Trump won the elections, presenting himself as a “dove of peace”. What happened to him now?
Trump won the elections, presenting himself as a “dove of peace”. What happened to him now?
By Latif Bolat
If we were to ask who is now experiencing the world’s biggest déjà vu, the answer would be Donald Trump. Even if he himself isn’t aware of…
He was the President from 2016 to 2020. When he lost the 2020 election, he turned everything upside down with the claim that “Biden and the Democrats stole my presidency.” Then, between 2020 and 2024, as the “former President Trump” he gave a heroic battle against President Biden. Using the slogans “America First” and “MAGA” he split the nation of 350 million in two and managed to win back the presidency in the November 2024 election.
Trump reaped the rewards of his accurate analysis of the tensions and developments in the Republican Party, which, over the past 30 years has become the core of the American deep state, when he first ran for presidency in 2016. That’s because the aggressive warmongering eras of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush had left millions of rural Americans, the party’s grassroots base in rural areas, worse off. And to make matters worse, the Democratic Party under Clinton and Obama, rather than breaking with this aggressive trajectory, had continued down the same path.
The revenge of the angry countryside
For an American population worn down by endless wars and forced to accept a shrinking share of an already shrinking economic pie, darker days were coming. Starting with Vietnam and continuing through Indochina, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and beyond, across six continents and seven seas, the US economy and its people grew exhausted from playing the world’s policeman. Eventually, the people began demanding an end to it all.
In the 2016 elections, rural Americans, small-town residents, and the working poor, disillusioned by the wars waged under Clinton and Obama and fed up with the steady decline in their life conditions, saw in billionaire Donald Trump a dream of hope. Thus, Trump became President. But the real question is: did he ever truly gain power, seize the reins?
A president without real power
As soon as Trump moved into the White House, the neocon war-hawk faction of the US deep state launched its operations. It was as if they were saying, “You may be President, but we won’t let you hold power”. One investigation after another was opened, scrutinizing every aspect of Trump’s life, including his private affairs.
The first attack on Trump’s 2016–2020 presidency came with the so-called “Russia probe”. Alleging that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election in Trump’s favor, a formal investigation was launched. The process, which reportedly cost $15 million and culminated in the Mueller Report, served as a constant threat hovering over his presidency. In the end, the investigation failed to produce any solid evidence of Russian interference in the election. A total of nearly 90 lawsuits were filed against him.
The lingering shadow of these lawsuits rendered Trump’s already vague political agenda impotent. Still, albeit faintly, he managed to sketch out a political stance that ran counter to deep state interests: He questioned NATO’s role, called on Europe to finance its own defense, advocated for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and expressed doubts about the necessity of a continued US presence in Syria.
By the end of Trump’s first term, the Democratic Party had become the new home of the neocon war machine. Key neoconservative figures in the Republican Party were repositioned accordingly. This paved the way for Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. For example, Liz Cheney, the daughter of Republican heavyweight and prominent neocon Dick Cheney, resigned from the Republican Party and began working with the Democrats. She wasn’t alone. Several high-profile Republicans, including members of Trump’s own inner circle, switched sides.
The neocon war hawks
The neocon war hawks, sidelined since the Obama years, seized the opportunity with Biden’s presidency. With no time to lose, they quickly laid out their plans for the next four years. The result: an aggressive foreign policy agenda that reignited the crisis in Ukraine, escalated Israeli aggression in West Asia, and even turned the US withdrawal from Afghanistan into a catastrophe for the region.
Naturally, this wave of aggression came with a heavy price. Despite countless efforts to hype Biden’s economy, the rural population of the country continued to slide into poverty. Millions lost their jobs as US-based companies off shored in search of higher profits. In Biden’s final year alone, roughly 5 million undocumented immigrants entered the country, displacing American workers.
Homelessness soared to 750,000.
Even with the full backing of the mainstream media, New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, and others, all working to prop up his image, Biden’s presidency was over by early 2024, ten months ahead of the next election. The Democratic Party’s last maneuver to install Kamala Harris as President only backfired. In the end, Donald Trump’s populist “America First” movement was turning back to the White House in the November 2024 election.
This time with a sweeping majority of the votes.
The disappointments of Trump’s second term
Barely six months into Trump’s second presidency, both he and those of us closely following the situation are having a sense of déjà vu.
Having won the election on promises of being a “dove of peace,” Trump now finds himself backing Israel’s strikes on Iran, even going so far as to bomb Iran targets himself, and even threatening to order the evacuation of Tehran’s 10 million residents. Reminiscent of Genghis Khan telling the people of besieged cities like Samarkand or Bukhara: “Surrender and live, or resist and die”. One can’t help but wonder: what happened to the so-called dove of peace? Let’s try to clarify:
1. Trump supposedly returned to power well-prepared. Remembering the situation of his first term, he sought to place his own team in key positions. One such move was bringing in Elon Musk to head a newly formed federal department to start purges in bureaucracy. But this purge seems to have targeted low-level bureaucrats at places like the US Postal Service, rather than the entrenched neocon war establishment. It appears the globalist neocons, who’ve been deeply embedded in both parties for over a century, managed to keep their ground despite this purge.
2. The reality is, no 100-year-old empire willingly dismantles its own system peacefully. This is possible only with a revolution. And what we’ve seen in both Trump’s first and now his second presidency is just how deeply embedded these globalist forces are. Trump managed to retire a few generals, but the real machinery of power inside the Pentagon, especially among colonels and upper-mid-level officers, remained largely untouched.
3. Neocons, the Jewish lobby, and the Israeli state seized on Trump’s stance on illegal immigration in Los Angeles as a moment of vulnerability. Elon Musk’s sudden public criticism of Trump, the Pentagon’s covert support for Ukraine’s operations inside Russian territory, the eruption of protests involving 15 million people across nearly 2,000 different points, the backlash against military intervention in Los Angeles, and Israel’s missile attacks on Iran during nuclear negotiations: none of these were isolated events. Even a basic understanding of politics reveals the signs of a highly coordinated action.
4. Backed into a corner by this neocon power, Trump now finds himself surrounded by the very same forces within the Republican Party. Following Netanyahu, Trump has been pulled from his “dove of peace” platform into the orbit of warmongering politics. In doing so, he is committing a political suicide. Whether “Could Trump be assassinated by neocons?” is becoming no longer relevant. If this path of capitulation continues, then the transformation is complete: Trump has become a second Biden, and neutralized.
What to expect next?
Even so, Trump still has cards left to play. Remember that he is coming from a business background:
1. His aggressive “total surrender” discourse toward Iran could actually be a bargaining tactic aimed at forcing a “partial concession”. If he succeeds in bringing Iran back to the negotiating table, that alone would be seen as a political win for Trump.
2. Within both the Republican and Democratic parties, there are factions opposed to war. Across nearly every major American city, pro-Palestine demonstrations have been ongoing for two years. These movements, especially strong in Arab-American communities like Michigan, cost the Democrats crucial votes in the 2024 election. This hasn’t gone unnoticed. Some Democrats have begun voicing for peace.
3. Leading MAGA voices in the media are growing increasingly uneasy with Trump’s current trajectory. Even his closest teams, like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, have launched open campaigns urging him to “cut ties with Netanyahu”. Their outspokenness suggests they have significant backing behind.
4. Meanwhile, Trump’s trade skirmishes with China also deserve attention. The confusion surrounding tariffs, once as high as 145% but now reduced to around 30% with a 90-day delay, reflects Trump’s business background and might be indicating another bargaining tactic.