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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   19816 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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I've said before that I had stopped posting here because it's a purely American Affairs Discussion community and, for a non-American, those affairs are only instrumentally interesting due to their effects elsewhere, and they become less interesting as America recedes from the world stage. The silence on the ongoing global events reinforces my impressions both of the US and of this forum. It's a pity because in terms of the culture war, it's very significant. The Red Tribe basically won politically. Nowhere has this been made more obvious than at the yesterday's session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, that hive of globalists Alex Jones warned us all about. For decades, the narrative around these parts has been that Europe has lost its way, is Communist, is being demographically replaced etc, and only the Serious Big Brother across the Atlantic can steer the ship. Lately there's even talk that Europe is basically «over», and America is what remains of the West, and so the US must take direct stewardship over the imperiled land. For example, one of the justifications for the seizure of Greenland from a MAGA loyalist Scott Greer:

Thanks to the power of anti-colonialist rhetoric over the actions of European leaders and international bodies, China gained a win in the Indian Ocean.
The Chinese could do something similar with Greenland. It’s easy to see an international uproar arising over Denmark’s “colonial” rule over the Greenlanders and the Danes face serious pressure to give up the territory. If the Chinese find a foothold in Greenland, they could manipulate independence to benefit themselves. They can make it harder for Americans to maintain a military presence and gain control over the Northwest Passage. The Danes, even more than the Brits, would be completely helpless to stop this scenario from playing it out.

(Needless to say, every accusation is a confession; very soon, Scott Bessent EXPOSED Denmark's treatment of Greenland in front of millions! – according to some Floridian patriot. This propaganda is gaining steam in conservative sources that belong to the American influence network).

I've seen that the rumors of European death are very much exaggerated. Europe very much still exists. But the sensibility of the United States of America on the world stage is now one of openly admitted exceptionalism and essentialist superiority. We've seen the birth of an assertive Judeo-Christian civilization-state with Latin American characteristics, and it's clearly separate from what can be called «Western Civilization». The focal point of the rupture was of course Greenland again.

I mainly want to get the conversaton going so I'll just share some quotes without commentary.

Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce:

HL: [Long passionate tirade against globalism] When America shines, the world shines. Close your eyes and imagine the world without America in it. It goes dark pretty darn quickly.
the moderator: Can I bring you back to Greenland?
HL: No. It's unnecessary. The Western Hemisphere is vital for the United states of America. Our national security people are on it, and they care about it, and I'll leave it to them to address with our allies, with our friends, and with everyone have it worked out. But the Western Hemisphere matters to the US of A, and the US of A as I've just articulated REALLY REALLY MATTERS to the world. When America shines, the world shines. Because they all need to make sure America is strong and powerful to take care of them, G-d forbid.

This is of course not so much Monroe/Donroe doctrine as invoking Light Unto the nations/Shining city upon a hill with some geopolitical dressing, only cruder, with more stick and less carrot than ever. The reactions are understandable.

Mark Carney, a long-term advisor to Justin Trudeau with all his disastrous policies, was projected to soundly lose the elections to Pierre Poilievre, a very US-style conservative self-identifying as a «simple goy from the prairies». What reversed their odds was Trump's tariff war on Canada plus endorsement of Pierre as his agent to make Canada the 51st state (Poilievre, being a simple goy but not insane, obviously denied any such intention).

Yesterday, Carney delivered a speech that I think ends the North American fraternal relationship and likely the entire post -WWII order. Some excerpts:

It’s a pleasure — and a duty — to be with you at this turning point for Canada and the world.

I’ll speak today about the rupture in the world order, the end of the pleasant fiction and the dawn of a brutal reality in which great-power geopolitics is unconstrained. But I submit to you all the same that other countries, in particular middle powers like Canada, aren’t powerless. They have the power to build a new order that integrates our values, like respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and the territorial integrity of states. The power of the less powerful begins with honesty. […] It is time for companies and countries to take their signs down. For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, praised its principles, and benefited from its predictability. We could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.
We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim. This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes. So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics laid bare the risks of extreme global integration.
More recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot “live within the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination. The multilateral institutions on which middle powers relied— the WTO, the UN, the COP—the architecture of collective problem solving — are greatly diminished.
We are engaging broadly, strategically, with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait for the world as we wish it to be. Canada is calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values. We are prioritizing broad engagement to maximize our influence, given the fluidity of the world, the risks that this poses, and the stakes for what comes next. We are no longer relying on just the strength of our values, but also on the value of our strength. … We are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the European Union, including joining SAFE, Europe’s defence procurement arrangements. We have signed twelve other trade and security deals on four continents in the last six months. In the past few days, we have concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We are negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines, Mercosur.
[…] Which brings me back to Havel. What would it mean for middle powers to “live in truth”?
It means naming reality. Stop invoking the “rules-based international order” as though it still functions as advertised. Call the system what it is: a period where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion.
It means acting consistently. Apply the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window.
It means building what we claim to believe in. Rather than waiting for the hegemon to restore an order it is dismantling, create institutions and agreements that function as described. And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion.

