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The emperor has no clothes

In a 2007 back cover of Página12, we reflected on the ideolexical concept of being right-wing: «Twenty or thirty years ago in the Southern Cone, it was enough to declare yourself a leftist to go to prison or lose your life in a torture session (…). Being right-wing was not only politically correct but also a necessity for survival. The assessment of this ideolexical concept has changed dramatically. This is demonstrated by a recent trial taking place in Uruguay. Búsqueda has filed a lawsuit against a senator of the republic, José Korzeniak, because it defined him as ‘right-wing…’»

Ideolexics (and, with them, ideological crystallizations) seem to show cycles of 30 years—a generation. But these cycles, beyond a possible social dynamic or psychological nature, such as “the dynamics of the four generations,” are also affected, distorted, and even determined by the gaze of empires (see “The logic of reactionary waves in Latin America”).

Differently, at the epicenter of the Empire, this ideological dynamic has longer cycles (60 years), because they do not depend on external interventions. They depend on the relative power of their ruling class—not on the ruling class of another country. In any case, laws are the expression of the power (plutocracy) or powers (democracy) of a society. In capitalist societies and, even more radically, in the plutocracies of neoliberal and neo-feudal capitalism, power lies in the concentration of money, which is why millionaires buy politicians and their corporations directly write the laws, as in the United States, or decide governments in banana republics.

Since no legal system recognizes the right of one country to write the laws of other sovereign countries, empires and supremacist governments write doctrines, such as the Monroe Doctrine and other treaties, for other peoples to obey as long as it serves the owners of the gun. But these doctrines and this re-ideologization of the colonies have always been dressed up in some sacred excuse, such as God, race, freedom, private property, or democracy. Something that, in the United States, is beginning to dry up, leaving the true reasons for its violence bare and undisguised, such as President Trump’s acknowledgment of invading Venezuela to «make a lot of money with (our) oil«―in his press conference after the kidnapping of President Maduro, he mentioned the word oil 23 times and not once democracy, which is in line with Project 2025 and neo-monarchists like Curtis Yarvin.

American imperialism stems from the Protestant, Calvinist, and privatizing fanaticism of four centuries ago, since the plundering of the “savages who attacked us without provocation” began. Today, its violent behavior of intervention and dispossession is repeated with the same nakedness as in the beginning, as when James Polk ordered an emissary to find a river in Mexico with the same name as the then border, or, if he could not find one, to name another river with the same name in order to provoke a “war of defense” against Mexico and thus take half of its territory. Trump did exactly the same thing by accusing Maduro of drug trafficking and then decreeing that fentanyl was a “weapon of mass destruction,” a decoration used for the invasion of Iraq, the kidnapping of Saddam Hussein, and the appropriation of oil.

Until then, emperors like Bush and Obama kept their tuxedos fairly well ironed. With the Tea Party and then Trump’s first presidency, being fascist, racist, and misogynistic began to be considered a source of pride. That was the beginning of “the rebellion of the masters,” fought, as in medieval battles, by faceless, nameless pawns with nothing to gain or lose except their lives.

In his early years in the White House, Trump still denied being sexist, racist, or imperialist. In his second term, he remained the same as always, but no longer hid it. At a conference in the Oval Office, the mayor-elect of New York was asked if he still thought Trump was a fascist, to which Trump said it was okay: “Tell them yes.”

Mamdani replied yes, to the president’s satisfaction.

A few years ago, we proposed the formula P = d.t, which relates power (P), tolerance (t), and diversity/dissent (d), according to which unchallenged empires have a high tolerance for diversity and dissent when their power (P) is unchallenged, and become intolerant of diversity and dissent when their power begins to decline, a relationship that keeps the equation P-d.t = 0 in equilibrium. Currently, the growing intolerance of dissent, criticism, books and courses on slave and imperial history, or the acceptance of equal rights for different ethnicities, genders, sexes, or social classes is an unmistakable sign of the growing weakness of the American Empire.

Masks and tuxedos are no longer necessary. The CIA launched its operation to kidnap President Maduro to be tried for drug trafficking three weeks after President Trump ordered the release of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced to 40 years in prison by a federal jury in the same state for drug trafficking, and 24 hours after meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine.

In response to the harassment and then bombing of Venezuela (which has already cost the lives of dozens of people and will, over time, lead to more violence), the UN and several presidents have said the same thing: heartfelt statements from foreign ministries that “the US military attack sets a dangerous precedent.”

Haven’t we been setting dangerous precedents for more than 200 years? What is happening that has not happened before? (1) Imperial invasion out of greed for natural resources, only now the excuses are not important; (2) cowardly and submissive local servility; (3) timidity of the region’s leftist leaders; (4) lack of consensus in the face of the most serious violations of international law…

Is this something new? We continue to move toward the “Rebellion of the Masters” through the “Palestinization of the world” like a driver who slowly falls asleep at the wheel. This is just another chapter in a process that will become more radical.

