QAnon, Imperialism, Tribalism, and Why I Love to Hate Trump.

I had a hard time with this one, as it kept taking me in directions I wished to avoid. However, it’s hard to keep certain types of discussions on the generic side of things… and, before I knew it, the initial text I had wanted to add some meat to was suddenly preceded by over 3,400 words; that part is now pushed into a second half.

Trump.

Why am I not complaining endlessly about him and his MAGA ‘tribe’, beyond sparse qualifiers, failing to display the type of overt, vehement contempt that good, collaborative liberals and proper progressives express so very dramatically?

Because: I’m not a tribalist who’s caught up in labels and hate, driven by a singular need to frame anything and everything as an attack on the other side.
Also, because I am what I claim to be: extremely progressive, hence, very anti-imperialist.

Therefore, because: It’s clear to me that Trump isn’t the problem, he’s a symptom, and, in spite of that, he’s accomplishing far more than I could ever have hoped for, and quicker than I would have thought possible, too.

In view of Gaza and Venezuela, and given Washington’s new National Security Strategy, Rubio’s “Viva Colonialism!” Munich Security Conference speech, and too many other events to list here, the U.S. empire mindset and methods are now plainly visible to all blind tribalists, should they wish to see them; thanks to Trump and his ideologues, its ugly, vile, manipulative ways and lying ease have been undeniably exposed for all those who, despite claiming otherwise, have always refused to accept anti-U.S. narratives and to see the clear bi-partisan acts of revolting imperialism for what they truly are. Unless they involved the other party.

Tribalism. Sigh.

Unfortunately, while liberal media simultaneously spin up pro-Empire and pro-Israel narratives and carefully pump anti-GOP sentiments into the tribal landscape, SocDems, relying greatly on liberal news, are all too busy being anti-MAGA and raging on Trump to see this as the blessing it is, and to fully extract and exploit all that’s to be learned through the brash contrasts that the Trump Troops provide, and what this reveals and affirms, thus, missing out on this rare opportunity to successfully organize a lasting movement outside of the two-party lie.

Tribalism is what killed off many years on the slowly-closing window, the last elections clearly marking a key moment and missed opportunity that ‘left’ tribalists still fail to see as such, still actively and stupidly blaming the GOP’s win on any influencer or outlet who dared to criticize Kamala Harris and the Dems in the months leading up to the elections.

According to a prominent pop-left faction, such outlets are traitors, having taken a turn toward the ‘right’.

This betrays a destructively-skewed notion that all new-media outlets need to primarily serve an activist role that strictly informs the info-provider role one has to assume, the coercively-applied philosophy dictating the belief that one either props up one’s tribe or attacks the other; criticisms of one’s side serve the tribe best when left unvoiced.

The result: To please your tribe, anti-other propaganda is the way to go.

•     •     •

Sure, some progressives, like Zoran Mandani and, potentially, Analilia Mejia, are making some headway within the establishment structures—and in no way is this a bad thing—but the hope and excitement that’s voiced is identical to what was heard, years ago, when Bernie Sanders was in the running, Alexandria-Occasio Cortez (AOC) was elected, and the Squad came to be, along with the same reasoning that’s still offered to attack leftists who criticize the DSA and their approach while also refusing to offer their full support to candidates like Graham Platner.

Platner. Now here’s a case that showed just how desperate SocDems are, and, consequently, how pathetically hypocritical and irrational they’re willing to be, one’s history only being all-important based on one’s tribal affiliation.

One very negative side effect: Ironically, the mainstream SocDem ‘progressives’ automatically dismiss an entire class of important anti-war and/or anti-imperialist voices simply because of their past ties to the GOP, the military, or some right-wing entity, or based on some 'right-wing thing' they once said, per some chat or post or interview clip, etc.

What these figures have to offer, despite being experts or having truly relevant experience, is either entirely ignored or instantly stamped as “wrong”, followed by a gross characterization of these individuals in order to belittle anyone who subscribes to their views or offers similar ones.

Because of this, the vast majority of SocDem pushers are jarringly ignorant on foreign-policy matters, constantly showcasing how too deeply wrapped up they are in two-party tribal politics to care about facts and to appreciate just how vile and non-partisan U.S. imperialism truly is, or what it truly entails. 
Ukraine provides a good example of this, as did Libya and, for that matter, any other ‘conflict’. Ditto on the arrogant reaction they expressed in regards to ICE's savage and murderous behaviour.

AOC’s stammered and confused foreign-policy responses at the Munich Security Conference prove my point. SocDems heaped praise on her for one short clip-able moment where she attacks authoritarians, calling her a top orator and the best politician, per that clip, but, not only did they wholly dismiss the greater number of clip-able moments that captured pro-imperialism-biased views and warnings set off by her foreign policy takes, they attacked anyone who focused on AOC’s many MSC ‘fails’.

