Isolation as Strategy: Is Trump Strengthening America—or Advancing Russia’s Active Measures?

For years, Russia has pursued a long-term strategy aimed not at defeating Western democracies outright, but at weakening their ability to function, coordinate, and respond under stress. This strategy—often described as “active measures”—relies less on tanks and missiles than on erosion: degrading trust, fragmenting alliances, inflaming internal divisions, and making collective action harder when it matters most.

This isn’t speculative. It’s doctrinal. Russia’s modern approach to conflict assumes that war begins long before shots are fired, and that shaping the political, informational, and alliance environment is as important as battlefield readiness.

Before getting into the specifics, it’s important to be clear about something: 

Donald Trump is not a genius. 

Like all presidents, he is guided by advisers—but in his case, far more than most. What follows below does not require grand strategy, intellectual rigor, or complex planning on his part. It requires only that he continue to act as he always has. Viewed from that perspective, the outcomes described below are not the product of brilliance or design, but of temperament, impulse, and the amplification of those traits through power. 

Read what follows with that in mind—and notice what becomes evident. Seen through that lens, the question is not whether the United States is currently at war, but whether it is being positioned poorly for one.

There’s an old saying in Hollywood:

“If you cast it right, the film directs itself.”

In that sense, Donald Trump is the perfect person to cast for this movie—not because of any performance required, but because he needs no transformation to play the role.

And that brings us to Donald Trump.

Russia’s Objective: A West That Can’t Act Together

Russia’s strategic interest has been remarkably consistent:

• weaken NATO

• undermine transatlantic trust

• encourage isolationism in the United States

• make allies doubt American reliability

• ensure that, in a crisis, coordination is slow, hesitant, or fractured

A strong, united alliance structure is Russia’s greatest deterrent. A divided one is its greatest opportunity.

Active measures don’t require American leaders to “work for Russia.” They only require leaders who undervalue alliances, distrust institutions, and frame cooperation as weakness.

The point is to destabilize: distrust, chaos, evoke pain (via economy, healthcare, government services, travel, protestors abused...esp., by government forces).

The point is to make people not believe in the truth. 

Because once everyone is lying, or believed to be lying, the biggest liar wins.

Trump as POTUS45: Isolationism as Disruption

During Trump’s first term, the damage was often described as rhetorical or transactional. But the pattern was clear:

• NATO was publicly undermined and treated as a burden rather than a strategic asset.

• Longstanding alliances were reframed as exploitative relationships.

• Trade wars and tariff threats were used indiscriminately against allies.

• International agreements were abandoned without replacement strategies.

This didn’t just weaken diplomacy—it introduced uncertainty. Allies began planning around the possibility that the United States might not show up when needed.

From Russia’s perspective, that uncertainty alone was a win.

POTUS47: From Disruption to Degradation

In Trump’s second term, the pattern has not softened—it has sharpened.

The economic instability, the repeated threats toward allies, the flirtation with withdrawing or hollowing out NATO commitments, and the open hostility toward multilateral institutions all send the same message: the United States is unreliable.

Even when no formal withdrawal occurs, the signal matters. Allies hedge. Defense coordination weakens. Shared planning becomes cautious. Mutual confidence erodes.

And critically, this erosion happens before any conflict begins.

That is exactly how active measures succeed.

Intent vs. Effect: The Only Distinction That Matters

The most important clarification is this: intent is not the operative variable.

The question is not whether Trump consciously intends to assist Russia.
The question is whether his actions:

• weaken alliance cohesion

• degrade economic stability

• isolate the United States diplomatically

• normalize distrust of democratic institutions

• reduce collective deterrence

On every one of those measures, the answer is yes.

A policy can align with an adversary’s strategic objectives even if the actor believes they are acting in America’s interest.

In strategic terms, effect outweighs motive.

Does Any of This Strengthen America Against Russian Influence?

If the goal were to harden the United States against Russian active measures, the approach would look very different:

• reinforcing alliances rather than threatening them

• strengthening economic resilience rather than destabilizing it

• investing in democratic legitimacy rather than attacking it

• coordinating cyber, intelligence, and defense efforts multilaterally

• presenting a predictable, rule-based posture that deters aggression

Instead, we are seeing the opposite: fragmentation, personalization of power, and strategic loneliness.