We are taking the sign out of the window. The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just. This is the task of the middle powers, who have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from a world of genuine cooperation.
The powerful have their power. But we have something too — the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together. That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently. And it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.

Others are saying similar stuff, have been for a while. Merz on the end of the Pax Americana, Macron obviously.

The engagement with China is a common theme, spearheaded by Carney. His partnership with China in particular is prompting Americans to fantasize of seizing Alberta. Maybe that'll happen too.

You really should follow the WEF content on your own to form an opinion though.

The other day @TiltingGambit said:

Cultural export from China is crazily uncharismatic. And this is why, in my view, the US would end up with all the allies in WWIII and china would end up with the dregs of the international community. Nobody likes china, nobody outside of china knows what's going on in china, and nobody in china knows what's going on inside china either.

I am not sure who's going to be American ally in WWIII now. It's my impression that @TiltingGambit has been projecting, because he, as a true American, felt that there is nothing worth learning about affairs of barbarians in China, Europe or anywhere else. This is a very Qing-like attitude. Yes, there's significant consumption of MCU capeshit, we all write in English, Americans are the top content creators on Tiktok, I'm just not seeing how this translates into political loyalty.

So. The costs of winning the Culture War. Any takes on this?

Edit. I explain my focus on this topic, since many are very disappointed.

Sorry if you addressed this elsewhere in the thread, but I’m curious your thoughts on birth rates and its long term impact.

If you tried to reduce a whole country into a single metric of greatness, I think you can argue over whether China or the US is higher, but I’m sympathetic to the argument that the derivative of this metric is clearly greater for China. What about the second or third derivative though? The biggest thing that makes me think the US’s might be higher is birth rates. According to the UN as summarized by Wikipedia, the US is substantially below replacement at 1.6, but China is at 1.0, which seems catastrophic to me. Indeed, there’s news article from this week saying China now has more deaths than births (a cursory search shows this is not the case for the US after a bit of die-off of elderly people during the peak of the pandemic). If these numbers continue to hold (or decline at the same rate) then 2 generations from now the American cohort will be larger than the Chinese one. My sense, though this could be Western propaganda, is that the US is also more attractive to and welcoming of immigrants than China (averaged over a few presidential administrations anyway) and the US has relatively high fertility religious subgroups that are still compatible with modernity like Mormons and some Jewish sects (does China have any equivalents? I honestly don’t know. I suppose the Uyghurs might have been).

The result is that I could see China overtaking the US on a number of metrics in the next couple decades, but then slinking into economic and cultural decline as the younger Chinese generations become smaller in relative and absolute terms compared to the US. Some on this board may believe that will be irrelevant due to AI and robotics, but I’m skeptical of that and certainly wouldn’t bet the farm on it if I were in the Politburo.

But I also grant I have a very siloed information diet on the topic - is there something I’m missing? Maybe population size doesn’t matter that much? After all, during the US’s period of unquestioned dominance it had a much smaller population than China. Still, I think the birth rates point at something important, and China is definitely doing worse in that regard at least.

USA 1.6 TFR is not evenly distributed. It is, as with Europe now and world history ad a whole massively overrepresented by 1st and 2nd gen minorities, which are potentially but not necessarily economically acretive to the USA. Maybe by downstream effects the productive get to perform better by reaping some economy of scale but putting money on that premise is risky. More importantly the western solution to TFR reductions seems to be mass immigration, first by opening the floodgates then having the cream of individual societies migrate to better pastures as a result of debasement of home. USA brags of receiving the best of the globe, but its gain is New Zealands loss.

Quiverful and haredi are not offsetting the growth of value negative populations. Japan, China, Korea will hollow out their rurals before their urban cores disappear, the west is experiencing urban birfurcation that limits growth headroom.

Hoping that China will fall relies on the west preserving itself through immigration. A bold move cotton, lets see how it plays out.

USA 1.6 TFR is not evenly distributed. It is, as with Europe now and world history ad a whole massively overrepresented by 1st and 2nd gen minorities, which are potentially but not necessarily economically acretive to the USA.

First and second generation minorities is an odd phrase. First generation immigrant makes sense, but minority and immigrant are not synonyms.

As it happens, among US-born people (including second gens immigrants), all racial groups have roughly the same TFR, except Asians, who are consistently lower. African Americans have recently fallen below Euro-Americans and are falling fast, which suggests that they may end up with Asian-level TFR soon enough, since their low numbers are already artificially inflated due to higher birth rates among African and Caribbean immigrants.* First gen Asian immigrants have extremely low fertility.

Hispanic TFR is higher among immigrants, but it is overstated due to how it is measured. Since the numerator is babies born, while the denominator is young women legally in the country, illegal immigrants having anchor babies makes the hispanic immigrant TFR look higher than it really is.

With Trump's immigration crackdown reducing illegal immigration from Latin America, it wouldn't shock me if we start seeing white births increasing as a share of all US births in the next couple of years.

*African American wages are actually increasing significantly between generations due to the relatively elite nature of African and Caribbean immigration. Apparently the Great Replacement also involves replacing low-IQ 'native' African Americans with high-IQ Nigerians and Jamaicans!

IIRC we’ve already seen white births increase as a fraction of all births in the USA.

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