Tariffs, the Far Right, and Imperialist Geopolitics
Making sense of the post-American world starts with understanding that a lot of the nightmares and news shocks of today are all related. This is how.
I live in a beach town, and when I’m looking out at the water, I often find myself synthesizing all the various bits of news, trends, and concepts bumping around in my head. What starts as a jumble forms into coherence.
Yesterday, I was at the beach after training jiu jitsu in the morning, contemplating my frustration at some of the things I’ve been hearing policymakers say lately. It feels like the people who do anything that intersects with national security or economic policy have no idea how to deal with the realities of our current moment. Like everything they think they know about geopolitics and international order really is wrong.
So, waves lapping in the background, I turned on the camera and tried to explain how so many aspects of world news right now are actually related: the “Network State” phenomenon; Trump’s tariffs; imperialist foreign policy; the rise in military spending; US threats to take Greenland; MAGA’s hatred of Europe; and Canada’s break from the US. It’s all connected!
More worrying than what they DO know, or think they know, is what these policy makers most certainly DON’T know. They may or may not be intelligent individuals, but they sure are ignorant, literally unworldly. Which goes to show that (donor) money can’t buy you brains, or geopolitical nous.