In fact, one prominent mainstream SocDem figure categorized these people as the “dumbest online leftists” who’ve fallen prey to “misogyny” and “right-wing psyops about AOC”.
How insane is that?

•     •     •

Bernie Sanders provides another such case. Since 1990, his political and voting histories consistently counter progressive aims, but, since the surface wrapping fits progressive goals...
Yet, a 21-Jul-2015 CounterPunch piece titled “Bernie Out of the Closet: Sanders’ Longstanding Deal with the Democrats,” claims, extremely convincingly, that Sanders is, in fact, a willing tool to redirect people toward the “corporate and militaristic Democrats.”

Since 2015, Sanders’ tremendously disappointing history only solidly solidifies this claim.

SocDemists actively ignore this.

He and AOC may have had a very successful “anti-oligarch” tour, but what have they really accomplished? And, notice that their primary targets were tech oligarchs. This is key.

•     •     •

According to ultra-tribalist commentators like Emma Vigeland or Kyle Kulinski, as he condescendingly and emphatically insisted in an April 2025 anti-other declaration of war—what an idiotic and offensive rant that was—all non-compliant, Bernie-and-AOC-criticising lefties "are not your allies; they are the enemy," in 'the same way that the far-right MAGA is the enemy, and these must be vanquished by any means.’
Gossip-as-politics-mongers and clout-chasing The Vanguard's ultra-smug and strikingly-ignorant Dumb & Dumber were quick to “agree, 100%,” with Kulinski, even taking it up a notch, making claims about baseball bats and the heads of such ‘others’.

Yes. Violence against anyone that ‘leftists’ can label a “pro-Trumpist” is increasingly being promoted by a majority on the ‘left’, the newest viral hero being a teen who punched a pro-ICE arse at school.

The logic, at its core: Anyone who’s not helping to direct votes toward the Dems are working for the GOP fascists, which, per Kulinski, means you’re too dumb to realize that “… we are dealing with people who are demonic. We’re dealing with, like, satanic people…”

Therefore, “any tactics are justified against these people. You go low, we go lower, bitch.” 

For Kulinski, unconditional hate of the other isn’t just de rigueur, it’s the product. Watch enough of his stuff and you'll surely catch him unwittingly admitting as much.

On Joshua Citarella’s 16-Sept-2025 edition of his Doomscroll podcast, Kulinski claimed:  

“...it sounds crazy to say something like re-education camps, but when you look at how insane the right has gotten, how can we just go back to…”

I recall his sanctimonious tirades when, during Trump’s first term, as cities were burning, cancelling became a religion, and Wokism triggered more ignorance than awareness—on both sides, though unevenly and in divergent ways—the right was making the exact same claims about the "far-left radicals." Hyperbole is always a problem from the other side?

Kulinsky also added:

“…we probably have to go further than social democracy because, uh, to counterbalance the insanity on the right, uh, it's going to take a hell of a lot more. Even just to get us back to baseline, it's going to take two terms of a Democratic president who's on it and can actually get shit done. And that's just to get us back to baseline, where Medicare functions, Medicaid functions, social security functions; we, uh, refund the pediatric cancer research that Elon Musk cut; we bring back meals on wheels … just a neoliberal baseline. That's how much we are in hell right now.”

Anyone who targets a “neoliberal baseline” as a desirable point of return is far too clueless about all that’s crucial to the fight that’s required to be anything but a destructive voice against the immense organic movement that’s there, if properly cultivated. In this respect, Kulinski is a huge counterforce.

If one considers Kulinski’s media gains and class against his rhetoric, product, and spending, it becomes intensely clear that he’s a self-centred liberal focused on preserving his privileges, obtaining fame, and on making a buck, not on engendering real and lasting change.

I’ve no doubt that he’d take up a CNN anchor job tomorrow if offered, justifying it by telling himself and others that he’s not doing it for the money and professional validation, he’s gonna change CNN!

However, stripped of his ersatz humanitarian message, which makes it real easy for folks to overlook this aspect, Kulinski is in fact nothing more than a ‘leftist’ version of a Tim Pool and Rush Limbaugh hybrid, his contribution to the media landscape being just as toxic as those two. 

Kulinski merely curates X, providing a very biased, oft-false-if-not-hyperbolic tribalist’s overview of posts that serve the precise anti-other narrative he’s pushing, doing so through unresearched, uninformative, and swear-filled diatribes offering nothing but affronts and superficial, class-related platitudes while fostering a hatred toward a whole set of general others when not targeting specific figures. It's all very formulaic, geared toward 'views'; yes, I consider Kulinski a grifter.  