The kidnapping of disobedient leaders is an old imperial practice. Empires have always violated the laws of others, but they were careful to do so within their own fiefdoms (which is why the Guantanamo prison is in Cuba and not in Illinois), but this too has changed. Now, the masked ICE and National Guard agents have extended the Palestinianization of the world within the borders of the United States, accustoming its population to brutality, fear, and the violation of human rights.

The reactionary conflicts of the supremacist and decadent Western empires will continue to add to the old-style interventions: invasions, coups d’état, revolts, and civil wars instigated by secret agencies (CIA-MI6-Mossad). We will continue to see a scenario of growing violence by the United States and Europe-Israel in their backyards—Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.

The goal is to crush the rise of China and the Global South, but this struggle will bleed the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America more than China, until China has no choice but to intervene in a massive war.

For now, Russia cares about Ukraine and China cares about Taiwan. That is why their reactions to the supremacist re-colonization of the Global South are merely symbolic.

The Global South is alone.

Jorge Majfud, January 3, 2026

Washington cannot bomb New York

On Friday, October 31, at his Arabian residence in Florida, President Trump hosted a Great Gatsby-style party for millionaires—before the Great Crash of 1929. While 42 million people did not know what they were going to eat due to the government shutdown (socialism always fixing what capitalism could never solve), Daddy Trump served up the spectacle of a young woman in a bikini inside a huge champagne glass.

On Tuesday of the following week, there were gubernatorial elections in two states and a momentous election in California, which will have an impact on the House of Representatives in Washington for the 2026 elections. All three elections were Democratic victories. In New Jersey and Virginia, two women won, much to the fury of the White House. As the pathological narcissist that he is, Trump declared after the defeat:

“The government shutdown and the fact that I wasn’t on the ballot were the two reasons Republicans lost the election.”

However, the most important victory was that of the New York City mayoralty. A Democratic candidate winning the New York election by more than 50 percent of the vote would not be significant if the winner were not Zohran Mamdani.

These elections had the highest turnout in a mayoral election since 2001.

Mamdani won despite corporations flooding the coffers of his Democratic rival, Andrew Cuomo, who had been defeated months earlier by Mamdani himself in the primary election. The former governor was supported by Trump and Elon Musk. Musk had mocked the Muslim’s socialism, who had proposed that city buses should not charge fares.

Mamdani not only reminded him that Cuomo had given Musk hundreds of millions in tax cuts, more than it would cost to provide free public transportation for workers, who are drowning in low wages and $3,000 rents.

More than significant, the symbolic (psychological and ideological) importance of Mamdani’s victory outweighs any concrete fact. From the perspective of identity politics, which has dominated the political circus in the United States since at least the late 1990s, many have pointed out with both appreciation and contempt his status as a 34-year-old immigrant from Uganda, a Muslim, and the son of a professor and a film producer from India.

In the ideological arena, Mamdani openly identified with socialism and unhesitatingly with human rights in Palestine and against the genocide in Gaza. Despite being in the midst of an election campaign, he said that if Netanyahu set foot in New York and he was mayor, he would order his arrest. The powerful Zionist lobby opened its coffers, but a large proportion of New York Jews (39 percent) who believe that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza supported Mamdani’s candidacy.

The “danger of bad examples” (that is, any example other than orthodox capitalism) has been central to the obsession of US foreign policy makers for many generations, based on demonizing and blocking any possible alternative in the Global South, from Lumumba in the Congo and Allende in Chile to Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

If there is one thing Mamdani is not, it is politically timid, ideologically ashamed, or morally cowardly. He has confronted the man most feared by friends and foes alike, President Trump, with a self-assurance that will set the much-feared example of how the left must confront the kleptocratic advance of neoliberal privatizers: without currying favor, without asking permission, head-on and without makeup.

“If anyone can show Donald Trump defeated,” Mamdani said on TV, “it is the city that saw him born… So, Donald, since I know you’re watching this, I say to you: turn up the volume and listen.”

Mamdani broke the mold. Bernie Sanders supported him when he no longer needed moral support. Days before the election, Obama—who for years dodged all of Trump’s attacks with jokes and silence—called him to offer his advice if he won the NYC government.

Mamdani’s proposals are concrete and clash head-on with dogma: a return to taxes for millionaires (now multi-billionaires) to finance basic works and services that New York urgently needs; rent control; construction of public housing; creation of public supermarkets in every neighborhood; creation of public daycare centers; raising the minimum wage for workers; protection of labor and union rights; among other measures, for which he will need allies in the City Council and the State Congress.

Not only Trump, but the system itself feels compelled to block the heart of capitalist financial power. Trump promised it, but it will be more difficult than doing so with a colony or a banana republic.

