‘Will it be that, in 200 years’ time, there is a historical note in the history textbooks… There was something called, the Woke movement, you may have heard of them, they were much like the Cathars or the Bogomils or the Pythagoreans or something like that. A weird religious sect that took over the city … and what happened? There was a crusade against them. They got wiped out and that was the end of that … and everyone was like: That was really crazy! Look at the crazy things they believed! When your beliefs are represented in the history books, you’re going to look f- bonkers. Genuinely mad. You are going to look like modern lobotomists. You are going to look insane in the history books, do you understand?’

This is the warning issued by political commentator Carl Benjamin, also known as Sargon of Akkad, following the shocking reversal of political fortunes in America.

The world has become a frightening place for the Left in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election.

This is not four years of disruption to the ‘long march’ of the Left. The institutions the Left were trampling through have been defunded, disbanded, and publicly shamed. There is nothing to stamp on and no money for the boots. The creation of DOGE and its machete-approach to reform has made Javier Milei’s chainsaw look like a foam pool noodle.

DOGE is not so much a bloodless revolution as it is a bureaucratic cataclysm. It has a precedent in Ancient Rome where the new Caesar would sack the wealth of his political enemies to guarantee security. Instead of keeping that wealth for Caesar, Trump and Musk are giving it back to taxpayers and paying off inflationary debt.

The Left are not coping and the Right are starting to exhibit strange behaviour – the sort of thing you might expect of a wild animal after being kept in captivity and half-starved.

For those who missed CPAC, Elon Musk was knighted with a chainsaw and Steve Bannon tossed out a dodgy salute (which may have been a dig at Musk). The antics scared off French leader Jordan Bardella, who pulled out of his appearance. Bannon said later that he was performing a wave. ‘I do it at the end of all my speeches to thank the crowd.’

Plenty of people have doubts about that, but JD Vance, at least, is thoroughly enjoying his talent for upsetting European socialists and has fine-tuned his speeches with comedic positivity. He is a MAGA campaign in a suit.

‘We have had more Executive Orders than CNN has viewers each night… Hello to our friends at CNN.’

He went on to criticise Donald Trump for being unable to save CNN’s ratings, much to the glee of the crowd. Vance hit all the hashtags. #DrillBabyDrill. #UnlockTheEngineOfAmerica. #SecureTheBorder.

The Trump-Vance administration exists in this bizarre reality of being both a safe pair of economic hands and a charismatic warrior against all things Woke. Historians will write a thousands books about this period and yet they’ll never understand it because 2025 Trumpism is an emotion, not a strategy.

Decisions are being made in response to online cheers – as a strong wind might divert the flow of water down a wall. Once the wind is gone, and the online trend finished, there is no trace left as to why certain policies were decided but they made perfect sense at the time.

As for Australia, our politicians have no idea how to interpret the situation so they have chosen to ignore it, falling back into their old habits such as trading blows over Medicare. What a boring election we face in comparison.

A sizeable chunk of the Trump movement is devoted to retribution.

Crucially, this is not being exacted on left-wing American citizens, but rather aimed at the champagne-sipping Establishment that has spent far too long basking in its publicly funded wealth. In response, the White House has completely ignored the women wearing pink hats screaming in the street and set their attention on the swamp.

Some genius within Trump’s campaign must have realised that the swamp is guarded by corruption. The foot soldiers of bureaucratic rot are public grants, Woke institutions, and nefarious acronyms bound together with taxpayer money.

No one is coming to save them.

DOGE has taken away their money and pushed the unarmed soldiers into the angry mob leaving the Democrats with no choice but to back away and let the slaughter take place.

It is a genuine Wizard of Oz man behind the curtain moment.

The International Left are just as worried. They are trapped by dependency and greed where they want America’s money but dislike interference in their affairs. It’s a bit like a child that leaves home and still expects mummy to do the washing. Europe never grew up after the second world war.

JD Vance’s speech in front of European leaders and Trump’s controversial dealings with Putin are, at least in part, a show of force. This behaviour was made necessary by the failure of Trump’s predecessors, including Joe Biden, whose mental weakness became a point of cruel comedy.

For the best part of four years, the words of the US President were assumed to be gibberish and ignored until they had been filtered through the press office at the White House. That sort of weakness caused damage to America’s reputation.

Most Democrats and European leaders assumed there would be a social, cultural, economic, and bureaucratic reckoning, but even the most paranoid of civil servant could not have predicted an audit on Fort Knox or the collapse of USAID.

Donald Trump’s first presidency taught him a particular lesson: drain the swamp or become its prisoner.

The undemocratic forces of the Democrat-run state created this version of Donald Trump.

Draining the swamp is not a side quest for his government.

America’s elite want to protest the loss of their welfare state, but the power of social media has made it socially and electorally impossible.

This is the flip side of propaganda. They are standing on the other side of the social media fence, having lost control of Silicon Valley and its war machine.

They are not without friends. The Left still have control of the mainstream legacy press, but as the world can see, the old media empire is an empty ruin – a beautiful facade with no one inside.

This jarring power shift has created strange imagery, some of it entertaining while other bits are concerning.

It is in this context that I find the commentary of Carl Benjamin interesting. He said on his YouTube channel:

‘It is has become very apparent that the Left simply does not understand what is happening at the moment … why the Right is acting in the way that the Right is acting … it is kind of strange and beautiful to watch.

‘…these people have become untethered from your [the Left’s] moral system entirely. They have arrived at the point where they are saying we do not care about your moral judgements.

‘…you [the Left] need to start sitting down and having an actual discussion with people. This name-calling, slander-politics has to come to an end. And if it doesn’t come to an end, don’t be surprised when they [the Right] show you no mercy.’

The Left famously thought of the Right as evil. The Right now sees the Left as irrelevant. As Carl states, the Woke project is being vaporised.