowerment to conduct the negotiations. He called Donald Trump eleven times during his stay in Islamabad – a sure sign he had absolutely no leeway, or – worse – Donald Trump did not trust him enough.

Second, JD Vance was accompanied by Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law) and Steve Witkoff (both of Jewish extraction), who were certainly sent to guide the vice president and see to it that he does not depart from the direction that is satisfying for Israel.

Third, JD Vance, while still on board the plane bound for Washington on his way back from Pakistan called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ‘reported’ (that’s precisely the word that Benjamin Netanyahu used giving account of the call to the journalists) about the talks. Let this sink in: the American vice-president reported over the telephone to a foreign head of state even before he did so in person to his superior, the president of the United States.

The position of the American second-in-command is unenviable! For all the splendour and what not, JD Vance is compelled to play a role he certainly – if he is a man of ambition – does not enjoy playing. Unless, of course, JD Vance is not a man of ambition, unless he only cares for the trappings of power. Who knows?

Thucydides’ Trap

In recent decades, the US strategy towards China has been based on economic opening towards the Middle Kingdom, which was particularly evident in the outsourcing of American manufacturing there. This was made possible by the reforms of Deng Xiaoping, who facilitated and advocated this opening. The subsequent leaders of the People’s Republic of China (Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao) zealously fulfilled Deng’s legacy, although the current leader, Xi Jinping, has violated one of his predecessor’s most important teachings: the famous 24 character-mantra. Deng’s testament read as follows: Observe coolly and calmly, secure your positions. Gain trust, conceal your capabilities, bide your time without stepping out of line, do not raise your head if you wish to retain your leadership.

Xi broke ranks: he flooded the West with cheap goods of ever-improving quality, sold US Treasury bonds, hoarded gold, built artificial islands for his bases in foreign waters in the South China Sea, expanded his fleet, developed hypersonic missiles, landed on the moon, helped the Serbs, Iranians, Russians, won over half of Africa, and built the world’s longest bridges, dams and cities. A colossal emperor!

Meanwhile, the US empire survived only thanks to innovation and increased productivity. That is not enough. The Americans know this and, in response to China’s abandonment of Deng’s policies, have sent Emperor Trump to the front line. The guns are now thundering against Beijing’s allies; tariffs and sanctions are being imposed. But… if this continues, it could well end in a kinetic, direct conflict between the US and China.

Many political scientists see parallels here with the so-called Thucydides Trap. The ancient Greek historian Thucydides wrote a famous work, The History of the Peloponnesian War, which describes the conflict between the two greatest city-states. The aforementioned “trap” suggests that ancient Sparta, seeing its position in Hellas under threat, sought an escalation with Athens, which claimed the role of hegemon. At that time, the Greek world was bipolar, which threatened to escalate. This occurred in 431 BC. According to Thucydides, this war was inevitable precisely because one of the city-states wanted to retain the status of hegemon and the other wanted to attain that status. However, the war ended with both the Spartans and the Athenians losing their influence.

The historian Graham T. Allison has expanded on the concept of Thucydides’ Trap and, in his study, described 16 examples of it, 12 of which ended in war, e.g.:

[1] Late 17th to mid-18th century – Kingdom of France vs. Kingdom of Great Britain – war

[2] Mid-19th century – France vs. German Empire – war

[3] Mid-20th century – United States vs. Empire of Japan – war

Allison’s concept has been criticised by many political scientists, such as Hal Brands and Michael Beckley. They argued that in many of the cases identified by Allison as the Thucydides Trap, it was not the impending overtaking of an old hegemonic power that triggered the war, but rather the rising power struck first when its rapid rise turned into stagnation.

At present, however, we are seeing that the Chinese economy may be stagnating in the face of the new oil crisis and tariffs.

The Dragon’s New Plan

We are talking about Beijing’s new five-year plan. The term ‘AI’ appears 50 times in the document. Artificial intelligence is to be implemented across all sectors of the economy: the aim is to achieve 90% saturation in areas such as industry, social security, public administration and the military. Although China has a population of over 1 billion, it faces demographic challenges. These are to be addressed through the use of humanoid robots to support industry. Robot production is expected to double within five years and be deployed in companies affected by labour shortages.

