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Trump administration 2024-2028

Kilted said:
I'm not sure what scares me more: that he might just keep doing whatever comes to him in the moment, or if the possibility that he could actually have a plan.
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Don't be afraid of plans.

The majority of plans cooked up by humanity are dumb.

The reason it matters for trump is his dumb plans are highly visible.
 
Halifax Tar said:
Well worth the watch. Peter Zeihan is some one I enjoy listening too. Perhaps enjoy is the wrong term...

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This is a Peter Zeihan interview (geopolitics/demographics-focused) — likely with a younger interviewer. Here's the summary.

Summary​

Zeihan argues the postwar US-led global order is ending within the decade, driven by three converging forces: the US Navy no longer has the ships or munitions to sustain global power projection (he cites ~60 destroyers vs. the ~600 needed, half tied to carrier protection), American domestic politics are too fractured to sustain global commitments, and worldwide demographic collapse is eroding the production/consumption balance that underpins every economic model tried to date (capitalism, socialism, fascism alike).

On Europe: having outsourced defense to the US and built an export-driven economy, Europe now has to build both a real navy and a war-relevant industrial base essentially from scratch — a generational project it doesn't have time for. He expects a "neo-imperial European age" built around drones and nuclear weapons rather than legacy armor/air forces, organized nationally (possibly around France and Germany) rather than through NATO or the EU as currently constituted.

On China: he's more emphatic than usual that Chinese collapse is underway — citing internal debate over 100–600 million overcounted population, Xi's isolation and purge of military leadership, and concludes China cannot project power meaningfully beyond the First Island Chain, dismissing a Taiwan war as "pure fantasy."

On the US: expects roughly a decade (he says possibly closer to three) of American strategic withdrawal/isolation — not from weakness of will but from capability gaps — pending a political "reshuffle" that can't fully happen until Trump leaves the scene.

On globalization broadly: argues it was never purely regional-trade-based — energy, finance, and agriculture were genuinely globalized — and that this is now unwinding via demographic collapse (fewer young consumers, fewer mid-career savers/capital generators) rather than policy choice, comparing the scale of disruption to the onset of the current 500-year economic era circa 1500.

On demographics/fertility: says there are only two levers — mass immigration (slow, culturally fraught, limited even for Canada) or removing the cost of children (cheap/free healthcare and childcare) — and that no existing economic system as currently structured can fund that without reinventing itself.

Key takeaways​

  • Core thesis: naval capacity + munitions depletion (post-Iran conflict) + political dysfunction = US strategic pause, not by choice but by capability, likely this decade.
  • Europe's future ≠ EU/NATO as known — a harder, more nationally-organized, drone/nuclear-weighted militarized economy is his base case; timeline is "half a decade" of reckoning.
  • China's trajectory is collapse, not confrontation — Taiwan invasion scenario dismissed as capability fantasy given command purges and demographic hollowing.
  • Demographics is the unifying variable across every regional argument he makes — not geopolitics or ideology.
  • No existing economic model (capitalist, socialist, fascist) survives current demographic trends unmodified — something structurally new is required, and he admits he doesn't know what it looks like.
Worth treating Zeihan's specific numbers (destroyer counts, Chinese population overcounts, ship ratios) as illustrative rather than verified — he's known for confident forecasting with limited sourcing shown in these appearances. Happy to pull a couple of those figures against open-source data if useful for anything you're writing.
 
I remember Zeihan with a peice post-Trump 45, when everything still seem to be reasonably balanced eniugh, and that China was because of internal lack of consumption as well as demographic meltdown bound to founder in a number of decades likely the 40s or 50s. At the time, he was saying that America was undertaking a well thought out re-industrialization of its own capacities from the previous globalization offloading, and that if it kept progressing, that the United States would quite comfortably be established in it’s continued leadership of the global economies. He now doesn’t seem to go as hard into point by point breaking down how Trump 47 has changed things, but it underlies his current position on America’s reduced ascension, versus his 8 to 10 year ago predictions on its continued ascendence.
 
Kilted said:
I'm not sure what scares me more: that he might just keep doing whatever comes to him in the moment, or if the possibility that he could actually have a plan.
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I doubt he does. I'm certain people in his administration do. He is the "front man".

Trump's erratic behaviour provides the advantages (to the people behind him) of making their strategy look formless and focusing attention away from what they are doing and onto whatever the outrage of the day is (eg. today it's "Lake America").

Time and opportunities to contest ideas are finite, and Trump's critics waste a lot of theirs talking and writing about things that don't matter.
 
PPCLI Guy said:
No existing economic model (capitalist, socialist, fascist) survives current demographic trends unmodified — something structurally new is required, and he admits he doesn't know what it looks like.
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I'm skeptical that "capitalism" requires modification. It is the poster child for how to get more output with fewer people, with or without a liberal governing regime. A liberal governing regime just makes it easier by imposing the fewest impediments on the free exercise of human ingenuity.