Those conditions don’t make America stronger. They make it easier to pressure, easier to isolate, and harder to support.

The Strategic Bottom Line

Whether by ideology, temperament, grievance, or miscalculation, Donald Trump’s approach as president aligns far more closely with Russia’s long-standing active-measures objectives than with any coherent strategy for countering them.

That doesn’t require secret coordination.
It doesn’t require espionage.
It only requires a worldview that treats alliances as liabilities, institutions as obstacles, and cooperation as weakness.

History is clear on this point: nations do not lose wars only on battlefields. They lose them when they enter crises alone, distrusted, divided, and poorly coordinated.

If a future conflict comes—and Russia’s doctrine assumes it will—the question will not be whether America is strong in isolation.

It will be whether it still has friends willing and able to stand with it.

Right now, that answer is becoming less certain by the day.

None of this however, requires preparing for war in the traditional sense. Modern conflict rarely begins with armies crossing borders. It unfolds through non-military pressure: cyber operations, economic coercion, information warfare, election interference, diplomatic isolation, and the steady erosion of trust in institutions. 

Strengthening democratic resilience, restoring alliances, and enforcing constitutional limits are not acts of militarization—they are the most effective defenses against these ongoing, non-kinetic attacks that exploit division and complacency long before any shooting starts.

Recent times have showed us we have concerns about other kinds of "warfare" than traditional kinetic forms we've been used to for thousands of years.

Now with AI? Things will only get more convoluted and complicated. There has never been a better time for bringing people together. Neighbors, states, nations and the sooner the better. Before it's too late.

Notably, the Trump Justice Department has now established an AI-focused litigation task force, signaling that artificial intelligence is being folded directly into federal enforcement and legal strategy rather than treated as a neutral administrative tool.

There has been widespread concern about the use of AI; however, when it is deployed by trained professionals, governed by meaningful checks and balances, and grounded in high-quality data, the results—often achieved in remarkably little time—can be genuinely impressive.

At the same time, there is serious concern about the large number of experienced personnel the Trump administration and DOGE have removed from government positions, many of whom have been replaced by individuals with significantly less capability and virtually no institutional knowledge. In theory, AI could help offset some of that loss. In practice, however, this also raises the risk that those now in place may lack the training necessary to use such tools responsibly. Even so, AI may still partially mitigate an otherwise degraded system.

The complicating reality is that this is not occurring in isolation—Russia, among others, is also actively integrating AI into its own strategic and governmental operations.

For a clear example of some of the complexities of these issues (sans the AI environment), check out the series, "An Undeclared War," (trailer). It's fiction, but it's entertaining, disturbing, informing and, it gives you a concept of how complicated things are about to get. Certainly, in the cyber world. And this came out three years ago before AI was so prevalent. What's next?

Remember “deep fakes”? I wondered at the time how long it would take for the technology to become irrelevant; the answer was about two years, as it was overtaken by the far larger reality of AI.

So...

So, what does a democracy do when its own leadership advances conditions it was designed to resist, has worked hard since its inception to protect itself from?

Ultimately, this requires setting aside labels and loyalties long enough to judge outcomes rather than intentions, acknowledging that the United States is a democracy—a constitutional, liberal democracy in the classical sense, not a partisan caricature—and recognizing that constitutional limits, national strength, and accountable government are shared concerns, then pressing those entrusted with power, especially Congress and the courts, to move past disingenuous and most especially manufactured complacency and the long-held, foolish belief that we are still operating under normal conditions, and finally, FINALLY, to exercise the authority they already have to protect our republic, ALL of our republic, as well as its alliances.

I wish us all the very best in this!

Oh, and in the end? Even short-lived regimes can cast long shadows. The aftermath often lasts years, sometimes decades. 

History has shown us this before. See: the Nuremberg Trials.

