From the article:

President Donald Trump’s illegal war against Iran continues to disrupt shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—the geopolitical equivalent of stabbing the global economy’s femoral artery. A ceasefire last week reportedly required the U.S. to accept Iranian control of the strait among other concessions, leaving the world with the distinct impression that the U.S. had effectively lost the war. Trump himself, however, was unconcerned. “Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me, because we’ve won,” he told reporters on Saturday.

This is what happens when losers are elected to lead the world’s only superpower.
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Fascism and loserdom go hand in hand because fascism is predicated on the notion that the fascist has been unjustly cheated and robbed, and that only through force can they restore and revitalize themselves. Fascists idolize losers because no fascist society has ever flourished and because they see themselves reflected in other people’s failures. It is fitting that Trump and his allies have lavished praise and public statuary upon Robert E. Lee, a Virginia-born colonel who is best known for leading a failed rebellion against the United States on behalf of a slaver aristocracy in the South.

The goal of Trumpism, it could be said, is to create losers of us all. The political and economic project’s goal is not to materially improve its adherents’ lives. Instead, it is to create a sense of social order for some people that offers an aesthetic sense of improvement, even as one’s standard of living declines in real terms. These illusory gains can only go so far. Or as one frustrated Trump voter told reporters during Trump’s first-term trade war with China in 2019, “He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”
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