Other key technologies are also mentioned:

– Quantum networks for Earth-space communication (ultra-secure information transmission system);

– Nuclear fusion;

– Communication between the brain and the computer;

– 6G.

In order to develop the above-mentioned sectors effectively, Beijing intends to increase R&D spending by an average of 7% per year. China anticipates GDP growth of around 5% per year, and the document also outlines plans to develop self-sufficiency, not only in technology but also, for example, by increasing grain production capacity.

When you read such a plan, you can see just how much China’s political philosophy differs from that of the West. Donald Trump says “Let’s make America great again” without setting out a long-term strategy. And European politicians and strategists are unable to present a unified plan that could make Europe great again. When one compares the West’s current political turmoil and war games with China’s methodical, long-term approach, it becomes clear who is best suited for the struggle for global hegemony.

Sources: Merics, GTAI

Cat turned mouse

Three weeks into the war and it has emerged that the predatory cat – the United States (and Israel) – has turned into the mouse, while the mouse – Iran – has become the cat. What a turn of events! The United States has stepped into a quagmire and now has difficulties extricating itself from it. Is this the beginning of the end of the global superpower?

It was in 1979 that the Soviet Union deployed its troops to Afghanistan. The Western world condemned the action. The Soviets stayed in Afghanistan for a decade and then withdrew. They withdrew on the eve of the collapse of the first state of the workers and the peasants.

The same seems to be happening to the United States. Its troops have not put their boots on the ground as yet, but its air force and its missiles are operating against Iran, while Iran is striking back, and striking back successfully. Targets are hit not only in Israel but also in all the Persian Gulf countries that have American military bases. The leaders of those countries must have nurtured hopes of security once they had invited American soldiers on their soil, now they must regret it. It is also a signal to other countries having American bases: a warning to Poland, Romania, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Safe are they not.

In an attempt to save face, the American president has recently talked about negotiations with the Iranian leadership. The problem is that Iran denies ever taking part in any negotiations. President Donald Trump has issued a forty-eight-hour ultimatum, threatening that if the Strait of Hormuz was not made accessible to vessels from around the world, American troops would destroy Iranian power plants. The forty-eight hours did not elapse and the American president extended the period by a further five days. He is losing face. Worse, the American president is divorced from reality. And still worse, the American president has unleashed a war on purely ideological or religious grounds of ‘destroying the enemies of Israel, God’s chosen people.’ Wasn’t it the same in the case of the Soviet Union, whose military intervention in Afghanistan was dictated by the ideological urge to come to the aid of Afghan communists? Afghanistan did not threaten the Soviet Union at that time, nor is Iran a threat to the United States nowadays.

Tehran has become self-confident and daring. It is not waiting for the Americans and the Israelis to propose a ceasefire. Rather, Tehran has laid down conditions, and these are conditions of a victor:

[1] the US must withdraw from the region its military units,

[2] the US must unilaterally put an end to the hostilities,

[3] the US must pay Iran compensation for all the material damage and loss of human life.

One might say, it is Tehran that has issued an ultimatum rather than the United States.

It is not merely that Iran seems to be gaining the upper hand: almost the whole world is on Iran’s side. Why? Because the whole world saw that the United States and Israel attacked Iran unprovoked, during the negotiations; because the whole world perceives the hostilities as a war of aggression on the part of the United States and Israel; because the whole world has had enough of American bullying, of American policing.

Iranians have surprised the world with the missiles that they have at their disposal. Some of them develop speeds of more than 10 Mach. Some of them have a reach of 4000 km (Iranians attempted to hit the American base on Diego Garcia Island on the Indian Ocean). Iran has decentralized its command centre; Iran has learnt to strike back asymmetrically. Iran is militarily supported by Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and the Houthis in Yemen. Iran is also backed up by Russia and China, both of which supply it with satellite data.

