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t in light of recent behaviour i hate to break it to folks clinging to the trump in decline thesis but there is nothing about him that suggests any kind of impairment there is no difference between trump now trump during his four years out of office trump in his first term and trump before then that he seemingly has little impulse control and brow beats others into submission is entirely explicable by his upbringing his gilded life and the fact he s unaccustomed to dealing with people who say no this allegation comes up time and again why some of it can be explained by trump s refusal to abide by the politesse of establishment politics consider the idiocies of george w bush and before him ronald reagan they were outrageous in their own ways but there were certain rules of the game that they either abided by or paid lip service too trump s greatest crime among some layers of centrist opinion in his first term was that he was rude and we can measure this by how some of the policies he introduced were continued and in some cases reinforced during joe biden s tenure without anywhere near as many complaints from those quarters but then for centrists its only appearances that matter to deviate from political norms can only be explained by senility that this is simply trump being grab them by the pussy trump is beyond their comprehension also talking about trump s sanity means avoiding asking more awkward questions such as how it is that the american system keeps churning up dummies and granting them the highest office across the right it s not just trump and his cabinet of horrors but look at the state of current and former gop representatives lindsey graham marjorie taylor greene ted cruz sarah palin an assortment of names that do not connect with intellect or erudition the question isn t whether trump is suitable or not but why do people like trump the stupid the ignorant the aggressive keep on getting elected and keep on succeeding centrists prattling on about trump s senility never ask this question and in fact they go on about his cognitive health so much that it appears to be a mix of avoidance and cope precisely so they don t ever have to ponder why this is the case ultimately it comes down to the impasse of ruling class politics on the one hand there is technocratic centrism which offers technical managerialist half explanations for why things are as they are they don t bother trying to justify ours as the best of all possible worlds it s just reality and it should be left to the experts to make trade offs and get on with the complex problem of governing and on the other there is hard right authoritarian politics it too doesn t bother trying to spin excuses for their system instead it manufactures scapegoats and enemies in an orchestrated effort to misdirect dissatisfaction it too ultimately stumps for the same interests and the same class relations as the centrists it s just that their politics requires a big personality a demagogue or a clown it doesn t matter which to front the show in trump s case there is a certain alignment between the fact that he is seemingly beyond accountability and the position of the united states in the global system as its power declines in the world as former satraps are showing independence it has dispensed with the formalities of international law and has accrued immense damage to its soft power particularly among its traditional allies increasingly the us state is but a transparent front for the maintenance of oligarchical power and does this fully in the knowledge no one can stop them trump s personality and behaviour is the perfect fit for this era of american decline a six time bankrupt overseeing the bankruptcy of american values a braggart and self fancied hard man surrendering the strait of hormuz in a war of aggression he began and a billionaire through his and his family s troughing demonstrating without a care in the world who and what the united states really stands for this is a world of pure naked class power trump has no airs or graces every day he testifies to the real nature of the world and it says everything about the feeble mindedness of centrism and the interests it caters to that they take baseless allegations about trump s senility over the truths his very person parades why bother speculating about the state of the president s brain when the politics provides the best explainer for his destructive behaviour image credit posted by phil at 22 22 5 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels centrists class politics usa friday 10 april 2026 science fiction book haul 8 thanks to not feeling it writing wise lately i ve accumulated loads of mostly vintage science fiction paperbacks since the last post outlining my acquisitions instead of trying to wade through them all in some sort of order i m going instead for the most recent clutch those i picked up from visiting stoke on trent today without any further ceremony starting from the bottom we have paul mcauley s gardens in the sun this is second in his quiet war quartet and deals with the aftermath of the events in the first novel the quiet war no spoilers here in case you haven t read that but it made my top ten of last year s best sf reads imagine a near future solar system that has become something of a powder keg and there s real tension between the earthly powers and the outer colonies if this sounds a little bit like the expanse that s because i m convinced this series inspired the later mega hit except this is much more intelligently and better written with great characters and no silly pulpy elements the quiet war is on my best science fiction of the 21st century list and i ve got no reason to believe that this sequel won t live up to its predecessor next up is mack reynolds s earth unaware in case you didn t know reynolds was for many years a leading cadre of the us socialist labor party and was expelled for fostering illusions in capitalism or some such therefore much of reynolds s work has a sort of marxist utopian bent to it of his books the first i d heard of this one was when it presented itself on the shelf in front of me according to the blurb a self proclaimed prophet and its words his sexy young daughter use telepathy to wean the human race off the mass media does no television mean instant revolution the answers to this question lie within this slim volume my bad with the heinlein i originally picked this up as a baen omnibus with the menace from earth a few weeks ago ooops the green hills of earth is a short story collection from early on in heinlein s career they centre on a blind engineer who s a poet and a musician and goes about the solar system singing performing and fixing things i ve had tricky times with heinlein in the past and only one of his books so far citizen of the galaxy have ticked the okay box for me perhaps i ll find this collection more agreeable john brunner s the long result has some good news and some bad news the good racism is dead the bad it s now applied to species other than humans earth had colonised two extra solar worlds when we re approached by intelligent folks from tau ceti they want to set up a meeting but the extremist the stars are for man league want to sabotage the occasion to demonstrate humans are the galactic top dogs obviously a very clever move destined to go entirely to plan and with the desired outcomes not normally considered