The West’s Greatest Error
- john raymond
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
The West's greatest error has not just been in failing to stop Trump, but in failing to recognize what he is.
That failure is no longer theoretical. Trump is back in the Oval Office, serving his second term, and still the West speaks of him as a rogue actor, a chaotic force, an unpredictable populist. But this was always the disguise. What Trump is—what he has always been—is a disciplined instrument of asymmetric war, embedded at the highest level of Western power. Not a fluke. Not a floundering egotist. A functional vector for Kremlin objectives.
From the beginning, the institutions of the liberal order refused to name this. They framed him through the lens of domestic disruption. As a scandal generator. A political anomaly. Even when the pattern was unmistakable—his attacks on NATO, his reverence for Putin, his efforts to halt aid to Ukraine—he was treated as erratic, not as aligned.
But alignment doesn’t require just coordination. It requires consistency. And Trump has been consistent. He weakens Western alliances. He discredits democratic norms. He amplifies internal division. And every time the media spins this as another episode of “being Trump,” the operation wins. Because the refusal to recognize the strategic function of his behavior is the most important function of all.
Recognition isn’t a luxury. It is the baseline of resistance. You can’t defend against a weapon you won’t admit is being used. You can’t counter an actor you refuse to define. Trump’s return to power in 2025 should have been the moment of clarity. Instead, it’s become a sequel to the original denial.
He is not just dangerous because of what he says. He is dangerous because of what he is: a head of state serving as a general in an ongoing campaign against the very world order he is meant to lead. The West didn’t fail to stop him because it lacked strength. It failed because it lacked vision. It mistook the face of the war for a joke, a show, a quirk of history.
Trump is not a glitch. He is the exploit. And until he is recognized as such, everything else—every countermeasure, every debate, every diplomatic calculation—will fall short.
The war is not on the horizon. It is here. And the West is still refusing to say who’s leading the charge against it from within.
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