None of this requires belief in secret coordination, nor does it depend on whether these outcomes are framed by supporters as “realignment,” “leverage,” or “tough love.” Those interpretations are not ignored here; they are weighed and found strategically insufficient. Alliances are not abstractions but living systems sustained by predictability, trust, and shared commitments, and when those are repeatedly strained, the damage is cumulative regardless of intent. 

Whether one prefers the language of isolationism or selective disengagement, the observable effects remain the same: weakened coordination, delayed collective responses, and adversaries granted opportunity rather than deterrence. Strategy is judged by results, not branding, and measured against that standard, the question is no longer theoretical. It is already being answered in real time.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

A Film That Imagines America's Return: "The Room He Couldn't Own"

Fiction can’t always offer solutions.

Let's start off with a brief aside on Substack that fits today's blog. And a bit by Robert Reich (America's Gestapo What you can do to stop ICE's mayhem).

But sometimes, when real-world systems feel frozen or compromised, fiction can offer something else: catharsis, clarity, and a sense that accountability is still imaginable. Even if only provisionally. Even if only emotionally.

What if we produced a film for those moments when reality offers no exit?

Not a solution, perhaps—but a catharsis. And don't we need THAT about now? Not justice as spectacle, but accountability as inevitability. A film that imagines America’s return not through force, but through the quiet failure of power to control one last room.

Who would ever produce such a film?

Perhaps?

Produced by Adam McKay and Plan B
Distributed by HBO or A24
Directed by someone cold and precise (Soderbergh, or a Chernobyl-type director)

Title? The Room He Couldn't Own 

Or just: Jurisdiction

Here's another one on Substack.

At its best, political fiction doesn’t rewrite reality. It interrogates it. It asks what should be possible when what is possible feels intolerably narrow. And occasionally, it provides a kind of hopeful pressure release, not by pretending everything works, but by reminding us that power is not metaphysical. It has limits. It depends on rules, consent, and belief.

That’s the space this film occupies.

---

The Premise

The story unfolds at the height of a president’s abuses of power. Not after an election. Not following a resignation. Not once the damage has already been absorbed and normalized.

Right in the middle of it.

International outrage is loud but legally stalled. Domestic institutions are compromised or paralyzed. Assassination is unthinkable. Coups are off the table. The question isn’t what people want, but what is still lawful, legitimate, and believable.

The twist is not force.
The twist is hubris.

---

The Invitation

The president, publicly defiant, demands an international platform to “defend himself.” He frames it as transparency. As courage. As dominance. He mocks the idea that any institution could restrain him.

An international court—one bound by procedure, not theatrics—accepts the demand.

Not to try him.
Not to confront him.
Simply to let him speak.

The invitation is careful, bureaucratic, almost dull. No immunity is offered. No trap is announced. Just a microphone, a room, and a reminder that law does not argue with power—it waits.

Against the advice of aides and lawyers, he goes.

Because he believes the rules bend.
Because they always have.

---

Jurisdiction, Not Justice Theater

What the film understands—and treats with restraint—is that legitimacy matters more than spectacle.

The arrest does not happen onstage.
There are no weapons drawn.
No dramatic struggle.

After the speech, in a private room, local authorities calmly inform him that he is now subject to the court’s jurisdiction. The warrant existed before he arrived. The law attached the moment he set foot on foreign soil. Due process begins now.

There is no betrayal.
Only consequences.

And for the first time, power encounters a room it does not own.

---

Why This Works as Fiction (and Why It Matters)

This story doesn’t pretend international law is omnipotent. It doesn’t fantasize about NATO interventions or heroic coups. It doesn’t ask audiences to believe the world suddenly became morally unified.

Instead, it offers a smaller, sharper truth:

Power fails when it overestimates itself.

The catharsis comes not from punishment, but from interruption. From the idea that abuse does not always get to complete its arc uninterrupted. That even at its peak, authority can be halted by process rather than violence.

That’s a hopeful feeling—even if it isn’t a blueprint.

---

What the Film Leaves Behind

The final image is not a verdict.
It’s paperwork.

A clerk stamping a form.
A motorcade leaving without its principal.
The noise outside continuing, suddenly irrelevant.

