Alexander Dugin, NOT an adviser to Putin but a philosopher, has analyzed modern US history and Trumpism for us

A worthwhile if long read. APPARENTLY I READ THE WRONG SOURCES ABOUT DUGIN and he is not Putin-associated. Sorry.

Trump’s Revolution

Below, I have reproduced the first third of his analysis—Nass

Alexander Dugin explains how the ideology of Trumpism will change the USA and the entire world.

18 January 2025

Currently, everyone in Russia and across the world is clearly puzzled about what is happening in the United States. President-elect Donald Trump and his close associates, particularly the passionate Elon Musk, have launched an almost revolutionary level of activity. Although Trump has not yet assumed office — this will happen on January 20 — America and Europe are already shaking. This is an ideological and geopolitical tsunami that, frankly, no one anticipated. Many expected that after being elected, Trump — much like during his first term — would revert to a more or less conventional policy, albeit with his charismatic and spontaneous traits. It can now be said with certainty: this is not the case. Trump is a revolution.

Therefore, precisely during this transitional period, as power is handed over from Biden to Trump, it makes sense to seriously analyze: what is happening in America? It is evident that something very, very important is taking place.

The Deep State and the History of American Ascendancy

First, it is essential to clarify how Trump could have been elected at all, given the power of the deep state. This requires a broader review.

The deep state in the United States represents the core of the state apparatus and the ideological and economic elite closely tied to it. In the U.S., the state, business, and education form a single system of interconnected vessels rather than something strictly separate. To this, we can add the traditional secret societies and clubs in the U.S., which historically served as communication hubs for elites. This entire complex is typically referred to as the “deep state.”

Moreover, the two main parties — the Democrats and the Republicans — are not carriers of particularly distinct ideologies but instead express variations of a unified ideological-political and economic course embodied in the deep state. The balance between them serves merely to adjust secondary issues, maintaining a connection with society as a whole.

After World War II, the U.S. passed through two stages: the ideological and geopolitical era of the Cold War with the USSR and the socialist bloc (1947–1991) and the period of unipolarity or the “end of history” (1991–2024). During the first stage, the U.S. was an equal partner with the USSR, while in the second stage, it completely defeated its opponent, becoming the sole political and ideological global superpower (or hyperpower). The deep state, rather than parties or other institutions, became the carrier of this unwavering course towards global dominance.

Since the 1990s, this dominance has increasingly taken the form of left-liberal ideology. Its formula combines the interests of major international capital and progressive individualistic culture. This strategy was most fully embraced by the Democratic Party, and among Republicans, it was supported by the “neocons.” Its core idea was the belief in a linear and continuous growth trajectory: of the American economy, the global economy, and the planetary spread of liberalism and liberal values.

It appeared that all the states and societies of the world had adopted the American model — political representative democracy, a capitalist market economy, an individualistic and cosmopolitan ideology of human rights, digital technologies, and Western-centric postmodern culture. The U.S. deep state embraced this agenda and acted as its guarantor, ensuring its realization.

Samuel Huntington and the Invitation to Adjust the Course

As early as the beginning of the 1990s, some American intellectuals began to voice concerns about the long-term viability of this approach. The clearest articulation of these concerns came from Samuel Huntington, who predicted a “clash of civilizations,” the rise of multipolarity, and the eventual crisis of Western-centric globalization.

Huntington proposed strengthening American identity and consolidating other Western societies within a single — no longer global but regional — Western civilization. However, at that time, this perspective was dismissed as overly cautious by most. The deep state fully supported the optimists of the “end of history,” such as Huntington’s main intellectual opponent, Francis Fukuyama.

This explains the continuity in U.S. presidential policy from Clinton, Bush, and Obama to Biden, with Trump’s first term being an anomaly. Both Democrats and Republicans — exemplified by George W. Bush among the Republicans — expressed the unified political and ideological strategy of the deep state: globalism, liberalism, unipolarity, and hegemony.

However, from the early 2000s, this globalist optimism began to face serious challenges.

• Russia, under Vladimir Putin, ceased blindly following the U.S. lead and began strengthening its sovereignty. This became particularly evident after Putin’s Munich speech in 2007, the events in Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and especially the beginning of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in 2022. All of this ran entirely counter to the plans of the globalists.

• China, especially under Xi Jinping, began pursuing an independent policy, benefiting from globalization while imposing strict limits when its logic conflicted with China’s national interests or threatened its sovereignty.

• In the Islamic world, sporadic protests against the West grew — ranging from aspirations for greater independence to outright rejection of imposed liberal values.

• In India, with the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right-wing nationalists and traditionalists came to power.

• Anti-colonial sentiments surged in Africa, and countries in Latin America began increasingly asserting their independence from the U.S. and the West as a whole.

This culminated in the formation of BRICS as a prototype for a multipolar international system that operates largely independently of the West.