What if? What if the United States will be compelled to admit its defeat? Will it be another Vietnam or worse for America? The image of a superpower will have vanished in thin air. The Gulf states might as well demand that Washington withdraw its troops from their territory. Why should they have them on their soil? To further expose themselves to attacks? Iran – in league with China – might begin the sale of its oil and gas in return for the Chinese currency. That might lead to the end of the petrodollar. And if the dollar stops being in demand worldwide, the United States will spiral into a position of a country that will have difficulties solving its financial problems. Without the dollar as the international currency all American economic might will shrink. Till now, for decades nations would have bought dollars – i.e. sold goods and services – to stock them and to have currency for purchasing oil. Once this scheme comes to an end, America will cease to be flooded by foreign goods and services: America will be compelled to manufacture things on its own. Due to the outsourcing, there are not so many factories, engineers and skilled workers in the world’s most admired democracy. Rebuilding will take time…

The war against Iran was to be a walkover. The United States has already handled, in one way or another, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Venezuela. Americans thought that Iran was to be yet another intervention of the same small calibre. How wrong they were!

When you drink alcohol, you feel good after the first couple of drams. Then slowly but surely the substance begins to impede your speech and motor activity. Eventually one of the drams becomes one too many. They say proverbially: one over the eighth. Was the attack on Iran – after Venezuela, Libya, Syria – one over the eighth?

Extraterrestrials – Donald Trump’s only hope

Yes, history has witnessed cases that are strikingly similar to the ongoing US-Iranian war. Of the many examples the most telling and revealing is the relatively recent military conflict between Italy and Greece that took place from 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941 and has come down in history as either the Greco-Italian War or Italo-Greek War. Benito Mussolini, Italy’s ruler, wished to vie for the leadership in the axis (whose core was made up of Italy, Germany, and Japan) with Adolf Hitler. Benito Mussolini – a highly narcissistic individual – wished to assert himself, wished to show off that he, too, can pull off a blitzkrieg victory. By the end of October 1940, the German armies had walked over Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Benito Mussolini could only brag about conquering the economically backward Ethiopia. To be precise, he could not brag about conquering this country because Ethiopians resisted him bitterly, the Italian troops advanced but slowly, and Italy’s ruler needed to eventually resort the chemical weapons. So, to bolster his ego, Benito Mussolini decided to invade Greece. The task seemed all the easier, because Mussolini had a bridgehead across the Adriatic in Albania, a bridgehead neighbouring Greece, which he had conquered within five days in April of 1939. Hang on, you might say! So, Mussolini had his own blitzkrieg!

Not exactly. Albania was small and weak and backward. Its conquest was easy. Albania to Italy was not even like Denmark or Norway to Germany. Greece, however, appeared to be the right morsel. Neither too large, nor too small: just the right size for an impressive conquest. Greece’s area amounted to 110 thousand sq km as compared to Italy’s 300 thousand sq km, whereas Greece’s population stood at 7 million as opposed to 44 million of Italy’s.

The pretext for war? It was not hard to create one. Well, Italy, as Germany’s ally, had already been at war with the United Kingdom, so Rome needed only to accuse Athens of being on friendly terms with London and consequently of posing a threat to Italy’s security. Never mind that Greece was much smaller than Italy; never mind that Greece and Italy were separated by the Adriatic Sea; never mind that Greece’s military and economic potential was no match to that of Italy’s. Greece posed a threat to Italy. Period. Therefore, Greece needed to be conquered.

So, on October 28, 1940, Italian armies launched an offensive from Albania into northern Greece. Benito Mussolini was in for a big, big surprise. It did not take much time for the Greek troops to take the initiative and push the Italian divisions back across the border and into Albania! Small Greece retaliated and retaliated successfully! Europe was stunned, the British papers printed huge titles and elaborate articles about brave Greeks and their tenacious resistance. The war, which was planned for weeks at the most, protracted for half a year, and had Germany not intervened aiding its Italian ally, the war would have protracted for a couple of months more. The Italian soldiers and officers did not want to fight, as they righteously recognized that war as a war of aggression.