The film doesn’t claim this is how reality will work.
It suggests this is how reality could work, if we remembered that power depends on our belief that it is untouchable.

What's the saddest part of this film concept? That it might take an external agent to fix this Trump issue when we should have recognized the problem and fixed it ourselves, long before now.

Fiction can’t fix the world.
But sometimes it can remind us that inevitability is a lie.

And sometimes, that’s enough to breathe again.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

The Authoritarian Ecosystem Around Trump — And What Would Change If It Vanished

When people discuss the threat of authoritarianism in America, the focus often lands squarely on Donald Trump himself. That is understandable. He is the focal point, the brand, the personality, and the gravitational center of the movement. But authoritarianism never happens because of one man. 

It happens because a network forms around him — architects, media amplifiers, legal operatives, political loyalists, wealthy backers, and bureaucratic enforcers — who convert instinct into structure, grievance into policy, and hostility toward democratic guardrails into actual institutional change.

That is what we are watching today.

Rather than a simple list of “top 50” names, the reality is an ecosystem made up of overlapping power centers. Some operate openly. Some present themselves as “policy reformers.” Others describe what they are doing as patriotic course correction. But when you examine the outcomes they seek, they align around several consistent objectives: weakening independent institutions, concentrating power in the executive branch, blurring lines between governance and propaganda, and redefining rule-of-law as loyalty-to-leader.

And that deserves clarity.

---

The Engine Room: Policy Architects and Personnel Purge Planners

The clearest written blueprint for this transformation is Project 2025, a massive ideological governance plan supported by Heritage Foundation and allied groups. This is where the intellectual framing and administrative strategy for executive branch control resides. Its agenda revolves around replacing neutral public-service governance with partisan loyalty, politicizing agencies, purging civil servants, and aligning federal power under a political ideology rather than constitutional neutrality.

Names like Kevin Roberts, Paul Dans, Russ Vought, Stephen Miller, Spencer Chretien, Roger Severino, and others form the operational brain trust here. They are not tweeting memes. They are building systems.

Without them, Trump’s instincts would look far more like noise. With them, instinct becomes doctrine. Anger becomes policy architecture.

---

The Governing Infrastructure: Loyalist Officials and Cabinet Power

Authoritarian drift requires implementation. That happens through cabinet choices, agency heads, department administrators, and regulatory leadership aligned more to loyalty than institutional preservation. Many of the figures floated or placed in governing roles are not simply conservatives in a traditional policy sense. They are individuals who publicly align with reshaping institutions to prioritize political obedience, cultural combat, and retaliation against perceived enemies.

This is not normal governance. It is governance as ideological enforcement.

Remove these people, and policy becomes far less directed toward execution of authoritarian alignment. Institutional guardrails regain oxygen. Bureaucracy becomes boring again — and boring is democracy’s unsung hero.

---

Congress: Normalizing, Enabling, and Institutionalizing Power

Authoritarian drift does not work without elected officials who translate rhetoric into institutional force. In Trump’s ecosystem, key members of Congress and allied state lawmakers function as amplifiers, protectors, and implementers. They hold hearings designed to intimidate critics, push legislation that weakens regulatory independence, attack oversight bodies, and frame investigations of wrongdoing as “political persecution” rather than accountability.

More importantly, they normalize behavior that once would have ended political careers. They defend false narratives about elections. They pressure agencies and courts. They sabotage bipartisan guardrails in favor of loyalty politics. Congress becomes less about governance and more about enforcement of a movement.

If they vanished from the picture, Trump would still shout — but shouting without institutional adoption becomes noise, not policy. With them, the reactionary impulse becomes government activity. Without them, much of the authoritarian machinery collapses back into simple grievance performance.

The Supreme Court and the Judicial Keystone of Power

Authoritarian drift cannot succeed without judicial tolerance or active facilitation. Over the past several years, the Supreme Court has increasingly shaped the balance of power between the executive branch, federal agencies, civil rights protections, and democratic guardrails. Its decisions influence everything from voting rights to executive authority to whether independent institutions can restrain a president at all.