a major brunner by those conversant with such things but even that would rank this book above the usual fare the fog a horror book or to be more exact an sf based horror book this james herbert classic has some meaning for me when i was a nipper my dad had a book case full of horror paperbacks at the top of the stairs herbert was his favourite author and this was among the collection i never read it but do remember someone bringing their dad s copy into junior school and reading aloud the grim gym scene over the years i ve got through a handful of his books the last one being 48 an alternate history after which hitler has unleashed a deadly plague that was great fun as have been all the other herberts i ve read this version the 1979 printing is i think the same one dad had maybe he s still got his library in the loft a talent for war by jack mcdevitt is also another book with some meaning attached i remember my mum buying a random collection of paperbacks from the local primary school s annual may fayre among them were larry niven s ringworld the 70s film tie in of dracula james herbert s sepulchre nikolai tolstoy s the coming of the king and this i read it and found it more interesting than the to my 14 year old mind frankly weird ringworld christopher sim is a legend who fought off the alien ashiyyur while earth and the main colony planets were twiddling their thumbs but what if this is a load of nonsense it s undemanding stuff and made me a bit of a fan of mcdevitt s work unfortunately my original copy was let go during a huge book clear out we had so there is a vague vague chance that the copy i picked up today could be the same one from back then our next one is edmund cooper with seed of light i still haven t read any cooper despite owning several of his books somewhat noted for being a grump and not a fan of feminism the sf encyclopedia says that this title from the late 1950s is a touch optimistic the earth has been wrecked through environmental catastrophe and war but the launching of a generation ship marks the possibility of a hopeful new beginning we could all do with that i took a risk with fritz leiber s gather darkness considering how much i disliked the big time originally serialised in 1943 the blurb supposes a fantastical society in which science is suppressed and everyone is at war magic is in frequent use and devils and angels are in the mix too yet not even a theocratic dictatorship can defy the laws of social dynamics forever and a revolution breaks out that brings the edifice crashing down the last book is also holds some meaning before computers grabbed me i was dipping my toe into role playing games but without enough interested friends solo adventures were the way to go as a fan of the choose your own adventure line my mate jay lent me a fighting fantasy game book and from that point i was hooked i assembled a collection of the first 39 books plus the sorcery quartet the original rule book and the two source books about ff monsters and titan the fantasy setting for most of the series i still have them all and most are in very good nick anyway i remember there being a trilogy of straightforward novels written by different authors from the ff stable they followed the adventures of the strangely named chadda darkmane and began with steve jackson s the trolltooth wars itself a rare book i was able to happen upon it several months back it turned out to be terrible even for a kids book and has one of the worst endings i ve ever read but of the two sequels i knew nothing until i chanced upon marc gascoigne s shadowmaster today the concluding book of the trilogy chadda teams up with ff recurring character yaztromo the wizard to see off the forces of chaos as the middle book typically goes for about 120 i don t fancy my chances of randomly picking it up cheap like i did with this but still it s nice to add something to my own ff range those are my latest pickups have you bought anything new and interesting lately posted by phil at 22 40 1 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels books introversion sf thursday 9 april 2026 the consequences of defeat trump s dire threats to obliterate iran as we know did not come to pass this time instead we had the pattern we ve now grown accustomed to big threats and violent language followed by complete capitulation and to be sure the us has completely caved in faced with an iranian strategy it did not understand and could not meet their 10 point plan has been accepted by trump as the basis for negotiations in pakistan this weekend despite their being no different to what was unacceptable to washington a week ago the truth of the matter is before this crime against peace the strait of hormuz was open it no longer is subject to a fee iran have shown regardless of the threats regardless of the thousands dead that they can exert control over passage and will do so should the terms of the ceasefire be breached hence why it has closed the waterway again following wednesday s outrages in lebanon but for trump political realities are stood on their head the greatest strategic defeat since the 2nd world war has to be spun as a beautiful thing in the president s ever green world look we took out their military look the ships are moving again unfortunately for trump and the republicans loyal supporters can see the prices at the pumps shooting upwards and the grocery basket weighing heavier on their bank balance even the most gullible find it hard to swallow lies if they cost them more today than it did yesterday trump s colossus with the feet of clay moment has upset the world balance of power the us s declinist trajectory vis a vis china and india has sped up as a much smaller and less powerful country has faced washington down and won the consequences for this are two fold opponents of the us are likely to be emboldened or to be more accurate less fearful the brute strength of american arms can no longer dictate outcomes and secondly the foundation of us leadership is fraying as its range of subordinate powers including the uk slip the leash and start acting more independently of it we see this with the bilateral talks several west european countries have arranged with iran as they seek preferential passage through the strait for ships sailing under their flags nothing says this more than the reaction to israel s terror bombing of lebanon on wednesday which as of writing has claimed 303 lives israel have tried arguing that their operations ostensibly against hezbollah are not covered by the ceasefire and they were initially backed up by the us but throughout thursday there has been a steady stream of countries criticising netanyahu and contradicting the american line keir starmer said the attacks were wrong and should stop australia has said the ceasefire should apply to lebanon as well brazil has said israel risks further destabilisation this builds on the joint statement put out by eu leaders plus the uk and canada with everyone else going one way israel has offered talks with lebanon seemingly with the us nod if only the europeans were as assertive with israel two and a half years ago they may have prevented a genocide as the american alliance system starts to fray where does this leave trump lashing out at all and sundry he s taken to complaining about nato again and continues to drop heavy hints that the us will withdraw from the alliance an act that requires two thirds majority approval from...