Jacobin, Burgis: This electoral cycle, the Right has been talking nonstop about “the border,” painting an apocalyptic picture of an immigrant invasion threatening to plunge America into chaos. In the process, they’re revealing themselves as scapegoating pseudo-populists.
Jeffrey Sachs 15.1.2024
Only an exceptional president could resist the endless war-profiteering of this mammoth war machine; alas, Biden doesn’t even try.
Kishore Mahbubani Dec 12, 2023: It is true that on Ukraine, the US, at least, has shown geopolitical cunning rather than incompetence, creating European dependence on Washington at a time when the Americans want to rally support for applying greater pressure on China. Yet the US may come to find that these geopolitical dividends turn out to be temporary. Russia could still collapse under combined western pressure, although this seems increasingly unlikely. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, may have to accept a painful compromise. And if that is the outcome, the non-western countries will ask, ‘What was the point of it all?’
The massive amounts of aid sent to Ukraine only confirmed the growing belief in the global south that the west doesn’t really care for it. Significantly, the Russian invasion took place while memories were still fresh of the Covid pandemic, during which the global south saw a surplus of vaccines in the west that was not shared with them.
Most haunting of all for governments in that region is the possibility that Trump could return to power. And if he does it will be a nastier and angrier Trump who will tear up the climate accords again, ignore the UN and use American power to bully other countries bilaterally.
Even with the best social science tools at its disposal, the American establishment still can’t figure out the sources of the anger that is leading so many Americans to vote for Trump. A bitterly divided society can no longer serve as the “shining city on the hill” for the rest of the world.
All of which is to say that something profound is happening in the world — a kind of metaphysical detachment of the west from the rest.