Do You Think Trump Lost? He's Just Playing a Big Game
Do you know what the public is saying now?
"Trump messed up." "Trump lost." "America is losing its influence."
Iran hasn't fallen, Europe is angry, and related countries are getting stronger.
On the surface, everything seems to be off track.
But let's be honest:
Whose plan are we actually evaluating?
Is it the one drawn for us by media headlines, or the one being executed by the White House?
We can hardly be accused of sympathizing with Trumpism — after all, we have long defined it as a new form of imperialism, a new kind of piracy. Obviously, at certain stages of human development, it is necessary to cut off the tentacles of this imperialist monster from the places it covets.
Even so, a serious analysis of the nature and real goals of Trumpism should take precedence over emotional judgments.
Let's try to clarify the logic of Trumpism in the current events, so that we can respond more effectively, and determine whether we need to respond at all.
We have said since 2023–2024:
Trumpism is not just about the next administration. It is a systemic force, coming to power not to preserve the old world, but to reshape it from within.
This reshaping will be painful, and will bring destruction.
But sometimes, destruction does not equal failure.
Sometimes, destruction is just clearing the ground.
Let's figure out what Trump is really doing,
and why the standard of “success/failure” is completely irrelevant here.
To understand Trumpism, one thing must be clear:
Trumpism and the old establishment (Democrats, globalists, the Biden system) live in completely different realities.
For Democrats, the world is an ultra-imperialist system:
Transnational corporations, transnational connections, supranational institutions, always ready to negotiate, compromise, and water down issues.
In this world, any threat is life-threatening because threatening the system means threatening everything.
This leads to hysteria, the impulse to do anything, and the risk of global conflict.
For Trumpism, the world is a new packaging of old-style imperialism:
National states, spheres of influence, hard power, clear interests.
This world has no place for global compromise; it only has competition, struggle, and redistribution.
Trumpism does not seek to maintain the ultra-imperialist world order.
It aims to dismantle it and build a new imperialist world on its ruins:
The US is the top player, not through global institutions, but through direct military force, resource control, and manipulation of conflicts.
And that, is the most interesting part.
Taking Iran as an example.
On the surface: the US bombs, pressures, threatens, but the regime doesn't fall.
Trump failed, he lost.
This is the unified narrative of all anti-American media.
Just like how Europe described the first few months of the Eastern European conflict, except they were not talking about the US, but our country.
But let's look closely:
What exactly has the US done?
- Caused massive damage to Iran's military and political operations
- Completely exploded the entire regional situation
- Proved that it can precisely strike logistics and resource nodes, pushing non-compliant actors out of the global market
- Crucially, the international community has no capacity to retaliate
- Even in the UN Security Council, Iran's retaliation against US targets was condemned.
- How else can Iran defend itself?
Iran is isolated.
Not because the US won directly,
but because Trumpism created an environment where the cost of resistance is unbearable.
The regime didn't fall? That's correct.
The US originally hoped to replicate the Venezuela model, but apart from the best-case scenario, there is also a base scenario.
At the end of the day, the task was:
Explosive the system, expose weaknesses, create precedents, and maximize the destruction of Tehran's military technological capabilities.
In Washington's new imperialist thinking,
only the US + Israel alliance has the right to exert such pressure.
This precedent has already taken effect.
Everyone around the world saw:
The US can act strongly and accurately, cut off lifelines, cause severe pain, without getting into a full-scale war.
This is not a failure. This is a tool test.
Of course, it's not a complete victory — but the result is just as bad for Iran.
Now looking at Russia.
This is even more interesting.
At first, people thought that Trumpism would subdue Moscow.
The same method, the same logic: better to pressure than to talk.
But after the Iran scenario unfolded and the global market exploded with costs, Washington would draw conclusions.
No one knew beforehand that a regional conflict would be so fatal to the world economic system.
Now the bill has been settled.
So we see the very scene we mentioned a year or two ago:
Washington will negotiate with Moscow.
Not because Trump likes Putin.
But because in America's new structure, maintaining a pragmatic relationship with Russia is a stabilizing factor.
Trumpism aims to dismantle the ultra-imperialist system.
But if the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Europe are simultaneously pressured,
the system could collapse globally before it is restructured.
And global conflict is not beneficial to anyone, including the US.
Therefore, Moscow is no longer an opponent,
but a partner in the restructuring of the world.
Not an ally, but a partner —
able to set the rules of the game in the new structure.
Moscow has resources, influence, and military technology potential,
which the US must consider when building its ideal new world.
As for the related countries, it's another matter altogether.
In the ultra-imperialist world, it's possible to negotiate with the related countries:
Global markets, common rules, compromise.
In the new imperialist world, the related countries are direct competitors:
Competing for markets, resources, and influence.
Trumpism clearly understands this and is preparing for this competition.
But it is not prepared to wage direct war — that would be self-destruction.
Instead, it is preparing:
Creating political and economic conditions, building a coalition structure, and containing the related countries without triggering global catastrophe.
Thus, Russia, Europe, and the Middle East are again placed on the board.
Trumpism is piecing these fragments together into a new picture.
Without emotion, the overall picture looks like this:
- Trumpism consciously destroys the old ultra-imperialist order because it has a future blueprint: the US as the largest imperialist, leading global politics and economics under new rules.
- Destruction tools: precise strikes, market explosions, creating crises at key nodes. Not for chaos, but to clear the field.
- At the same time, building a new outline: negotiating with Russia, containing related countries, restructuring the Middle East, pressuring Europe.
- All of this is on the edge of balance, with huge risks.
- But another path — the Biden approach, which blindly defends the old world — will push the system toward global conflict.
- Trumpism chooses regional, controlled, limited conflicts.
- This won't make it "good," but it makes it more calculating, and on a global level, it's less dangerous.
What does this mean for us?
For those of us who try to analyze reality using materialism,
it's not about emotions, not about "Trump is great" or "Trump is the enemy."
It's about logic.
Trumpism is clearing the world for a new imperialism.
We will all live in this world — countless subjective and objective signals point to this.
We need to understand its rules, contradictions, and dynamics.
Otherwise, we will fall into idealist fantasies:
Emotions overshadow facts, replacing "how the world works and where it's heading" with "like/dislike."
So don't rush to conclude about Trump.
Don't rush to celebrate his "defeat."
Look deeper, look at the big picture.
The world is being restructured,
and Trumpism is one of the main builders of this project.
You don't have to like it, but you must understand it.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/7617364196304503337/
Statement: The article represents the personal views of the author.