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To The Victor Belongs The Spoils

Published by digby on February 10, 2025

Trump takes what he wants now

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught on a hot mic the other day giving his assessment of Trump’s threat to turn Canada into the 51st state. I don’t think Trudeau is given to wild conspiracy theories. This is what he said:

“I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state,” he said. “They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have, and they very much want to be able to benefit from those. But Mr. Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country. And it is a real thing.”

Trump was asked about it by Fox news’ Bret Baier in his Super Bowl interview and he assured him that he is serious about the 51st state thing but that it’s because of Canada’s trade deficit which he’s inanely convinced himself is a “subsidy” (once more demonstrating that he has no idea how trade actually works.) That’s just his excuse — which he may believe as well — but there’s more to it.

Everyone always says that Trump is just trolling Canada but it’s not true. Trudeau’s assessment is correct. It is a real thing. We know this because Trump has always said that he believes “to the victor belongs the spoils” and by that he apparently also means that his victory as US president last November makes him a victor over the whole world.

Now, it’s important to distinguish his belief in “to the victor belongs the spoils” in the imperialist context from a “spoils system” in the domestic context, which he also believes in. The encyclopedia Britannica explains the meaning of “spoils system” which springs from the same source:

[I]twas made famous in a speech made in 1832 by Senator William Marcy of New York. In defending one of President Andrew Jackson’s appointments, Marcy said, “To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.” In Marcy’s time, the term spoils referred to the political appointments, such as cabinet offices or ambassadorships, controlled by an elected official.

Trump is taking that concept even further by appointing uniquely unqualified, slavish devotees and trying to fire civil servants (something that didn’t exist in Jackson’s time) and demanding personal loyalty oaths. But essentially he’s emulating Jackson, the president Steve Bannon taught him was supposed to be his inspiration. Not that he is likely aware of that. But he has certainly created a spoils system in the US federal government for the first time in many a moon.

Trump claims that he won a landslide victory (a lie: his popular-vote win was narrow 1.4% and his electoral victory was modest by historical standards) which seems to have led him to believe that as the undisputed leader of the world’s most powerful nation he also has the power to buy or take whatever he wants. To the victor goes the spoils and traditionally, those spoils are natural resources.

Consider the fact that Trump has been waxing on about William McKinley who he’s been convinced was a great president because of his tariffs. Trump is no scholar and knows nothing about that historical period but the fact is that that era, known as The Gilded Age, was also called the the New Imperialism era, when the British Empire, Germany, Italy, Japan Russia, The United States and Japan all raced to colonize everything that was left uncolonized on the planet. The period lasted from roughly 1873 – 1914, the outbreak of WWI. There were a lot of reasons for this but one of the main ones was competition for the natural resources that were required to fuel the second Industrial Revolution.

The belief that “to the victor belongs the spoils” is built into imperialism and so it is with Trump. Right after he took office in 2017, he went to CIA headquarters and said:

The old expression, “to the victor belong the spoils” — you remember. I always used to say, keep the oil. I wasn’t a fan of Iraq. I didn’t want to go into Iraq. But I will tell you, when we were in, we got out wrong. And I always said, in addition to that, keep the oil.

Two years later he said “to the victor belongs the spoils” again about Syria after his advisers tricked him into keeping some troops there to “protect the oil.”

As we know he’s been inexplicably demanding that Denmark sell Greenland to him and threatening to just take it if they refuse and that too turns out to be about resources: minerals. Lately Ukraine’s been on the menu for, once again, rare earth minerals:

Trump: “One of the things we’re looking at with President Zelenskyy is having the security of their assets. They have assets underground. Rare early and other things. But primarily rare earth. Really, we want security, because as you know, Europe is putting up much less money than us.”

REPORTER: What you said about Ukraine earlier — the rare earth. Do you want them to give the rare earth to the United States?

TRUMP: Yeah

And then there’s his Gaza “imperialist acid flashback” as Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir calls it, which, as far as I know, doesn’t have any oil or minerals to offer but does feature some very nice beachfront property which he apparently wants to develop into an international resort.

Let’s not pretend that any of this is about the national interest. It’s all about money for him and his cronies.

This talk of minerals is coming from somewhere and I would guess it has something to do with the fact that rare earth minerals are necessary for all modern electronics (among other things). Trump has a very rich BFF who has a great interest in such things and it’s easy to guess that he’s whispering in Trump’s ear about all the “spoils” to be had by acquiring/seizing the land where they exist.

Trump’s imperial ambitions go beyond just taking natural resources. He is also finally articulating what he has always meant by “America First” since he entered politics. It isn’t about isolationism it’s about dominance. America First means “We’re number one!”

Back in 2017 when he made that speech at the CIA headquarters and said that the US should have kept the oil, this was how he prefaced that comment:

When I was young — and I think we’re all sort of young. When I was young, we were always winning things in this country. We’d win with trade. We’d win with wars. At a certain age, I remember hearing from one of my instructors, “The United States has never lost a war.” And then, after that, it’s like we haven’t won anything. We don’t win anymore.

Having eluded all accountability for anything he did in his first term and beyond Trump sees himself as omnipotent now. He was restored to the White House with a bigger margin than 2016 and he is being aided in his revenge by the richest man on the planet. He stands to make massive amounts of money during what is already shaping up to be the most corrupt presidency in US history. His win means that the US is winning again. Il est l’État. To the victor belongs the spoils.

Salon

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