A Court willing to weaken regulatory agencies, narrow accountability mechanisms, expand executive power, reduce federal oversight of elections, or erode civil-rights precedent does more than interpret law. It redraws the playing field. And once those precedents exist, they remain tools for any future leader inclined to push the system toward centralized power.

If the executive branch and its partisan ecosystem represent the muscle of authoritarian ambition, the Supreme Court represents either the brake — or the green light. That reality is why courts matter just as much as elections and policy battles, and why democracy requires not just fair leaders, but independent, principled adjudication willing to restrain power rather than entrench it.

The Legal and Election Warfare Arm

Authoritarian movements cannot function without legal operatives willing to distort law into a tool of power rather than a guardrail of accountability. In Trump’s world, that role has included lawyers and strategists who devised election-subversion plans, pressured DOJ, attempted to manipulate certification processes, constructed fake elector schemes, and advocated extraordinary measures outside democratic norms.

They operate on the boundary between law and abuse of law.

Without them? Half the ideas never reach paper. The wild, norm-violating plans never gain procedural shape. Courts retain more integrity. Pressure campaigns lose force. Democracy breathes.

---

The Congressional and State-Level Reinforcers

Then come the elected amplifiers: members of Congress, governors, attorneys general, and state-level operators who translate Trump’s claims into legislative pressure, performative hearings, weaponized investigations, and state election interference strategies. This group’s purpose is to normalize, defend, and escalate whatever authoritarian drift emerges from above.

Without them, Trump shouts. With them, shouting becomes government activity.

---

The Propaganda Infrastructure: Media, Platforms, and Influence Machines

No modern authoritarian movement succeeds without narrative dominance. In Trump’s universe, that function belongs to a massive constellation of friendly media networks, influencers, podcasters, billionaire platform owners, and cultural agitators who flood the public sphere with misinformation, character assassination, grievance construction, and constant emotional conditioning.

They intimidate critics.
They overwhelm truth.
They normalize extremes.
They turn complex, dangerous plans into tribal identity signifiers.

Without them, authoritarian momentum slows dramatically. Instead of a synchronized messaging army, you have fragmented rhetoric. Public opinion stabilizes. Accountability regains voice.

---

So What If They All “Vanished” From Public Life?

Let us be clear: we are speaking in purely lawful, democratic terms — resignations, electoral defeat, accountability, retirement. Not harm. Not fantasy. Just absence from power.

If the core operators, strategists, judges, influencers, and enforcers around Trump stopped acting tomorrow, three immediate changes would occur:

1. The propaganda machine collapses in coherence.
   No more instant synchronized message storms. No more dominating narratives before facts emerge. No more harassment swarms automatically aimed at critics.

2. The implementation capacity disintegrates.
   Project 2025 becomes a book on a shelf, not a functional roadmap. Purges slow. Radical rewrites of government face roadblocks. Chaos loses organization.

3. Institutional fear declines.
   Judges become less pressured. Civil servants feel safer. Congress loses its intimidation theater. Agencies regain their technical missions over political loyalty demands.

But it is also crucial to be honest.

This does not magically eliminate the authoritarian impulse in America.

Tens of millions of citizens have been conditioned to distrust democracy, demonize pluralism, and fetishize “strongman” rule. The belief infrastructure remains even if the personnel disappear. Someone else could step into the shape the movement has carved out.

Which leads to the most important truth:

---

Authoritarianism is a System — Not a Man

Trump is a catalyst.
The ecosystem is the engine.
The public willingness to accept authoritarianism is the fuel.

So what actually stops it?

Nonviolent democratic participation.
Relentless truth-telling.
Strengthened guardrails and ethics laws.
Protection of independent journalism.
Civic education.
Accountability when laws are broken.
And refusing to normalize political violence or punitive governance.

Authoritarianism thrives on apathy, distraction, and despair.
Democracy survives through engagement, resilience, and refusal to surrender to cynicism.

The good news? That last part is still in our hands.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

Citizens United: Built By Power, Protected By Power

I just saw this meme:

"First order of business for the Blue Tsunami Congress is to eliminate Citizens United.”

