The Fitzgerald Effect Crashes Back – A “Little” Party, A Hunger Games Reality

American families scramble for groceries, but Trump throws a blowout at Mar-a-Lago. The theme? “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody.” It’s straight-up in-your-face provocation.

Maybe Trump’s not lying. The American Dream—he’s just exposing the ugly truth. In America, only the moguls get to dream. Everyone else? Forget it. That party at Mar-a-Lago? Luxury everywhere, feathered hairpieces sparkling, and champagne flooding the room. Dancers in flapper dresses swirling through the crowd, acrobats splashing inside giant golden martini glasses. It's pure Gatsby—vintage 1920s glitz.

Haruki Murakami, the famed writer did the Japanese version of “The Great Gatsby”, nailed it:   1920s was America’s “Jazz Age”. It was Fitzgerald’s playground, his prime. The book and a string of ten iconic short stories put him in the American classics club. Missed the Mar-a-Lago bash? Catch Leonardo DiCaprio’s Gatsby flick of 2013 and get swept up in that old-school dream.

The point is, Fitzgerald’s classic dropped in 1925. Back then, nobody saw the storm brewing, but the bubbles were stacking up beneath the surface, waiting to explode.

The Great Depression and the New Deal

“From 1929 to 1933, America took a nosedive. Factory output tanked by a third. Prices dropped twenty percent, and debt got even harder to pay off. Unemployment spiked from 4% to a whopping 25%. One-third of workers got shoved into low-wage, temp jobs. By the end, half the country was sitting idle.” Wikipedia spells it out. Sound familiar?

However, Fitzgerald was never there to see the brutality of life  himself. After 1930, his writing days faded fast, and he died at the age of 44. “The great American writer” spent his final stretch trapped by booze, anxiety, and heartbreak.

But oh did God bless the United States. Roosevelt steps in during ’32, rolls out the “New Deal” a year later. Let’s call it what it is—Roosevelt gave the USA its first taste of socialism. If you think about it, Deng Xiaoping wasn’t the pioneer of mixing systems after all.

The New Deal rewires finance to block another meltdown like the Great Depression. Social Security comes online, labor standards get locked in, minimum wage, max hours. The SEC and FDIC show up to police Wall Street and protect bank deposits. America goes full “big government,” especially in the economy. Then war breaks out, and the New Deal taps out. That’s when American capitalism catches its second wind.

America and the never-ending War

Eisenhower holds the White House for eight years. Before leaving in ’61, he warns: “This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience… In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” But look what happened next?

According to Xinhua, between WWII’s end and 2001, there were 248 armed conflicts in 153 regions worldwide. America started 201 of them. Since 2000, the US has unleashed its military everywhere—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria—selling the world “freedom, democracy, and human rights.” The result? The American war machine sets countries aflame, leaving over 900,000 dead, millions wounded, tens of millions running for their lives.

“A Little Party Never Killed Nobody.” That’s rich—while moguls and celebrities toast behind the velvet ropes of Mar-a-Lago, the rest choke on the fumes of old mistakes. Eisenhower warned about the war machine, but America’s elite ignored the alarm.

So here we are: the evil mist rolls in again, thick with class arrogance and broken dreams. The champions of decadence pick Halloween for their masquerade, parading shamelessly through the wreckage—then call it destiny.

Deep Blue

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The “decapitation” hype just hit fever pitch. Here’s the bold new chatter: Japan’s defense officials told local media that if the Fujian carrier ever enters the Taiwan Strait, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces should team up with the US military and put sinking it at the top of their to-do list.
  
This is what some war games lay out: If China ever expands its strikes from Kyushu and Okinawa all the way down to the Nansei Islands—plus every US base along the chain—Japan would recoil into defensive mode. And then, Taiwan has no choice but to do the same, as well as the US. Suddenly Tokyo, Taipei, and Washington are all in the same foxhole. The old “defend Taiwan” story morphs into an East Asia mega-battle, where there’s zero daylight between countering threats to Taiwan and threats to Japan.
 
That’s why, as Taiwan commentator Lai Yi-chung pointed out back in July 2023, everyone needs ironclad, three-way security channels—whether defending Taiwan, Japan, or America.
  
Solid logic, the old Russian doll theory: If Taiwan’s in trouble, so is Japan, so is the US. Back under Abe, nerves in Tokyo were already frayed, serving the right wing a golden opportunity. When COVID still stalked the world in 2022, Japan mapped out a plan for 1,000 anti-ship missiles—that’s three for each of China’s 300 warships (now nearly 400, more than even America fields). Their message was clear: Chinese carriers are to be sunk before they ever manage to sail. Taiwan’s mainstream loved it. Double insurance from both the US and Japan, island stability—no need for unification nor independence. Case closed.
  
Then came reality—the Fujian carrier entered service, and shattered this stack of Russian dolls to dust. America sobered up first. The others? Not even worth a footnote.
  
Punchline to the War Game
Last weekend, China Central TV pulled back the curtain: “2 Seconds, 20+ Years—The Untold Grit Behind Fujian’s Launch.” Here’s the money quote from the expert: “Sure, our carrier jets can blast off in two seconds. But getting to that moment took more than 20 years of grit. At the start, plenty doubted. Foreign giants spent decades and still fell short. Could China pull it off? Turns out, yes we can.”
  
The narrative’s heart-tugging, but the real story is buried in the specs. Qiao Jia, who led the Fujian’s construction, spells it out: Unlike Liaoning or Shandong, the Fujian is China’s first homegrown, catapult-equipped aircraft carrier. And it doesn’t just use any catapult system—it’s the world’s first with a conventional-power electromagnetic catapult. Every inch of that tech pushed China’s engineers to the brink, and they didn’t blink.
 
Here’s the cold, hard takeaway: Don’t just stare at the Fujian in awe, or obsess over the road China traveled to get here. The killer fact is, after more than 20 years of grinding, China now owns this tech—and its world-class manufacturing machine means the next Fujian-level carrier could roll out in two years, one year, half a year, or even just two months.
  
No Magic, Just Muscle
Why should anyone take China at its word? Are the claims real—or just bluster? Against nonstop foreign skepticism and a wall of Western tech barricades, CCTV lays it bare: “We started from zero. No playbook. No shortcuts. Real power tech isn’t handed down or bought in a back room. Only by blazing new trails, daring to outdo the world, grinding in silence, and refusing to quit can we keep smashing ceilings—and locking core tech in Chinese hands.” In short, that “Made in China” label? It’s the one thing no rival can beat.
 
Let’s cut the magic act—there’s no David Copperfield here. Think Japan’s top brass wants to wait for a Trump comeback to “sink Fujian”? By all means, keep waiting. If you’ve got the nerve, then step up and show us.