On the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, “Captain Benjamin” outlines the last several years of progressive narrative that may have been totally derailed in the Oval Office the other day:
Zelenskyy walked into the Oval Office wearing an outfit that was reminiscent of the uniforms from Star Trek, he was escorted out a few hours later and the entire liberal consensus that has been the guiding narrative of the West for the last three years was a smoking hot mess, as if struck by several Photon Torpedoes from the Starship Enterprise itself.
It’s forgotten now but the Ukraine War was how the Liberal consensus moved on at breakneck pace from the Covid hysteria without ever having to explain why we had hidden from a cold for the previous two years and spent untold billions doing so.
I still remember being in a newsagent and the woman behind the desk told me that Covid was over and Ukraine was the new thing now, that was how quickly it happened, one mass consensus narrative seamlessly replaced another and the show went on.
Until today when show came off the tracks crashed into the buffers and a million Liberal talking heads exploded in unison as the entire narrative which had served as this strange outlet for their repressed jingoistic and nationalist desires was destroyed.
To me there was always something about the Ukraine War that didn’t pass the sniff test, whether it was Hunter Biden’s links to energy companies there, the way in which valid criticisms of the NATO expansion were shouted down, the mysterious blowing up of the Nordstream pipeline that was never explained.
Or the feverish want to protect Ukraine’s borders while European elites operated an unpopular open borders policy themselves, the billions being funnelled in, the tales of Ukrainians buying up yachts and sports cars.
But most clearly fact that the entire Uniparty Party and the chattering classes were in absolute lockstep about what needed to be down and any disagreement or attempt to question the narrative had you dismissed as a traitor or Putinist.
It was all very reminiscent of the groupthink that had swept the world two years previous during Covid, another unquestionable narrative, with the Uniparty in lockstep and anyone who dared to question it smeared as an anti-vaxxer.
I didn’t support Covid as the narrative had more holes than Swiss cheese and the Ukraine narrative has similarly porous texture, but to see the narrative explode so spectacularly was as much as a shock to me as it was to Zelenskyy who found himself in a hole and just kept digging.
At one-point he shocking seeming to delivered a veiled threat to Trump himself: “During war, everybody has problems, even you, but you have a nice ocean and don’t feel now, but you will feel it in the future.”
A comment that really sent the meeting side-ways, as Trump swiftly told Zelenskyy not to tell him what he should feel, leading to the arguments that scuppered the signing of a deal.
And the essence is that Trump wanted to make a deal, he’d been bragging about it to Starmer the day before, he was going to get a great deal, recoup American loses with rare-earth minerals and the EU could save-face by guarding the American mines as a peace keeping force.
It also meant that America wasn’t getting sucked into a Vietnam in the snow.
Trump doesn’t want to be a war-time President, especially a war he doesn’t think is necessary or good for business, Trump wants to usher in an AI Golden Age, send rockets to Mars, and American living standards to the moon; a 21st Century tycoon economy.
He wants peace for Ukraine and Russia as he knows that thousands are senselessly dying every week, and knows his presidency and the country cannot cope with hundreds of Americans coming home in body bags every month.
And so he wanted to make a deal with Zelenskyy, make a deal with Russia, and America gets paid, it’s a crude outcome but its aligned with reality.
But Zelenskyy doesn’t want that, he wants America men and weapons to win the war and make Russia to pay, while the EU have gassed him up to believe this possible because the EU are clinging to this war as a chance to project the veneer of power that they cannot possibly muster domestically due [to] Populist parties eroding their authority at home.
However, as Trump asked Keir to much nervous laughter, can you take on Russia alone?
America knows without them the EU cannot continue this charade, but more than that the Americans are disgusted with the EU, they view them as a drunk Uncle that has run out of goodwill.
How they are suppressing the free-speech of their citizens, failing to protect their own borders, yet grandstanding off the back of the US defence budget?
These are the questions being asked Stateside about the since Trump took office.
While the America people are questioning why are billions of tax dollars being poured into Ukraine as America goes deeper into debt.
Trump wanted to close the chapter with a deal, Zelenskyy wanted to continue a war he cannot win, and as Zelenskyy realised he wasn’t going to drag America deeper into this war he lost control, and in doing so forgot he wasn’t dealing with the Bidens and petulantly disrespected his new would-be patrons, triggering the mother of all blowbacks in the process.
Trump made it clear that what Zelenskyy was asking for was for America to risk World War 3, and Vance made it clear that everyone knew that Zelenskyy was a creature of the old regime, even highlighting how Zelenskyy campaigned against Trump in Ohio, while Trump reiterated that without the America Zelenskyy holds no cards for future negotiations with Russia.
This dose of reality was too much for Zelenskyy and also for the EU who tweeted up a storm in the aftermath pledging to ‘stand’ with Ukraine, only Starmer staying conspicuously silent.
This wasn’t simply a change of policy direction this was the public evisceration of the sacred cow of the waning Liberal Order by the ascendant Populist Insurgency.
Ukraine has functioned as the binding narrative, and in the Oval Office it faced Total Liberal Death, the fragile myth of the rules based international order being violated by Russia Man Bad and being saved by the Liberal Democratic Alliance Good, no further thinking necessary, had functioned as a very effective distraction from the utter failure that Liberalism had turned into domestically while allowing our elites to cos-play as war heroes on the world stage.
This narrative has now been utterly destroyed.
What comes next is still unknown but what we can clearly see is that the Populist Pax Americana will be a very different beast from the Liberal Pax Americana.
As always my friends, thank you for reading I know this is a very polarising issue, so if resonates please like, share and follow, if not please feel free to point out the flaws in my thinking in the comments.