Since he relies entirely on the comments and any evidence provided by others, he filters and amps up a tribally pre-filtered and synthetic view of the world as he brags about being the only voice to really tell it like it is.

What’s truly comical is how he’s become indistinguishable from the ‘anti-globalist conspiracy-theory spinning loons’ he used to aggressively condemn as such, automatically branding them as hopeless losers any time they’d mention a Dem-centric global cabal of pedophiles, completely trashing these individuals to no end, making it a tribal requirement to indiscriminately crap on whatever claims they made, marking anyone who remotely entertained such 'theories' as enemies.

Because, it played against the Dems. Therefore, facts didn't matter, as liberal media propaganda—which people like Kulinski refused to see as such—conveniently satisfied the anti-Trump/GOP "truth" that worked for them.    

These days, he's constantly telling his audience that the world is run by “...a global criminal enterprise doing crimes against humanity, which sounds very similar to what I've told you. It's a shadow government of moneyed interests, a cabal of pedophile rapist billionaire satists [sic (i.e. sadist or Satanists?)] who really run the world and view you and me as subhuman,” and who “keep humans as pets.” (18-Feb-2026)

Yeah, Kyle, as you’ve told us. Kulinski is so full of himself and so full of shit…

Countless examples to give; the few I provide aren’t one-off moments, they represent a clear pattern, hence, the dominant mindset.

•     •     •

Meanwhile, since Trump’s return, hearing the SocDems justifying the Dems’ infuriating level of inaction as strategic passivity, tactically letting the Trumpists do whatever they want and, consequently, dig a hole for themselves which is sure to benefit the Dems come midterm and in 2028, seems like extreme cope to me. It’s pathetic.

The progressive Majority Report’s Sam Seder recently explained to his audience that the problem with the Dems is that they’re too ‘good and proper’, too focused on playing fair and by the rules, which makes them unable to simply do like Trump and the GOP, and just plow through every opportunity right from the start. This is why Biden kindly delayed the vote on his Build Back Better bill and why he, Schumer, and Pelosi allowed Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin to freely vote per their heart and block the bill rather than actually do anything to reign them in. Democrats just can’t seem to understand that they have to be as ruthless and savage as the GOP; they need to be equally un-democratic.

Seder didn’t put it quite as bluntly as that, but I can’t imagine anyone arriving at a different interpretation.

Of course, such a view’s main message is, “the other side is evil,” but it also suggests an abuser-abusee dependence being in play? The Dems keep punching and kicking their base because they love them and democracy just too darn much? People know it’s a bad relationship, but where can they go? What are the options?

Keep in mind, the right-wing’s take on that highlights a whole other whack of problems: Sinema and Manchin are brave heroes and true-Americans who killed the radical-left globalists’ green agenda and put a stop on their Commie takeover of the U.S.

It seems ultra clear to any non-die-hard tribalist that the Biden Bunch delayed the vote because they wanted all the pro-people stuff out while finding a way to get a pass on all the establishment and corporate benefiting stuff and presenting it as a vigorously-fought-for win that let them save face on their campaign promises and shift blame on others. 

•     •     •

Any true anti-Imperialist wouldn’t bemoan the death of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); they should cheer it on, though they ought to becry the way that this is being achieved, not to mention that those meagre savings were immediately swallowed up by massive ICE and military budget increases. 

Frankly, when I heard that Trump and his Musk-led Doge Dorks were killing USAID, my first thought wasn’t about the “aid” part, it was whether Trump understood at all that he was pulling the plug on Washington’s main soft-power machine, and what that meant?

Could Trump truly be an anti-war, anti-U.S. imperialism President after all?! An anti-regime-change dude?! Really???

Per Trump’s campaign promises, one expected that the aimed-at efficiency was to focus on cutting all the foreign-meddling aspects of such an organization and to leave intact the tiny percentage of funds that actually went to genuine needs. 

As a deep ecology-driven agnostic humanist with transcendental tendencies, “anti-war” and “non-interventionist” set off certain expectations…

Of course, having figures like Elon Musk and Donald Trump at the helm of such efforts quickly forces one to readjust those expectations, turning them into major worries.

For, if Trump and his ideologues were willing to give up that soft-power entity so easily, then, surely, it meant that they intended to replace it with draconian imperialist methods with which to directly apply coercive power on other countries.

However… Trump being who he is, my gut tells me that he honestly believed that his tariff-coercion scheme could replace the whole USAID operation while brute force would take care of the rest. I wonder how that Supreme Court loss will play out?

