Note (27OCT2025): Loyalty Above All
In China, given the recent purging of nine, top military officers, some self-styled pundits claim that Chairman Xi has strengthened his position of power. Really?
Those purged were appointed by Mr. Xi himself. Historically, such purges signal weakness not strength. Typically, their consequence is a loss of hard-earned merit replaced by a gain of obsequious sycophancy. Loyalty above all! Merit be damned! Moreover, such a purge creates a sideshow of powerful enemies fearful for their positions and their lives, aching to overthrow a leader clinging to autocratic power at their expense.
So, do the current purges signal the end of Chairman Xi’s cult of personality or its new beginning? The answer may determine not only Xi’s political survival but his biological.
-End-
“Think a thousand times before taking a decision but, after taking the decision, never turn back even if you get a thousand difficulties!” -Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
As he was in so many fateful decisions, in the end Hitler proved himself wrong; think the failed Operation Barbarous against Russia and especially Stalingrad, where Hitler lost a war he had won. Besides, any aviator knows to turn back if the weather ahead is becoming sufficiently threatening.
In 2021, this commentator offered Chairman Xi a piece of advice. Turn back from Marx. Deviate to Mussolini. The posting occasioned many more than one hundred visits from China.
Mr. Xi, nevertheless, rejected the advice and made a fateful decision; namely to embrace Mao and reject Mussolini. The consequence for him has been a thousand difficulties. Echoing Secretary Stalin’s purges of the 1930’s, as his grip on power slips, Mr. Xi recently has resorted to purging top members of his military. Bad sign for him.
Fearing a knife in the back, what’s a Communistic dictator to do? What did Mr. Xi do? He tried to parlay his infliction of Marxist doctrine upon the populace. Progressively, he used promoting Communism as an excuse to grab permanent power and to create a cult of personality, his personality. His plan appears to be failing. The Chinese refer to Xi’s failure as the “Involution”.
Years ago, this commentator warned Xi. Fascism not Communism. Fascism often succeeds; e.g., Mussolini. Communism always fails. Cost of both? Tyranny! Forget not, however, benevolent despotism offers the most efficient and effective form of governance while it remains benevolent.
The Chinese economy is in a tailspin. Debt is killing China. Over-production heralds deflation. How to repay enormous debt with appreciating currency?
Debt also is killing these United States but, at the moment, more slowly. As sung by the Rolling Stones, for President Trump, time is on his side. He seems to realize his advantage and will act accordingly in negotiations with our adversary.
Mr. Trump seems aware that he can use that time to crush further Mr. Xi’s collapsing economy. Tariffs? Yes. Also, continue to accelerate at home and abroad replacement of Chinese products with the specter of American products. The domestic Chinese enemies of Mr. Xi may panic at the mere specter and act.
For many Americans, there will be economic pain. Mr. Trump can offset the pain to the nation by ending welfare to the parasites feeding on the financial blood of their progeny.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.” -Alexander Tyler (1747-1813)
Wait! Politically, doing so means suicide. With luck, however, the consequence will be a more moral and self-sufficient people.
“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” -Samuel Adams (1722-1803); essay in The Public Advertiser, Circa 1749
Consequently, President Trump will have no choice but to return the nation to that which the Framers intended, a democratic republic not a republican democracy. Firstly, however, he must declare a total national emergency as described in the novel, Retribution Fever, then follow the comprehensive, detailed blueprint contained therein. Ironically, he will be characterized as a Fascist for saving the nation from Bernie Sanders and the rest of the Communists. Temporarily, to some extent he may be.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day.” -Adage
To resurrect fully the America envisioned by our Founding Fathers will take time, probably thirty years or so. Americans are an impatient lot. Thirty years? Given current contingencies, an impatient mob will not tolerate the time required. Given the proper contingencies, however, as described in the novel, they will.
To some substantial extent, Mr. Trump’s policies already have been echoing the text in the novel. Changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, for example. The text sits upon the three guidelines of the Scientific Method; namely, specificity, objectivity, and accountability. Each is an anathema to the corrupt Washingtonian Establishment, Democrat and Republican. Moreover, those guidelines meld nicely into Artificial Intelligence.
By following that text and taming the Chinese tiger, President Trump, nevertheless, ultimately can set the stage for long-lasting American peace and prosperity among a more moral people.
The risk? Mr. Xi will panic and invade Taiwan. Then? Hopefully, his domestic enemies will intervene. If not? The unthinkable?
“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” -Albert Einstein (1879-1955)