Trump, The Misfit Who Fits

In the complex choreography of contemporary geopolitics, power is no longer the exclusive domain of institutional expertise or doctrinal consistency. Instead, it is increasingly filtered through instinct, spectacle, and the manipulation of symbols. Within this emergent framework, Donald Trump does not represent an aberration or a flaw within the American political system. Rather, he stands as a compatible and even natural user of its evolving logic—a disruptor whose impulses are not discordant with the machinery of power, but intimately suited to it. Trump’s presence reveals not a system malfunctioning under his leadership, but a system that has adapted to metabolize chaos and narrative as strategic tools.

Who Trump Is?

To grasp Trump’s essence, one must set aside traditional metrics such as intellectual depth, procedural fluency, or policy coherence. Trump does not function within the conventional boundaries of policy formulation or governance. He is best understood as a strategic operator in a new interface of power—one who interacts with the state not by coding policy, but by prompting reaction. This conceptualization gains weight through two sources: the leaked Signal chat from March 2025 during a crisis involving the Houthis in Yemen, and the scathing critique issued by his former National Security Adviser, John Bolton.

The Signal chat leak offers a raw look into Trump’s governance during a military escalation. Rather than presenting a picture of centralized strategic deliberation, the chat reveals a reflexive, decentralized network where decisions are shaped by instinct and symbolism rather than doctrine. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s remarks on March 14 typify this: he reframes the mission not as a measured response to geopolitical complexities but as a symbolic effort to restore national credibility. The focus lies on emotional resonance—on reestablishing deterrence not through strategic consensus but through a narrative of restored strength. Trump, notably absent from direct quotes, exerts influence not by micro-managing or theorizing but by issuing ambient narrative cues, allowing subordinates to translate his instincts into symbolic and operational outcomes.

This dynamic is further illustrated by a moment of hesitation from Vice President JD Vance, who acknowledges a contradiction between Trump’s European messaging and the Yemen response but chooses silence in favor of team cohesion. Here, the logic of consistency yields to the logic of narrative flow. The operative metric is not strategic alignment but affective synchronization—does the action “feel right” within the prevailing emotional and symbolic environment?

Bolton’s critique, while grounded in institutional logic, fails to grasp the structural transformation at play. In both his memoir and subsequent interviews, Bolton frames Trump as intellectually hollow, impulsively transactional, and fatally unstrategic. He indicts Trump for prioritizing optics over alliances and personal instincts over grand strategy. Yet this critique assumes that the architecture of power remains anchored in Cold War-era statecraft—an assumption no longer tenable. Trump’s improvisationalism, his affinity for spectacle, and his focus on personal gain are not anomalies; they are functional features in a system that now rewards performative command over deliberative control. Bolton criticizes Trump for ignoring the rulebook, but as the Signal leak suggests, the rulebook itself is no longer the principal guide.

Trump’s efficacy lies not in policy mastery but in his ability to generate system responses through calibrated disruption. He does not seek to build alliances—he exerts pressure. He does not read intelligence for nuance—he distills emotion: “Are we strong?” “Do they respect us?” “Did Biden fail?” On March 15, despite the presence of a journalist in the Signal thread, sensitive operational details continued to circulate as the system moved toward action—not because of doctrinal necessity, but because Trump had injected a pulse into the machine. His Cabinet then translated this pulse into kinetic outcomes. This mode of leadership—issuing emotionally charged prompts rather than strategic directives—demonstrates a new form of governance. It is not a bug, but a feature within a Leviathan built to transform affect into force.

Trump’s leadership does not aspire to policy precision. It embodies performance. He dramatizes American sovereignty, not through the articulation of policy but through symbolic assertion: dominance, retaliation, pride. These are the building blocks of his political mythology. Where analysts like Bolton see incoherence, the system sees signal. Even when Trump’s directions are vague or misaligned, the machine adapts. The chat logs reveal a team improvising structure where none exists, executing directives that are intuitive rather than written. This is not dysfunction—it is strategic improvisation, a form of operational jazz where instinct leads and structure follows.

Ultimately, Trump is not a planner, a philosopher, or even a tactician. He is a user—an instinctive operator of the American Leviathan. He engages not through the creation of policy but through the triggering of symbolic mechanisms. His power lies in his ability to prompt, disrupt, and dominate the narrative field. In an era where spectacle substitutes for substance and emotional resonance outweighs strategic depth, Trump’s governance style proves unsettlingly effective. He and the Leviathan are not in conflict—they are in synchrony. And for now, their output defines the geopolitical stage.

What Is the American Leviathan?

To fully comprehend Donald Trump’s efficacy—perhaps even his danger—within the American political framework, one must look beyond the man himself and examine the machinery that processes his input. The United States, often idealized as a nation governed by doctrines, institutions, and democratic norms, has become something more diffuse and paradoxically resilient: a myth-driven, redundancy-optimized engine capable of producing coherence out of chaos. This machine is the American Leviathan—not a singular Hobbesian sovereign, but a decentralized, adaptive system that absorbs narrative shocks, projects symbolic coherence, and endures through institutional layering. It is this very Leviathan that allows Trump to function not as an anomaly, but as a fitting user—his impulses not breaking the machine, but fueling it.

Unlike other advanced states that rely on procedural cohesion and structured coalition-building, the American system is designed to absorb erratic inputs without collapsing. It is architected for motion, not purity. Power is distributed across a federal structure that deflects and redirects inertia, a media-industrial complex that provides symbolic continuity in lieu of policy clarity, and a national security apparatus that operates beneath the turbulence of presidential improvisation. Trump’s style—impulsive, performative, reactionary—fits this design. The leaked Signal chat from March 2025, during a crisis with the Houthis in Yemen, demonstrates the Leviathan’s operating logic in action. Vice President JD Vance’s admission—“Nobody knows who the Houthis are”—did not inhibit action. Instead, it framed the issue within a narrative scaffold: blame Biden, connect to Iran, and restore symbolic strength. The result was not strategic doctrine but actionable legitimacy drawn from ambiguity.

The American system is uniquely capable of enduring incoherence because its mythic elasticity allows endless reinterpretation. Its foundational stories—freedom, exceptionalism, righteous intervention—are not rigid scripts but open-ended prompts. Trump instinctively accesses this mythic terrain. He performs strength rather than defines it. He converts trade conflict into tales of justice. He casts domestic fractures as proof of patriotic rebirth. The Leviathan does not require leaders to be competent strategists; it merely requires that their narratives resonate with its survival imperative. After the Yemen airstrikes, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s congratulatory message to the Defense team reinforced this mythic function. The operation’s strategic significance may have been marginal, but its symbolic potency was undeniable. Ritual affirmation followed, not for military success but for narrative restoration.

Three structural features ensure the Leviathan's capacity to metabolize Trump-like leadership: redundancy, spectacle compatibility, and a systemic bias toward motion. First, redundancy—overlapping institutions ensure that even when the presidency falters, other mechanisms continue. The Pentagon, intelligence networks, and judicial arms can convert even half-formed directives into coherent outputs. Second, the system thrives in spectacle. American politics rewards visibility over depth; the presidency is as much theater as it is governance. Trump’s media instincts feed this system—he delivers content, and the system decodes it into action. Third, and perhaps most critically, the Leviathan is biased toward motion. Where parliamentary systems seek equilibrium, the American model prizes kinetic energy. Trump provides it in abundance. His actions, however disjointed, keep the system in flux—and in American politics, movement is a proxy for vitality.

This prompts a useful analogy: if Trump is the user, the Leviathan is the generative model—one trained not on logic alone, but on mythic narratives, institutional memory, and conflict rituals. His prompts—“Strike the Houthis,” “America must win again,” “NATO is a scam”—are not policy documents. They are emotive triggers. The Leviathan translates these pulses into real-world output: troop movements, congressional disputes, international repositioning, think tank re-strategizing. Even malformed prompts generate response. The machine does not rely on syntax; it thrives on signal. This is what the Signal chat leak ultimately reveals—not incompetence, but adaptation. Not chaos, but a different kind of order.

To anthropomorphize the Leviathan is a mistake. It is not a conscious entity with intent. It is a reactive intelligence—an ecosystem, not a mind. It seeks only three things: to remain present, to project coherent narrative, and to sustain global inertia. In this context, Trump is not misunderstood. He is hyper-legible. His speech patterns—fragmented, emotional, repetitive—are precisely the linguistic currency the Leviathan requires. He doesn’t communicate in strategy; he communicates in affect. And the machine, built for ambiguity, processes affect more fluently than reason.

Thus, the Leviathan is not Trump’s victim—it is his amplifier. Its design not only permits but demands figures like Trump, who move the system without knowing its internal schematics. He does not construct; he stimulates. The Leviathan, in turn, does not legislate by logic; it metabolizes contradiction and converts it into motion. And in a world where old orders are breaking and certainty is a luxury, such a machine—noisy, mythic, and mutative—still functions. The real revelation is not that Trump endured his presidency. It is that the Leviathan adapted to him—and moved forward anyway.

A Moment of Fit – Trump, the Leviathan, and the Age of Strategic Ambiguity

Having examined Donald Trump as a prompt-giver rather than a policy architect, and the American Leviathan as a narrative-processing machine rather than a doctrinal empire, we now arrive at the third axis of understanding: the world itself. From 2025 to 2030, the global environment has undergone a metamorphosis—not a return to great power orthodoxy, but a deep plunge into ambiguous multipolarity. This is not a landscape structured by territorial conquest or legalistic alliances. Instead, it is one ruled by control over symbolic bandwidth, by the ability to generate friction in the narrative sphere, and by those who can manipulate perception as effectively as past empires wielded tanks or treaties. In this terrain, the strange fusion of Trump and the Leviathan is not a crisis—it is an alignment. One may even say, an evolutionary match.

Our analyses describe a world where strategy has been dethroned by reflex. Traditional hallmarks of international relations—balance of power, institutional legitimacy, formalized alliances—have been replaced with more liquid principles: perceptual symmetry, fragmented coalitions, and belief-driven governance. Power now flows to those who can dance between ambiguity and assertion without rupturing the coherence of their own mythos. Trump, then, becomes viable not because he is an exception to the rule, but because he reflects the rule’s mutation. He is not a master of doctrine—he is a master of distortion. He does not craft long-term strategy—he generates fog, triggers movement, and dominates symbolic attention. His survival and influence emerge not from mastery over the machine, but from his raw compatibility with its new grammar.

The Leviathan, in this emergent world, is less a modern state and more a postmodern symbolic superstructure. It does not govern through clarity—it governs through modulation. It projects deterrence without formal declaration. It maintains strategic relationships not through binding treaties, but through a stream of symbolic gestures, threats, and reinterpretations. In this context, ambiguity is not a defect—it is method. It is survival. Trump’s instincts are precisely tuned to this postmodern logic. He threatens institutions to force their reconfiguration. He destabilizes allies only for the system to auto-correct. He removes high-ranking officials via social media, but the machinery below reroutes, adapts, and moves forward. Chaos is not collapse. It is stimulus. And the Leviathan metabolizes it, converting disruption into continuity through reflexive myth-making.

Importantly, this convergence was not planned. Trump did not create the conditions for this fit; he simply arrived at the moment they emerged. The post-Cold War consensus had already unraveled. The liberal order was running on the fumes of symbolic legitimacy. The digital-media environment had flooded every institutional surface with performative feedback loops. In that setting, Trump acted less as a revolutionary and more as a reflective surface—mirroring a world already in transformation. The Leviathan, for its part, did not elevate Trump out of belief. It elevated him because it was structurally capable of converting his impulses into viable action. Trump was not its creator; he was its emergent user.

But this moment of fit is not a settled state. It is transitional. Systems evolve. Users mutate. The true danger is not Trump himself, but what he portends: a system increasingly reliant on disruption as stimulus, and thus increasingly vulnerable to actors who understand how to weaponize that need with greater intention. The Leviathan, having adapted to Trump’s instincts, may find itself even more compatible with a future figure—less impulsive, more methodical, and more strategically dangerous. We are no longer witnessing an anomaly. We are observing the formation of a new interface between elite behavior and structural machinery. Strategy is no longer a blueprint—it is a reflex. Institutions are no longer guided—they are triggered. Power is no longer held—it is summoned into being through performance.

In the end, the relationship between Trump and the Leviathan reveals not a fall from grace, but a new configuration of agency and structure. Trump fits the Leviathan not because he reshaped it, but because both are artifacts of the same epochal transition—from rationalism to narrative, from order to improvisation, from stability to high-functioning ambiguity. He is not the architect—he is the operator. The Leviathan is not a beacon of moral clarity—it is a reactive engine for symbolic governance. And the world in which they thrive is neither stable nor entirely chaotic, but something more fluid and disorienting: a world built not to last, but to respond.

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Notice on the “Houthi PC Small Group” Leak: Theater, Intent, and the Signal Leviathan

Was Jeffrey Goldberg added to this Signal thread by mistake? That is the question which opens—and quietly haunts—this transcript.

Simulation of the chat log

If it was accidental, it raises immediate concerns about both operational discipline and journalistic integrity. Why did Goldberg not speak up or recuse himself? In high-level crisis coordination—especially involving national security and potential military action—the presence of a journalist should have triggered immediate red flags. His silence inside the thread is as telling as any quote: a decision to watch rather than warn, to witness rather than withdraw.

Equally troubling is the platform itself. While Signal is a widely respected encrypted messaging tool, it is still an open-source application—not a secure communications environment officially sanctioned or controlled by the Department of Defense or the National Security Council. The use of Signal for what appears to be pre-kinetic military coordination by senior U.S. officials, including the Secretary of Defense, the Vice President, and intelligence community liaisons, invites serious questions about protocol, chain of command, and cyber-hygiene under operational pressure.

But perhaps the real question isn’t about accident or recklessness.

What if this wasn’t a mistake at all?

What if Goldberg was included deliberately—inserted not to be informed, but to observe? Not to report, but to witness? In such a scenario, this leak isn’t a breach. It’s a signal. Not a failure of secrecy, but a calculated performance.

The Trump administration, after all, has a precedent for breaking traditional diplomatic choreography. One need only recall the live-broadcast confrontation between President Trump and President Zelenskyy—an unprecedented public humiliation of a foreign head of state in the White House, shattering decades of behind-closed-doors decorum. That moment, too, was theatrical, strategically unscripted, and designed for maximum symbolic impact. In many ways, it wasn’t a breakdown of diplomacy—it was diplomacy reconstituted as interface spectacle.

This Signal transcript must be read in the same register. Not merely as a log of procedural breakdowns or political tension, but as a glimpse into the performance logic of 21st-century power. We are no longer governed in secrecy, but in staged visibility. And what matters most may not be the action taken—but the narrative constructed in full view of a global audience trained to interpret confrontation, ambiguity, and drama as legitimacy.

Simulated Chat Log (from Goldbergs' article)

Signal Group Chat: “Houthi PC Small Group”

📆 Thursday, March 13, 2025

🕓 4:28 PM — Michael Waltz

Team – establishing a principals group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours.

My deputy, Alex Wong, is pulling together a tiger team at the deputies/agency Chief of Staff level following up from the Sit Room meeting this morning. He’ll send action items later this evening.

Please provide the best staff point of contact from your team for coordination over the next couple of days and weekend. Thank you.

🕓 4:29 PM — MAR (Marco Rubio)

Mike Needham for State.

🕓 4:29 PM — JD Vance

Andy Baker for VP.

🕓 4:30 PM — TG (Tulsi Gabbard)

Joe Kent for DNI.

🕓 4:38 PM — Scott B (Scott Bessent)

Dan Katz for Treasury.

🕓 4:53 PM — Pete Hegseth

Dan Caldwell for Defense.

🕕 6:34 PM — Brian (NSC)

Brian McCormack for NSC.

🕔 5:24 PM — John Ratcliffe

[CIA contact — redacted]

🧑‍💼 "JG" (Jeffrey Goldberg) remains in the chat, unnoticed.

📆 Friday, March 14, 2025

🕗 8:05 AM — Michael Waltz

Team, you should have a statement of conclusions with taskings per the President’s guidance this morning in your high-side inboxes.

State and Defense, we developed suggested notification lists for regional allies and partners.

Joint Staff is sending this morning a more specific sequence of events for the coming days. We’ll work with Defense to ensure the Chief of Staff, Vice President, and President are briefed.

🕗 8:16 AM — JD Vance

Team, I’m out for the day for an economic event in Michigan.

I believe we may be making a strategic error.

Only 3 percent of U.S. trade runs through the Suez; for Europe, it’s 40 percent.

The public may not understand the urgency, and we could face a political backlash.

The strongest justification, as the President noted, is to send a signal.

But I am unsure whether the President sees how this conflicts with our broader posture on Europe.

Oil prices could spike. I’m willing to support the consensus and keep these concerns internal, but I believe there’s a strong argument for delaying a month, focusing on messaging, and reassessing the economic landscape.

🕗 8:22 AM — Joe Kent

Nothing about the timeline is urgent.

All current options remain viable in a month.

🕗 8:26 AM — John Ratcliffe

[Redacted: references to active intelligence operations.]

🕗 8:27 AM — Pete Hegseth

Vice President: I understand your concerns and support raising them with the President.

These are important factors — economic volatility, Ukraine, Gaza — all uncertain.

Messaging will be difficult regardless — most Americans don’t know who the Houthis are.

We must anchor messaging around:

1. The Biden administration’s failure

2. Iranian sponsorship of the Houthis

Delaying would not change the fundamentals.

Risks in waiting:

1. The plan leaks, and we appear indecisive

2. Israel acts first, or the Gaza ceasefire collapses, and we lose narrative control

We are operationally ready. If I had final vote authority, I would proceed.

This is less about the Houthis and more about:

1. Ensuring freedom of navigation

2. Reestablishing American deterrence

We can pause if needed. If we do, I will maintain full operations security. Open to further views.

🕗 8:40 AM — Michael Waltz

Whether now or weeks from now, reopening the shipping lanes will fall to us.

Per the President’s request, we are coordinating with Defense and State to compile the costs and determine how to allocate them to the Europeans.

Their naval capacity is insufficient. The responsibility lies with the U.S.

🕗 8:45 AM — JD Vance (to Hegseth)

If you believe the time is now, I’ll defer.

I just resent bailing Europe out yet again.

🕗 8:48 AM — Pete Hegseth

Vice President: I agree. Europe’s lack of contribution is frustrating.

But Waltz is right — we’re the only capable actor on this side of the equation.

Nobody else has the capability.

In terms of timing: with POTUS directive in hand, this is as good a time as any.

I support moving forward, but POTUS retains 24 hours of decision time.

🕘 8:50 AM — S M (Stephen Miller)

The President was clear: green light.

But we must communicate clearly with Egypt and Europe about our expectations.

If they benefit from this, there must be reciprocity.

If Europe does not remunerate or contribute, we need to determine what actions we will take in response.

Restoring maritime security must have economic value returned to the U.S.

🕘 9:46 AM — Pete Hegseth

Agreed.

📆 Saturday, March 15, 2025

🕚 11:44 AM — Pete Hegseth

Team Update: [Redacted operational brief – targets, strike sequencing, weapons systems.]

🕚 11:45 AM — JD Vance

I will say a prayer for success.

🕐 1:45 PM ET — Strikes commence

[secret military operation begins]

Reports of explosions in Sanaa surface online.

🕐 1:48 PM — Michael Waltz

Operation executed. Assessment pending. Excellent work so far.

🕐 1:50 PM — John Ratcliffe

A good start.

🕐 1:55 PM — MAR (Marco Rubio)

Well done, Pete. Please extend appreciation to your team.

🕐 1:56 PM — Susie Wiles

Congratulations to all involved — especially those in theater and at CENTCOM. Outstanding effort. God bless.

🕐 1:58 PM — Steve Witkoff

A strong day for American leadership.

🕐 2:00 PM — TG (Tulsi Gabbard)

Effective coordination. Results speak for themselves.

🕐 2:10 PM — [Follow-up reports and damage assessment]

[Redacted: estimated casualty count and confirmation of targeted deaths.]

📆 Later That Day

🧑‍💼 Jeffrey Goldberg quietly exits the group.

System Notification:

JG has left the chat.

(No acknowledgment or reaction from participants.)

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Geopolitical Memoir: A New Era of Strategic Intelligence

We have introduced a new section, “Geopolitical Memoir,” powered by our most capable AI, The Knave III-e, and our groundbreaking invention, the Meta-Geopolitical Knowledge Capsule. This section represents a departure from our usual research-heavy reports, which are published on a monthly cycle with extensive data analysis and long-term forecasting. Instead, this memoir provides on-time, rapid assessments designed to capture the fluidity of geopolitical shifts as they happen.

The world is entering a new era of high-stakes power moves, largely driven by Trump’s recalibration of U.S. global strategy. His approach—unstructured yet methodical, unconventional yet deeply strategic—has created a cascade effect across global politics. As a result, the pace of geopolitical change is accelerating, requiring a new intelligence framework that can analyze immediate developments while embedding them within a long-term strategic vision.

This memoir serves a dual purpose. First, it functions as a knowledge base, ensuring clarity amid the chaos of shifting alliances and power struggles. Second, it acts as a catch-up mechanism, allowing decision-makers to remain ahead of emerging global disruptions. By maintaining this balance, we ensure that our insights are both timely and structurally sound, bridging the gap between immediate reactions and deep analytical foresight.

With Trump’s unconventional but deliberate deal-making, Putin’s careful recalibration, and the unraveling of old global alignments, the geopolitical board is resetting faster than at any point since the Cold War. The rules of engagement are changing, and traditional paradigms no longer apply. This memoir is designed to keep pace with these rapid shifts, offering clear, immediate insights while anchoring them within a broader strategic framework.