A reduced rate of consumption increase won't be a collapse.
 
Navy_Pete said:
The only options for that that really make sense to me is that the whole thing was either a money laundering operation designed to fail, or he's just a complete idiot surrounded by idiots. The people around him seem reasonably intelligent, and find it hard to believe he could interfere with day to day operations that much but I guess never underestimate the power of stupidity combined with narcissm, which is kind of like a stupidity force multiplier.
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Trump is suing Capital One and JPMorgan for closing his accounts after Pence certified Biden’s win . Capital One has stated the accounts were closed as a result of an anti-money laundering review.
 
Kilted said:
I'm not sure what scares me more: that he might just keep doing whatever comes to him in the moment, or if the possibility that he could actually have a plan.
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Plan is a 4 letter word and someone told me that nothing good ever came from using 4 letter words.
 
HavokFour said:
B

Post in thread 'Iran Super Thread- Merged'

Altair said:
You're trying to make me cry and I don't like that.
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Just give it a week or so.
  • Humorous
  • Sad


Continuing down the stupidest timeline.

[CBC]Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario as 'Lake America'​

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With this from the Info-machine itself:
www.whitehouse.gov

Honoring the American History of the Great Lakes and Renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose and
www.whitehouse.gov www.whitehouse.gov

HONORING THE AMERICAN HISTORY OF THE GREAT LAKES AND RENAMING LAKE ONTARIO AS LAKE AMERICA​

Executive Orders
August 27, 2026
Executive Order 14420

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1. Purpose and Policy. As I announced in Executive Order 14172 of January 20, 2025 (Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness), it is the policy of my Administration to recognize the extraordinary contributions of the American people and the rich heritage of our history by naming great natural landmarks for our shared achievements. The United States is the greatest protector of the Great Lakes, including the body of water currently known as Lake Ontario. Without the security and investment provided by the United States, this freshwater system would not be open for shipping, recreation, and responsible use to the same extent as it is today. The United States Coast Guard supplies 9 of the 11 ice breaking vessels on the Great Lakes, securing commercial shipping lanes free of charge. The United States has invested nearly $4 billion in protecting the Great Lakes freshwater ecosystem in the last decade, while Canada has invested far less in similar initiatives over the same period.

Sec. 2. Lake America. (a) The body of water currently known as Lake Ontario is a tremendous asset to the United States and part of our Nation’s heritage. With the deepest parts of the Lake’s waters lying within United States territory, the United States claims most of the Lake’s volume. The Lake has long been an integral asset to American exploration, settlement, commerce, and defense. From the colonial period through the early republic, the Lake served as a critical artery for American trade, commerce, and military logistics, including the establishment in Oswego of a historic fort and the first United States port of call from the St. Lawrence Seaway, shipbuilding and naval operations during the War of 1812 at Sackets Harbor and other New York posts, and the movement of goods, settlers, and later industrial cargoes that linked the interior of the United States to eastern markets and the Atlantic. Maritime commerce on the broader Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway system — of which the Lake is the easternmost and gateway segment — continues to generate substantial economic activity for the United States, supporting hundreds of thousands of American jobs and billions of dollars in annual economic output, cargo value, and related business revenue, with our ports, carriers, and States deriving a significant share of the system’s benefits in iron ore, limestone, coal, agricultural products, and other bulk commodities. Water from the Lake is used to supply nuclear, natural gas, and oil-fired power plants and to supply municipal drinking water to nearby communities. United States domestic and cross-border shipping activity on the Great Lakes system has historically underpinned regional manufacturing, steel production, agriculture, and energy supply chains in several States, reflecting the strategic and economic importance of these waters to the United States that continues to this day. The Lake will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy. In recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our Nation’s economy and its people, I am directing that the Lake officially be renamed as Lake America.

(b) Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) shall, in coordination with the Board on Geographic Names and consistent with 43 U.S.C. 364 through 364f, take all appropriate actions to rename as “Lake America” the body of water currently named as Lake Ontario, bounded on the south and east by the State of New York, and on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario. The Secretary, conjointly with the Board on Geographic Names, shall subsequently update the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) to reflect the renaming of the Lake and remove all references to Lake Ontario from the GNIS, consistent with applicable law. The Board on Geographic Names shall provide guidance to ensure all Federal Government references to Lake Ontario, including on executive department and agency maps, contracts, and other documents and communications, shall reflect its renaming.

Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(d) The costs for publication of this order shall be borne by the Department of the Interior.



DONALD J. TRUMP



THE WHITE HOUSE,

August 27, 2026.
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Just for fun, the Canadian gov't should counter that (renaming the Great Lake) by asking if any US border states wish to join Canada and become a province within Confederation.
BTW, the US is a little over obsessed with the word "America", thinking it is the name of their country. Their county is the "United States", a very generic term, which is why they decided to add "of America" at the end. BTW, America is the name of the continent (divided into North and South America), named after the (Portuguese?) mapmaker who drew the first map.
 
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