Eighty-six years fast forward and we are seeing the incarnation of Benito Mussolini in the person of American President Donald Trump, who is as narcissistic as the Italian ruler, strikes similar poses and presents to the world similar facial expressions. Donald Trump had walked over Venezuela, just like Benito Mussolini had walked over Albania, and decided to move in for the kill against Iran. Just like Benito Mussolini, Donald Trump had hoped for a quick, impressive campaign, for a blitzkrieg, and just like Benito Mussolini he was in for a big, big surprise. Iran, just like Greece eighty-six years earlier, has struck back and has struck back successfully. Iran’s population of approximately 90 million is smaller than the 350 million of the American population, while Iran’s area of 1.650 sq km is a few times smaller than that of the United States, which amounts to 9.800 sq km and still, and despite that, Iran is fighting back.

Now, Mussolini had the big brother in the person of Adolf Hitler and a big ally in the form of the Third Reich. Germany eventually came to Italy’s assistance. True, it was predominantly Germany that could enjoy the spoils of war: Italians were only granted small parts of Greece as their occupation zone, but at least Italy was rescued. Who is going to salvage America from the trouble it has got itself into? There is no big brother, there is no ally powerful enough to do it. The United States’ allies are smaller and weaker, and even they have refused to provide military aid. Russia and China might influence Tehran to stop the hostilities, but why should they do it? Both Moscow and Beijing remember that Washington has been hostile to them for years. Moscow remembers America’s involvement in the Ukrainian war, while Beijing is aware of the fact that Washington views China as America’s archenemy. Both Moscow and Beijing would certainly rather derive benefits from the current political circumstances. Besides, Iran is an economic partner of both Russia and China. Iran has been providing Russia with drones in the latter’s conflict with Ukraine. Now Russia feels obliged to show gratitude to Tehran and to give Washington the taste of its own medicine: now it is Russia that provides Iran with satellite intelligence and munitions of war, just as the United States has been doing it for years in reference to Ukraine.

That Greece in 1940 posed a threat to Italy was at least more convincing than that Iran poses a threat to the United States, as President Donald Trump has said. The straight-line distance between Italy and Greece is some 80 km, across the Adriatic, whereas the straight-line distance between the United States and Iran is… 10.000 km, across continents and oceans. The distance separating America from Iran is 125 times larger than that separating Italy from Greece. In 1940, theoretically Greek aircraft could reach Italian soil and bomb it; neither Iranian aircraft nor Iranian missiles can reach the United States’ territory.

There is one significant difference between narcissistic Donald Trump and narcissistic Benito Mussolini, and a similar significant difference between the ruling class of the United States and that of Italy eighty-six years ago. Mussolini and his clique at least acted on their own: there was no third country, political entity or foreign lobby to pressurize them into attacking Greece. It is much different in the case of the United States: American presidents and the American ruling class do the biddings of the Israeli lobby, which through such organizations as AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) or through the so-called Christian Zionists (American Christians mentally hijacked to follow Israel’s political agenda) are capable of drawing the United States into wars waged in the interests of Tel Aviv rather than Washington.

Let us face the same question again: Mussolini, once he had got himself in deep trouble, was saved by his big German brother. President Donald Trump has no big brother because the United States is the biggest brother on Planet Earth. The smaller brothers are either unwilling to extend a helping hand (Western Europe) or are America’s – how shall we put it? – opponents (Russia, China), or prefer to sit on the sidelines (India). Who for goodness’ sake will bail out poor Donald Trump? Extraterrestrials?

MAGA or maga?

Symbols are designed to concisely put across grand, political, religious or social meaning and to rally people around the cause that the symbols represent. Yet, symbols – which is the nature of symbols – sooner or later diverge from reality, and so when what they were supposed to imply changes, so does the meaning of the symbol. Think about the hammer and sickle, the worldwide recognizable symbol of communism. Few people know that initially the symbol pointed to the revolutionary union between the German industrial working class (hammer) and the Russian agricultural peasantry (sickle). The Bolsheviks had hoped at that time that the Russian revolution would be supported by its German counterpart, and together the two nations – Germans and Russians – would spark a worldwide revolution. As we know, the German revolution was nipped in the bud, and so Russia remained alone on the political stage as a socialist country. What was to be done? The hammer-and-sickle symbol needed to be reinterpreted and so it was: the hammer began to imply the Russian working class, while the sickle – the Russian peasantry.