The American deep state faced a serious dilemma: should it continue to insist on its agenda while ignoring the growing antagonistic trends, attempting to suppress them through information dominance, leading narratives, and outright censorship in the media and social networks? Or should it acknowledge these trends and seek new responses by adjusting its foundational strategy to a reality increasingly at odds with the subjective assessments of some American analysts?

Trump and the Deep State

Trump’s first presidency appeared to be an accident — a technical glitch. Yes, Trump rose to power on a wave of populism, drawing support from segments of the U.S. population increasingly rejecting the globalist agenda and woke culture (the left-liberal ideology advocating hyper-individualism, gender politics, feminism, LGBTQ rights, cancel culture, and the promotion of both legal and illegal immigration, among other elements). This marked the first time the term “deep state” gained prominence in U.S. public discourse, highlighting the growing contradiction between it and the sentiments of the broader populace.

However, between 2016 and 2020, the deep state did not take Trump seriously, and Trump himself, during his presidency, did not manage to implement structural reforms. After the end of his first term, the deep state supported Biden and the Democratic Party, pushing through the elections with unprecedented pressure on Trump, whom they perceived as a threat to the entire globalist and unipolar course the U.S. had followed for decades — with a certain degree of success. This explains Biden’s campaign slogan: “Build Back Better,” meaning “Let’s rebuild even better.” This slogan implied that after the “disruption” of Trump’s first term, it was necessary to return to the implementation of the globalist liberal agenda.

However, everything changed between 2020 and 2024. Although Biden, supported by the deep state, restored the previous course, this time he needed to prove that all indications of a crisis in globalism were nothing more than “propaganda by adversaries,” “the work of Putin’s or China’s agents,” or “the schemes of domestic fringe groups.” Biden, with the support of the Democratic Party elite and the neocons, tried to present the situation as if there were no real crisis, no genuine problems, and that reality did not increasingly contradict the ideas and projects of the liberal globalists.

Instead, he argued that it was necessary to intensify pressure on ideological opponents: to deal a strategic defeat to Russia, suppress China’s regional expansion (the “Belt and Road Initiative”), sabotage BRICS, quell populist movements in the U.S. and Europe, and even eliminate Trump (legally, politically, and physically). This resulted in the encouragement of terroristic methods and the tightening of left-liberal censorship. Under Biden, liberalism effectively became a totalitarian system.

Biden Loses the Trust of the Deep State

However, Biden failed to deliver on these objectives for a variety of reasons.

Russia under Putin did not capitulate and withstood unprecedented pressure, including sanctions, conflict with the Ukrainian regime supported by all Western countries, economic challenges, and sharp reductions in natural resource exports. Despite these, Putin prevailed, and Biden could not achieve victory over Russia.

China remained resolute, continuing its trade war with the U.S. without suffering critical losses.

Modi’s government in India could not be toppled during the electoral campaign.

BRICS held a spectacular summit in Kazan, on Russian territory in the midst of its confrontation with the West, marking the rise of multipolarity.

Israel’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon escalated into genocide, undermining any globalist rhetoric. Biden had no choice but to support this, further discrediting his administration.

And most importantly, Trump did not give up. He consolidated the Republican Party on an unprecedented scale, continuing and even radicalizing his populist agenda.

Over time, Trump’s movement developed into a distinct ideology. Its central premise was that globalism had failed, and its crisis was not a fabrication by adversaries or propaganda but the actual state of affairs. Consequently, the U.S. must follow Samuel Huntington’s approach rather than Francis Fukuyama’s, return to realism, and revive its core American (and more broadly Western) identity. This involves abandoning woke culture and the liberal experiments of recent decades, effectively resetting American ideology to its early classical liberal roots with a significant emphasis on nationalism and protectionism. This ideological project became encapsulated in Trump’s slogan: “Make America Great Again” (MAGA).

The Deep State Changes Priorities

Because Trump managed to assert his position within the ideological landscape of the U.S., the deep state refrained from allowing Democrats to eliminate him. Biden (partially due to his mental decline) failed the test of “Build Back Better,” failed to convince anyone of the continued viability of globalism, and thus the deep state recognized the reality of the crisis of globalism and the need to abandon old methods of promoting it.

For this reason, the deep state allowed Trump to be re-elected and even supported the formation of a radical group of ideological Trumpists. This group included such prominent figures as Elon Musk, JD Vance, Peter Thiel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, Tucker Carlson, and even Alex Jones.

The key point is this: by acknowledging Trump, the American deep state recognized the objective necessity of revising the U.S.’s global strategy in ideology, geopolitics, diplomacy, and other areas. Henceforth, everything is subject to review.

Trump and Trumpism, and more broadly, populism, are no longer viewed as technical glitches or anomalies but as markers of a genuine and fundamental crisis of globalism and, moreover, its end.

This current term for Trump is not merely another episode in the alternation between Democrats and Republicans — both of whom traditionally pursued a unified agenda supported by the deep state regardless of electoral outcomes. Instead, it marks the beginning of a new chapter in the history of American hegemony: a deep rethinking of its strategy, ideology, presentation, and structure.