The difference has always been that all these threats against the “bad example” were crushed without any ethical, moral, or legal restrictions. Now that this example comes from within the very heart of capitalism, the home of Wall Street, it becomes a bigger and more difficult problem to deal with.

Washington cannot bomb New York. Trump is left with the classic options: before the elections (as in Argentina), he threatened to block federal resources—even though New York, like California, subsidizes the conservative states of the South—the old policy toward countries like Cuba and Venezuela.

The second option is a military invasion, in the style of the banana republics before World War II or the Dominican Republic (1965), Grenada (1983), or Panama (1990). Although this option seems unthinkable, there are always shortcuts. We must not forget that the militarization of Chicago and Los Angeles was only a trial run and, above all, an attempt to proceed with the old strategy of accustoming a population through gradual doses of something that, if done abruptly, would not be tolerated—creeping normality.

The third option that should not be off the table for strategists is the classic Cold War option: destabilization of a democratic government and removal of the leader by a coup d’état.

Mamdani cannot run for president because of his birth. But it is becoming clear that the two most important young figures in the dominant parties, J.D. Vance and Mamdani, represent two extremes not seen in more than a century. Mamdani’s election is likely to be the turning point that many of us have been waiting for over the last two years.

The story could unfold as follows: in November 2026, the Democrats regain both houses of Congress. Calculations indicate that it is unlikely that the Democrats will achieve a majority in the Senate in 2026. If this miracle were to occur (an event that would alienate some Republicans, as we saw in the case of Palestine), in 2027 they could impeach a president who is no longer in full physical and intellectual possession of his faculties. Unlikely because, to remove the president from office, two-thirds of the Senate would be required. Unlikely, but not impossible.

If the improbable were to happen (something common in history), that same year we would witness two possible opposite outcomes: impeachment and a more direct militaristic or dictatorial reaction from the White House, followed by a major conflict.

jorge Majfud, november 7, 2025

Washington no puede bombardear Nueva York 6 noviembre, 2025

Ideology and Intervention: A Critical Review of Jorge Majfud’s The Wild Frontier

Desire

I did not invent this story. It is a story that was once told in many forms, but it always told, more or less, the same thing. Then, due to the urgency of recent centuries, it fell into oblivion. Like the stories that matter, it may not be true, but it is truthful.

They say that two thousand five hundred years ago, there was a very good man who, on a dark night, received a visit from God. He couldn’t see Him, but he could hear Him.

The man was frightened because the voice was not of this world. Immediately, he knew it was God, who had heard his prayers and had, at last, decided to speak to him.

The good man had fallen ill and was alone, abandoned, so God offered to grant him a wish.

His heart raced, but before he could say anything, God continued: «You have always been a compassionate man. In your prayers, the men and women of your village have never been absent. So, whatever you ask for yourself, I will give twice as much to each of them.»

The man fell silent and, after a moment of thought, said:

«Very well. Take one of my eyes.»

jorge majfud, Jacksonville, 2018

Ideology and Intervention: A Critical Review of Jorge Majfud’s The Wild Frontier

City of the Moon

City of the Moon was conceived prior to the events of September 11, 2001, and completed following the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The book serves as a poignant metaphor for a civilization that perceives itself as superior and thus feels justified in imposing its moral standards on others—turning myth into reality through fanatical ideologies. Two decades later, we witness a resurgence of neo-medievalism and a wave of anti-Enlightenment sentiment, known as the Dark Enlightenment. This movement, incensed by its decline yet emboldened by a perceived ethnic, ideological, and cultural superiority, is once again taking root in the West. It seeks to persecute and suppress diversity and tolerance, ironically under the banners of democracy, freedom, higher moral values, and true faith.

First published in 2009, City of the Moon is set in Calataid, a walled city in southern Algeria between 1955 and 1992. This city, surrounded by the Sahara Desert, probably founded by a stray corps of the Spanish army after the Iberian Reconquista of 1492, has the peculiarity of being inhabited almost exclusively by white Europeans, mostly Christians, confined to a silent and unknown corner after Algiers’ independence in 1962. To survive, Calataid attempts to sever physical and cultural ties with the outside world, especially with the train that arrives there once a month. One of its protagonists and narrators is the «monster-son» of an Argentine doctor who, from his solitude, sees the reality of a society that considers itself perfect, the moral reserve of a corrupt world. Calataid is a metaphor for sectarian cruelty and fanatical pride. Despite the obvious signs of ethical, economic, and urban decline, Calataid resists any change until it succumbs to a tidal wave of sand that overcomes the resistance of its thick walls. Part of the narrative in this novel experiments with Cubist perspectives, so that different narrators can converge in a single sentence, with the intention of emphasizing the central role of the city-society.

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Ideology and Intervention: A Critical Review of Jorge Majfud’s The Wild Frontier