•     •     •

I have no doubt that Musk had a field day with that DOGE monstrosity, rendering inoperable and inefficient all those entities that had either sued him or imposed clear regulations on what he could get away with. And that’s in between all the underhanded schemes he and his band of louses pulled in order to get their hands on everyone’s personal data.

Musk didn’t save the U.S. any money; all his fuck-ups have cost more than what they saved. His own empire, however...

•     •     •

People overlook the obvious. The “AID” in “USAID” isn’t about “aid”; it stands for Agency for International Development. The entity's focus should be entirely on “development”, not “charity”.

Nonetheless, when the media reported that many U.S. farmers were hurting badly because of the USAID cuts, ‘leftists’ saw this purely as fodder with which they could spit anti-Trump venom at pro-DOGE dupes, refusing to look further than that, or to try to understand why a minority segment of leftists made clear claims about this being a positive.

Why should they? The anti-Trump aspect is what served their tribal purpose, allowing them to exploit an America First layer in order to counter the Gaza-condom lies.

In no time, a tool that tracks the global number of deaths caused by the USAID cuts was offered. Amongst liberals and SocDem leftists, this fuelled a flash-flood of strong pro-USAID sentiments and calls to have the agency and its programs fully reinstated. This cause quickly died out as it was drowned in MAGA hate rather than calling any meaningful attention to the organisation’s deeply antihumanitarian, imperialist uses, as any mention that SocDem types made in regard to the far more important and cause-beneficial dark side was brief, providing just a vapid acknowledgement in order to paint leftist USAID haters as ridiculous anti-imperialism extremist non-allies who can’t appreciate all the good that the U.S. does do through this organisation.

Those stats are problematic in too many ways, whilst not accounting for all the detrimental effects and deaths actually brought on by USAID activities. 

Plus, these tribal fools fail to appreciate that: Per Capitalism, humanitarian aid must always serve a profit-aimed purpose for the donor.

The reason why U.S. farmers were hurt by this is because USAID is a main vehicle used to control grain prices despite over-production, and to generate profits for U.S. farmers, as 40% of all food delivered by USAID came from them. In 2024, this represented a $2 billion revenue.

AG Web Farm Journal lamented the cuts, stating that Kansas “farmers are worried there won’t be a market for their product. They’re not alone. At least 400 producers around the country rely on contracts with USAID, and many more rely on the agency without even knowing it.”

Per various USAID-funded AG experts and AG cooperative heads, with the cuts, “the likelihood of developing consumers in places like Africa or Southeast Asia diminishes greatly,” as the ultimate goal of USAID programs and research grants is “helping countries thrive enough to become consumers.” Through the research it funded, “[o]ne of the most important things [USAID was] doing was providing market access to U.S. farmers,” and, by controlling their AG markets, “[i]f you can stabilize the economy in these [developing] countries, then you’ll create consumers.” 

From seeds to machinery, the aim is profit for U.S. corps and control for Washington, while the illusion of aid satisfies liberal stupidity.

USAID’s Food for Peace program forces a dependence on U.S./Western food supplies; it’s a colonialist tool. The type of aid given by agencies like the USAID has a detrimental effect on the agricultural economies of those countries ‘targeted’ for aid, creating a significant destabilizing impact on the availability of crops within those countries that received it.

This is Washington’s desired aim. Duh!

The article "Food Aid to the Developing World: The Subversive Effects on Modern-Day Neo-Colonialism" by Shreya Ahluwalia “critiques the role of food aid in perpetuating neo-colonialism. It argues that foreign aid, particularly from the United States, often comes with conditions that require the recipient country to adopt specific economic policies or reforms that benefit the donor country. This approach not only undermines the recipient's sovereignty but also leads to the exploitation of local resources and labor.”

Because of USAID, Ethiopia was forcibly transformed from a net food exporter to a major food importer. Actual agricultural developmental aid, the kind that would help the local farmers prosper and grow their own economy, was never provided; it‘s just not profitable for the U.S. to do so.

In the same way, any medical aid offered is tailored to benefit Big Pharma and Washington, real aid never being at the forefront of those efforts.

Nonetheless, in order to maintain focus on the anti-MAGA aspects, SocDems dodge the topic with, “So what? Aid is aid! Many people’s lives rely on this good deed despite any ulterior motives,”  while liberals tend to go with, “It’s only normal that the U.S. gets something back in return for all our tax dollars.”

As usual, these (white) people showcase an alarming level of ignorance in regard to the forces that are in opposition to their purported cause and the system they declare wanting to change, their monetary gains and status betraying why they’re hellbent on keeping everyone focused on the lesser side of evil, and why they’re willing to keep propping up U.S. imperialism, purely for tribalism's sake.

I'm well over 3,000 words already; I'll stop here and continue in part 2.