Maybe it's a harbinger of things to come and the odd historical fact that on the day that the U.S. presidential inauguration takes place is the same day as the start of the World Economic Forum in the bourgeoisie enclave in the Swiss Alps. Maybe, many will think that this is some pre-destined event and a harbinger of what the world should expert from Donald John Trump 2.0. For years now, the annual gathering of the world's elite at Davos has been a kind of meeting that sought to carve up the world in their own interests based on the prevailing political orthodoxy.
Davos has come to epitomize an assembly of well-heeled, ultra-rich elites and corporate power brokers who wax eloquent on the dogmas of globalization, and cloaked themselves in the bromides of a bygone liberal age. They all profess to love open borders (at least for big Trump sanctioned business), privileged cosmopolitan connections over national allegiance, and moved hand-in-hand with a class of technocrats in the West's political establishment that has grown steadily more distant from the voters who put them in power. Look no further than the 13 billionaires now set to be part of the Trump 2.o Administration to understand the symbiotic relationship between Davos and Washington.
Donald Trump and the wave of populist, illiberal leaders that have come to the fore in the West over the past decade or so found a useful punching bag in the form of the "Davos Man." Not that Trump and his cohorts have abandoned the Davos elite. It's just that globalization and an internationalist spirit long championed at Davos is, in their new-age view, the source of much of what ails their countries: the hollowing out of industrial heartlands (driven by cheap labor in places like China and India), the acceleration of multiculturalism (DEI and "wokeness"), the rise of China at the expense of the West, and the elite's fixation on costly green energy transitions.
The Davos Crowd's angry nationalism is a rejection of two decades of rampant liberalism or neoliberalism that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. But most interestingly it is the rejection of Pax Americana - the so-called American century - and the hegemony of the United States "rules-based, world order" after 80 years of post-World War II control. And Donald Trump is the new populist leader with a zero-sum mentality who sees the world in black and white, and an idiotic calling to "Make America Great Again." For starters, he says that he'll slap tariffs on geopolitical adversaries and allies alike, a move that could trigger a sprawling set of retaliatory actions that may upend global trade as we know it. That's why elites at Davos are worried.
And then there is the threat of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants to please his racist base of support. A bombastic, illogical and stupid promise that he's never going to fulfill. The fact is that Donald Trump appears hell bent on flexing U.S. might on the world stage in his own way, bullying other nations into serving the country's interests while approaching major international institutions like the United Nations with outright scorn and derision.
I am sure that Davos elites recognize the awkwardness of this moment. "We are in the middle of two orders," Borge Brende, the president of the World Economic Forum, said during a briefing with reporters recently. The "post-Cold War" era -- marked by a liberal triumphalism and an embrace of globalization that's now in retreat -- is over," Brende suggested, "and now it's an unruly time because we don't know what the new order will be." Touche!
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