{"id":27535,"date":"2026-07-08T02:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T00:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mwehle.eu\/wp\/?p=27535"},"modified":"2026-07-08T02:51:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T00:51:22","slug":"hyperpolitics-in-command","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mwehle.de\/wp\/?p=27535","title":{"rendered":"Hyperpolitics in command"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anton J\u00e4ger, New Left Review<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Trump the hyperpolitician is a consequence of this elite disarticulation, providing agency absent a stabilizing structural frame.<\/p>\n

What Trump catalyses, of course, is more incoherence, as the contemporary condition of Europe shows. Here, a set of pre-existing geopolitical and economic dependencies makes elite fracture and cross-class bloc failure far more disabling than in the\u00a0us<\/span>. Mainstream parties still hold power in Europe\u2019s three largest countries, but their situation is precarious and\u2014a sign of the hyperpolitical mood of the electorates\u2014their leaders are deeply disliked. In Germany, Merz leads a directionless, ill-tempered coalition which collectively won only 45 per cent of the vote; his personal rating is on \u201364.\u00a0Though Germany is the\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0leader of the\u00a0eu<\/span>\u00a0bloc, its ruling elites cannot muster enough cohesion and popular backing to relaunch their own export industries against Chinese competition and American energy pressure, let alone craft a continental strategy.<\/p>\n

\u03a9\u00a0\u03a9\u00a0\u03a9<\/p>\n

This lack of vertical backing for European rulers is in part explained by their inability to unite capitalist fractions behind a coherent strategy to recharge their stagnant economies, trapped between the diktats of the bond markets, a faltering\u00a0Energiewende<\/em>, regulatory burdens of the\u00a0eu<\/span>\u2019s \u2018compliance capitalism\u2019, the growing weight of social care for the elderly, failing public infrastructure, unbeatably cheap Chinese manufacturing and the crippling, self-inflicted gas-price shock resulting from their culpable failure to structure and support a diplomatic answer to the Ukraine\u2013Russia question. Instead of directly grappling with these problems, Europe\u2019s governing classes are issuing a call to arms against Russia and greedily tallying the martial stock of poor war-torn Ukraine for the inventory of a future\u00a0eu<\/span>\u00a0army.<\/p>\n

In their switch to intense Ukrainophilia\u2014having long disdained the country as a troublesome peripheral mendicant in need of harsh neo-imperial financial discipline: viz., the 2013\u00a0eu<\/span>\u2013Ukraine association agreement\u2014otherwise bureaucratic figures like Merz and Starmer launch into the mode of hyperpolitics, their energy and enthusiasm delinked from material and political reality. Despite patent lack of popular support, their eagerness for military spending swings from aircraft carriers and fighter jets to the best possible intercontinental ballistic missiles, like an oligarch\u2019s mistress comparing handbags or earrings.<\/p>\n

\u03a9\u00a0\u03a9\u00a0\u03a9<\/p>\n

Instead of negotiating a lasting peace with Russia that would respect Ukraine\u2019s self\u2011determination, the\u00a0eu<\/span>\u00a0debate revolves\u2014behind closed doors\u2014around what credit system its member states should use to arm against their great continental neighbour. Accompanying this are sly attempts by each to stay in the Pentagon\u2019s good books with logistics and supply for the Trump\u2013Netanyahu war of aggression against Iran, while posturing about a rules-based international order.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anton J\u00e4ger, New Left Review: Trump the hyperpolitician is a consequence of this elite disarticulation, providing agency absent a stabilizing structural frame. What Trump catalyses, of course, is more incoherence, as the contemporary condition of Europe shows. Here, a set … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.de\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.de\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.de\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.de\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.de\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27535"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.de\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27547,"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.de\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27535\/revisions\/27547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.de\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.de\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwehle.de\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}