The promises of communism were slow to materialize. Party bosses would have regularly announced that communism was close by, but somehow this communist bright future obstinately refused to arrive. Soviet people began joking about it. One of the jokes ran like this. A factory party committee holds a rally with a group of factory workers. The first secretary of the local party organization says solemnly, We will achieve communism in five years. Hearing that, somebody from the audience asks him, Will we achieve it as well?

The hammer-and-sickle symbol was immortalized by sculptor Vera Mukhina in a 1937 statue known as the Soviet Worker and the Collective Farm Woman, which later became the readily recognizable logo of the Mosfilm film studio. From the world revolution to the revolution in one state alone, to the symbol of a film studio…

That’s, however, not the end of the story of the hammer-and-sickle symbol. Since the ideals of communism – as said above – refused to materialize, since economic and social reality loomed worse and worse, the Soviet people composed a quatrain, which ran something like this:

Grab the sickle, grab the hammer, / Слева – молот, справа – серп,

grab the Soviet emblem’s glamour: / Это наш советский герб:

whether you will mow or hit, / Хочешь жни, а хочешь куй,

the reward for work is shit. / все равно получишь хуй.

Such was the epic failure of the communist dream as felt by and expressed by the common people.

Though President Donald Trump did not come up with a visual symbol – a counterpart of the hammer-and-sickle sign or something akin to the Soviet Worker and the Collective Farm Woman statue – he came up with the MAGA political slogan, which translates into Make America Great Again. No, it is not a promise of communism, but it is, nonetheless, a promise, a promise of something great, grand, fascinating, attractive. This MAGA slogan included in itself a call to stop the forever wars. America was to rebuild itself and rebuild its international standing, while wars were to be a thing of the past.

President Donald Trump has barely finished his first year of the second term and he has already managed to abduct Venezuela’s president and attack Iran – twice. But the military operation designated Epic Fury has apparently misfired. It has misfired so badly that commentators have coined a new designation for it: Epic Failure. Iran is fighting back, Iran is biting back, while Americans willy-nilly are seeking the ways to back out of the conflict. MAGA has reinterpreted itself as maga, a Latin word for witch. The American president seems to act as a magus – a magician – who promises the moon while MAGA or maga appears to be (or, rather, to have been) the Pied Piper/Rat Catcher of Hamelin, whose task it was to seduce as many Trump’s followers as possible. While the maga and magus succeeded to a larger extent at first, they are now on the losing end. The end of the war against Iran is nowhere in sight, American top leaders – the president himself, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defence/War Pete Hegseth – are losing sleep over it, while Donald Trump’s political basis is shrinking with his voters being increasingly disappointed about him.

President Donald Trump’s narcissism is too strong to give in to criticism or sheer common sense. He thinks himself king of the kings, a ruler of the globe if not of the Solar System. He strikes poses like Benito Mussolini, and is in constant demand for narcissistic supply. Here, too, one can have associations with the Soviet Union, or with Joseph Stalin, to be precise. Donald Trump – just as Joseph Stalin – has never enough of praise and admiration. Donald Trump – just as Joseph Stalin – is ready to blatantly warp reality if that serves his purpose of elevating himself in the eyes of the people. Just as Joseph Stalin could not stop from falsifying history, so can’t Donald Trump. The closing scene in the 1950 feature movie The Fall of Berlin (Падение Берлина) shows – contrary to historical fact – Stalin’s visit to Berlin by plane and his elevation by the thousands of people of various nationalities as the saviour of the planet. President Donald Trump has precisely the same cast of mind: he desperately needs praise and he desperately needs to be looked up to not only by his followers but by the whole world. Hence his contrary-to-fact statements about winning wars and bringing peace to different corners of the world, hence his pontificating about policymaking, international justice and what not. He is a magus or wizard (or astrologer) who keeps deceiving people (along the Orwellian lines that war is peace, while peace is war) because he desperately needs narcissistic supply. Donald Trump – Benito Mussolini – Joseph Stalin… You know the man by the company he keeps, don’t you?