Is there a good reason NOT to eliminate it? Shouldn’t we somehow hold accountable why, and who, enabled this in the first place?

Short answer: there is no strong democratic or governance reason to keep Citizens United as-is, but there are arguments raised by opponents of repeal. Here is a clear, sober breakdown.

Why many argue it SHOULD be overturned

• Massive distortion of democracy: It allows unlimited outside money via Super PACs and dark-money groups, letting billionaires and corporations drown out ordinary voters.

• Lack of transparency: Many donors can remain hidden, undermining trust in elections.

• Corruption risk: Even if technically “independent,” big spenders gain disproportionate influence, access, and policy shaping.

• Not what “free speech” was meant to protect: Critics say the ruling equates money with speech and corporations with people in a way the Founders never intended.

• Unpopular with Americans: Polling consistently shows broad public support (across party lines) for major campaign-finance reform.

• Destabilizes governance: Encourages extremism and performative politics because outside spending rewards outrage and division.

Arguments typically raised AGAINST overturning it

• First Amendment concerns: Supporters argue political spending is political speech, and government regulation of it risks censorship.

• Who regulates and how? Overturning it requires either a constitutional amendment or a fundamentally different Supreme Court; crafting limits without empowering government to silence groups is tricky.

• Unintended consequences: Regulation could end up benefiting entrenched political parties or wealthy self-funded candidates instead of improving fairness.

• Money will still find a way: Wealthy interests may simply pivot to other channels if Citizens United is removed, so reform must be well-designed, not symbolic.

Bottom line There is a strong democratic integrity case for eliminating or significantly reforming Citizens United, and relatively weak public-interest justification for keeping it untouched. The real challenge is how to replace it with a system that protects free speech while restoring electoral fairness and transparency.

When Citizens United is overturned or re-structured, simply “fixing the ruling” without accountability for how it happened would leave the same forces in place to do it again.

Accountability here does not necessarily mean punishment; it means exposure, record-keeping, structural correction, and deterrence.

There are several layers of “who” enabled it:

1. The Supreme Court majority that engineered it

• The Roberts Court did not merely decide the case as presented; it expanded it far beyond its original question to open the door to unlimited corporate spending.

• Accountability here means:

  • Historical record and public understanding of how extraordinary that judicial activism was.

  • Ongoing ethics and legitimacy scrutiny (e.g., conflicts of interest, dark money influence shaping judicial ideology).

  • Long-term judicial reform discussions (term limits, ethics rules, transparency in amicus funding).

2. Political and ideological architects Citizens United was part of a decades-long conservative legal strategy funded by:

• Corporate lobbying networks

• Wealthy donors and foundations

• Organizations like Federalist Society–aligned circles shaping judicial pipelines

Accountability here means:

• Documenting who paid for that infrastructure.

• Transparency requirements for judicial influence operations.

• Public understanding that Citizens United did not “just happen”; it was designed.

3. The political class that benefited—and protected it Many lawmakers loudly criticize dark money while still using it. Both parties have, at various points, embraced Super PACs when convenient. Accountability here means:

• Mandatory disclosure rules

• Eliminating loopholes lawmakers rely on

• Political courage to stop benefiting from what they claim to oppose

4. The failure of Congress to act after the ruling Congress could have:

• Passed strong disclosure laws

• Created public election funding options

• Tightened corruption definitions

It did not. That failure deserves to be acknowledged.

5. Media and public conditioning For years, Americans have been told:

• “Money is speech”

• “Corporations are people”

• Campaign finance limits are an attack on freedom

Part of accountability is cultural: naming the propaganda effort that normalized this.

Bottom Line

Yes, democracy benefits not only from reversing bad outcomes, but from:

• Naming who engineered them

• Exposing the financial and ideological machinery

• Creating structural safeguards so it cannot simply be rebuilt

Otherwise, Citizens United becomes like many other U.S. democratic failures: briefly “fixed,” then slowly rebuilt by the same interests who designed it in the first place.

Bringing America around to be for our citizens, not only the power mad, rich, autocrats.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT