They Use Them — Then Replace Them

Most people misunderstand modern geopolitical conflict because they still think in left vs right or capital vs labor.

That frame is obsolete.

The real conflict today — domestically and internationally — is:

New Elites + Working Class
vs
Old Elites + Upper-Middle Class

Once you see this, Trump, tech money, China, Europe, crypto, AI, and even the Fed snap into place.

This is not ideology.
It’s coalitional physics.

1. The Old Order: Managerial Capitalism

The post-WWII system was not “capitalism.”
It was managerial capitalism.

Its ruling class was:

  • Bureaucrats
  • Credentialed professionals
  • Institutional finance
  • International regulators
  • NGOs, think tanks, compliance layers

Domestically:
→ the Professional–Managerial Class (PMC)

Internationally:
→ EU technocrats, Bretton Woods institutions, Atlanticist diplomacy

Their power came from:

  • Controlling rules
  • Controlling legitimacy
  • Controlling money flows
  • Controlling credentials

They did not build.
They administered.

And like all administrative classes, they eventually became the bottleneck.

2. Why the New Elites Hate Them

The New Elites are not “Republicans” in the old sense.

They are:

  • Founders
  • Engineers
  • Capital allocators
  • Accelerationists
  • Sovereign thinkers

Trump is not their philosopher — he’s their battering ram.

Their enemy is not the poor.
It’s the middle layer that tells builders “no.”

The compliance officer.
The regulator.
The committee.
The ESG memo.
The supranational moral authority.

From Silicon Valley’s perspective, the EU is not a partner — it’s an HR department with nukes outsourced to the US.

So the goal is not to “win elections.”
It’s to delete the managerial layer.

3. Why the Working Class Is Useful (Briefly)

Revolutions never start with elites alone.
They start with alliances of convenience.

The working class provides:

  • Votes
  • Bodies
  • Moral legitimacy
  • Disruption energy
  • Chaos leverage

Trump’s base serves the same function domestically that China serves internationally.

They are the force multiplier against the Old Order.

But here’s the historical constant:

Revolutionary elites are warm to labor only until victory.

After that, sentimentality disappears.

4. China’s Role: Creditor, Wedge, Accelerator

China is not useful because it manufactures things.
That’s a shallow read.

China is useful because it holds leverage inside the old system.

China is:

  • A major holder of US debt
  • A deflationary export machine aimed directly at Europe
  • A balance-sheet stressor, not a battlefield ally

This makes China uniquely effective during systemic demolition.

What China actually does for the New Elites

China helps to:

  • Accelerate European de-industrialization
    Cheap Chinese EVs, batteries, solar, machinery do not “compete” with Europe — they erase margins. Germany doesn’t lose morally; it loses financially.

  • Trigger fiscal stress inside the EU
    As industry collapses, tax bases shrink, welfare costs rise, banks wobble. Southern Europe re-enters crisis mode. Northern Europe can’t carry them forever.

  • Expose the fiction of Atlanticist coordination
    The EU cannot regulate its way out of a balance-sheet problem. Rule-based governance collapses the moment trade flows overwhelm it.

  • Act as the external deflationary force that the US can no longer be without breaking its own politics.

China doesn’t need to “win.”
It only needs to keep selling.

That alone is enough to bankrupt Europe’s old industrial core and force political fragmentation.

The key point

China’s strength here is financial and material leverage inside the old regime — not ideology, not trust, not partnership.

That makes China useful.

Temporarily.

5. The Abandonment: Not War, Not Sanctions — Accounting

China is not discarded because of ideology.
It is discarded because the settlement layer changes.

The betrayal is not military.
It is monetary and infrastructural.

The Logic Switch

“Don’t steal the money. Own the store.”

Old elites (FDR, Bretton Woods, central banks) needed confiscation:

  • Seize gold
  • Control banks
  • Freeze accounts

They had to save the banking system.

The New Elites don’t.

They want to replace it.

Their strategy is simpler and colder:

Let everyone keep their Bitcoin.
Own the things Bitcoin is spent on.

Energy.
Compute.
Land.
Access.

You don’t need to seize wealth if you control rent extraction.

6. International Relations, Rewritten

This is not liberalism vs realism.

It’s Coalitional Regime Theory:

Group Function
Old Elites Finance/Law/Manager
Upper-Middle Class Homeowner + NASDAQ + admin
New Elites Asset control + acceleration
Working Class Force + disruption

Foreign policy is simply coalition management across borders.

China plays the role internationally that the working class plays domestically:

  • Necessary
  • Powerful
  • Temporarily respected
  • Eventually displaced

7. What Actually Matters to the New Elites

Strip away rhetoric and elections. What remains?

Important

  • Military (but privatized)
  • Energy (watts = compute)
  • Land (servers, sovereignty, security)
  • Control systems (AI, protocols, settlement layers)

Unimportant

  • Public markets
  • Institutional prestige
  • Global consensus
  • Moral authority
  • Paper wealth held by pension funds

NASDAQ is not power.
It’s exit liquidity for the old regime.

8. The Endgame: Cold, Clean, Quiet

If this trajectory continues, the world does not explode.

It resegments.

  • A fortified, high-margin techno-core
  • A vast, low-margin production periphery
  • Minimal ideology
  • Maximum asymmetry
  • No sentimental alliances

China is not defeated.
It is outgrown.

The working class is not liberated.
It is automated.

And the Old Elites are not overthrown dramatically.
They are defunded and ignored.

That’s how modern revolutions actually end.

Not with guillotines.
With irrelevance.

Note on Bitcoin Confiscation

Soft Confiscation #1: The Infinite Bid

Instead of Executive Order 6102, you get this:

  • The US prints the last fiat liquidity
  • Buys Bitcoin aggressively
  • Declares a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

Price explodes:
$1M → $5M → $10M per BTC.

Retail cheers.
They think they’ve won.

But ownership concentrates.

If the US government, BlackRock, and aligned custodians own the majority of supply, then:

  • You are not sovereign with 0.01 BTC
  • You are a medieval peasant with a gold coin
  • Rich on paper, powerless in reality

They didn’t take your Bitcoin.
They priced you out of relevance.

Soft Confiscation #2: The Two-Tier Bitcoin

This is the most realistic move.

No bans.
No seizures.
Just classification.

White BTC

  • Mined on US energy
  • Custodied (Coinbase, Fidelity)
  • Fully KYC’d
  • Accepted for taxes, land, AI access, utilities

Grey BTC

  • Self-custody
  • Foreign-mined (China, Global South)
  • “Unverified provenance”

The rule is simple:

“Grey BTC is not valid payment inside the Western core.”

Your Bitcoin still exists.
You just can’t use it where life actually happens.

To participate, you must:

  • Launder Grey BTC into White BTC
  • Pay fees, taxes, discounts
  • Accept surveillance

That is economic gentrification, not confiscation.

Why This Abandons China Cleanly

China may hold Bitcoin.
China may hold dollars.
China may hold production capacity.

None of that matters if:

  • Energy is US-controlled
  • Compute is US-gated
  • Land access is US-regulated
  • Settlement legitimacy is US-defined

China doesn’t get sanctioned.
It gets priced into the periphery.

Still trading.
Still producing.
Still solvent.

But permanently excluded from the high-rent core.

The End State

China helped demolish:

  • European industry
  • Atlanticist legitimacy
  • Rule-based coordination

Once that job is done, China becomes:

A legacy system with maintenance costs
Operating outside the gated network

Not an enemy.
Not a partner.

Just… external.

No war.
No drama.
Just a quiet rerouting of value flows.

That’s how modern empires end alliances now.