In a global plot twist seemingly lifted from the pages of some reality-bending tale by Cortazar or Calvino, the world this week appeared to bifurcate into two separate timelines, mutually exclusive and irreconcilably antagonistic.
On the one — the timeline of independence, liberty, and common sense — the triumphal return of Donald Trump to the Oval Office has produced an effusion of encouraging new policies, from the withdrawal (again!) of the United States from both the World Health Organization and the Paris climate treaty, to the banishment of DEI from the federal government, to the release of the J6 political prisoners, among many other laudable things. In this timeline, which a growing coterie of like-minded world leaders, from Argentina’s Milei to Italy’s Meloni, the free nations of the world would get back to the business of optimizing individual liberty and economic growth, while unapologetically defending national sovereignty and repudiating socialism in all of its economic and anti-moral aspects.
On the other timeline, at the annual Davos conference of the World Economic Forum, the leadership of the socialist remnant, acting as if nothing of consequence had happened an ocean away on January 20, continued to argue for more centralized government, for more environmental shackles on business and industry, for more controls on free speech, and for more empowerment of “the international system” they have erected to serve their own interests.
Because of the hypnotic fascination that Donald Trump exerts even on his foes, media attention this week — in contrast with other late Januarys of recent memory — has been riveted on the goings-on inside the Beltway, to the almost complete exclusion of the ditherers in Davos.
WEF Still in Action
But that does not mean that the WEF elites (and their enablers in the UN-centered global system) have been rendered irrelevant and impotent by a changing of the guard in Washington. As evidenced by their words so far, the WEF is as determined as ever to drive its globalist agenda forward, the increasingly shrill voice of electorates on both sides of the Atlantic notwithstanding. António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general and one of the highest-profile attendees at Davos, warned that the “fossil fuel addiction” of the developed world is a “Frankenstein monster, sparing nothing and no one. All around us, we see clear signs that the monster has become master.” This, in seemingly willful ignorance of the fact that a man, one of whose most memeworthy campaign promises was “drill, baby, drill,” has just inherited the keys to the Oval Office.
Trump and the new Republican majority may have resolved to return to the policy of unabashed petroleum extraction and energy production, but Guterres and his fervent apostles at the WEF seem to think that the United States is still champing at the bit to shut down automobile and appliance manufacturing, and shutter every last refinery. For a conference whose advertised theme is “Collaboration for the Intelligent Age,” Guterres’ oblivious remarks set the stage for a gathering which, as usual, is proving neither collaborative nor intelligent.
Green Capitalism
For one thing, the WEF is, as always, ideologically hostage to the twin conceits of “stakeholder capitalism” and “sustainable development,” both of which are warmed-over bromides originating from the wacky worldview of postmodern leftism.
“Stakeholder capitalism” is just the latest vogue designed to dilute the creative and liberating power of the free market, while “sustainable development” is the all-encompassing ideological pretext for globalism in the name of the environmental commons. For example, the January 23 program, under the subtheme “Safeguarding the Planet,” will feature a panel of speakers to discuss the “new trilemma: climate, development, and the middle class,” which will ponder how OECD countries can continue to meet their “climate mitigation” goals while not stifling economic development. That particular panel will feature a superannuated Al Gore, a household name three decades ago, but about as relevant today as a VHS cassette player.
Also on deck for tomorrow’s pro-planet-palooza are panels pondering a “new agreement on plastics” (“What will it Take?”) and urging “All Hands on Deck for the Energy Transition.” By this last is meant the phaseout of fossil fuels, in which the late, unlamented Biden administration were enthusiastic accomplices. But that era is consigned to the proverbial dustbin, so how, exactly, do the Davos do-gooders intend to work their will on MAGA-fied America?
“Rebuilding Trust”
Well, previous Davos gatherings have had a subtheme dedicated to “rebuilding trust,” a tacit admission of the collapse of credibility that globalism has suffered in recent years. This year is no exception, with one of its five subthemes formulaically titled “Rebuilding Trust.” But poke around a little under the heading, and you’ll find the offerings very sparse relative to previous years. In fact, in contrast to last year’s event, there appear to be no panels dedicated to the theme of re-indoctrinating — ahem, rebuilding trust — in globalist ideology. Instead, this year’s few panels are dedicated to things such as “Art with a Mission,” “Lowering the Temperature in the Middle East,” and “Navigating Asia’s Hotspots,” with nary a word about how to persuade the refractory general publics in Europe and America that globalists are to be trusted and revered.
Trump Alert
Well, then, maybe the WEF subtheme “Investing in People” will include some sop to the new populism. To be sure, this domain is populated with a lot more panels and discussants than “Rebuilding Trust.” But one particular entry, a keynote speech by Yale historian Timothy Snyder entitled “On Freedom,” says it all. Snyder, for the uninitiated, is a historian of European totalitarianism, including both Nazism and Stalinism. But he is now one of President Trump’s most strident critics, warning with apocalyptic gravitas of Trump’s looming authoritarianism. The new Trump administration nominees, he thundered on his popular Substack, “look like a decapitation strike: destroying the American government from the top, leaving the body politic to rot, and the rest of us to suffer.”
Not only that, Snyder has warned, without a trace of irony, of an “international oligarchy inside the American capitol” — referring, of course, to Donald Trump and his minions, and not to all the benevolent billionaires aligned with the Democrats, the globalists, the radical Left, and the general causes of decency and common sense. One supposes that Snyder’s fulminations about oligarchy were the source of outgoing President Biden’s ominous ravings about the same will-o-the-wisp. And one also can easily imagine what Snyder’s take on the new Trump administration will be for the fawning ideologues at Davos.
Elites in Denial
So the world’s elites continue in deep denial of a new global reality betokened by the American elections (and, soon, to be reinforced by this year’s elections in Canada, where Establishment darling Justin Trudeau has already been given the heave-heau). They continue to party like it’s 1984, smugly secure in their delusions of remaining forever the global managerial class.
For that portion of the world that remains mired in socialism (Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez were both featured speakers at Davos), this may well be true. But for the growing number of countries — Italy, Argentina, El Salvador, Hungary, etc., besides the United States — that are on the alternate timeline of liberty, independence, and prosperity, the doings at Davos no longer have the power to captivate.
