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Coffee Break: Rubio and AOC Audition for 2028 in Munich

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American 2028 presidential hopefuls, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, treated the Munich Security Conference like an audition.

Looking Forward, Not Trump

Politico has the establishment take on Rubio’s audition:

At a moment when American politics is gripped by the daily eruptions of President Donald Trump, he’s never felt more like a lame duck than he did in the corridors of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof.

There were so many potential Democratic presidential hopefuls here that it could have been the Sheraton Nashua rather than an elegant Bavarian lodge. In their public comments and private conversations, some of which were de facto bilateral meetings, Democrats ranging from California Gov. Gavin Newsom to New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez assured their European counterparts that Trump is temporary and the transatlantic relationship isn’t.

“It is very important that we have this much Democratic representation this year and to show that we as a party are committed to a different path,” Ocasio-Cortez told me. “Regardless of any political speculation, it is important that people are seeing a unity of that commitment to our allies and our partnerships.”

Newsom, who unlike in his trip to Davos last month brought reassurance rather than kneepads, told me that America’s longstanding relationships “are in dormancy, they’re not dead.”

The president’s principal representative here, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, delivered a speech aimed at reassuring Europe and articulating Trumpism without the rhetorical headbutt that was Vice President JD Vance’s address to last year’s gathering. However, Rubio’s remarks were so compelling that they were met with a standing ovation and only served to remind Republicans and other observers across the Atlantic that he’s a far more talented political athlete than Vance — fueling another round of it-has-to-be-Marco-in-’28-right?

So what did Little Marco say that got the Euros so worked up?

Rubio’s Call for Neo-Colonialism Goes Over Huge

Well it was a doozy of an audition.

From the State Department transcript:

Marco Rubio: …the United Nations still has tremendous potential to be a tool for good in the world. But we cannot ignore that today, on the most pressing matters before us, it has no answers and has played virtually no role. It could not solve the war in Gaza. Instead, it was American leadership that freed captives from barbarians and brought about a fragile truce. It had not solved the war in Ukraine. It took American leadership and partnership with many of the countries here today just to bring the two sides to the table in search of a still-elusive peace.

It was powerless to constrain the nuclear program of radical Shia clerics in Tehran. That required 14 bombs dropped with precision from American B-2 bombers. And it was unable to address the threat to our security from a narcoterrorist dictator in Venezuela. Instead, it took American Special Forces to bring this fugitive to justice.
…
we do not want allies to rationalize the broken status quo rather than reckon with what is necessary to fix it, for we in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline. We do not seek to separate, but to revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization in human history.

What we want is a reinvigorated alliance that recognizes that what has ailed our societies is not just a set of bad policies but a malaise of hopelessness and complacency. …
An alliance ready to defend our people, to safeguard our interests, and to preserve the freedom of action that allows us to shape our own destiny – not one that exists to operate a global welfare state and atone for the purported sins of past generations. An alliance that does not allow its power to be outsourced, constrained, or subordinated to systems beyond its control; one that does not depend on others for the critical necessities of its national life; and one that does not maintain the polite pretense that our way of life is just one among many and that asks for permission before it acts. And above all, an alliance based on the recognition that we, the West, have inherited together – what we have inherited together is something that is unique and distinctive and irreplaceable, because this, after all, is the very foundation of the transatlantic bond.
…
America is charting the path for a new century of prosperity, and that once again we want to do it together with you, our cherished allies and our oldest friends. (Applause.)

We want to do it together with you, with a Europe that is proud of its heritage and of its history; with a Europe that has the spirit of creation of liberty that sent ships out into uncharted seas and birthed our civilization; with a Europe that has the means to defend itself and the will to survive.

How did Rubio’s naked jingoism go over?

The Euro Establishment Loves Little Marco

Here’s EU commission boss Ursula von der Leyen’s reaction:

Un-diplomatic gave von der Leyen the roasting she deserves:

The idea that the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, would be “very much reassured” by Marco Rubio’s remarks—at a moment when the US has declared itself a threat to Europe—is just real boot-licking nonsense; a betrayal of European citizenry. It’s not just von der Leyen. The elites in the room gave Rubio a mass standing ovation in response to his speech.

The Financial Times chief foreign affairs correspondent signed off on Marco’s audition as well, with reservations:

The Wall Street Journal editorial board was enthusiastic too, although they worry that Rubio is soft on Russia:

Mr. Rubio’s speech won praise in Munich and from nearly every corner of President Trump’s domestic coalition.
…
Vice President JD Vance made motions to a shared culture with Europe in his speech at the same security conference last year. But Mr. Vance all but told Europe it was free to plan its own funeral and gave oxygen to Europe’s right-wing fringes that are sympathetic to Moscow. Mr. Rubio is also offering a far better vision than Canada’s Mark Carney, the hero of Davos, whose idea for replacing U.S. leadership with a coalition of the world’s “middle powers” is delusional and cynical domestic politics.

The big caveat to Mr. Rubio’s message is Ukraine, which like it or not is the current front line of Western civilization. On that score it wasn’t reassuring that after Munich Mr. Rubio headed to Hungary and Slovakia, Russia’s two best friends in Europe.

The U.S. continues to behave like a mediator of the Ukraine-Russia war, rather than taking the side of the West. Mr. Rubio’s good words about shared values won’t mean much if a rotten “peace” is imposed on Ukraine.

The New York Post offered a more cartoonish take with an op-ed headlined: “Marco Rubio delivers tough love to Europe — and the overgrown teenage brats know ‘Dad’ is right.”

The Guardian did some handwringing as it tried to explain that “Why Marco Rubio’s ‘reassuring’ speech to Europe was nothing of the kind.”

The centrists at The Bulwark applauded Rubio’s “catch flies with honey” approach, but lamented that he’s ultimately in thrall to Trump. They also (ridiculously) tried to paint German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’ speech as a strong counter to Rubio.

For my money the real tell was the glowing reaction from unabashed white supremacist Jared Taylor who tweeted, “an excellent assertion of European solidarity by Secretary of State Rubio. He very nearly declared the World Brotherhood of White People.”

Maybe that’s because Rubio’s speechwriter is on board with Taylor’s program.

I’ll close the Rubio section with more critical commenters.

Europe Should Be Worried, Not Applauding

Arnaud Bertrand tweeted that it was “one of the most revisionist and imperialist speeches I’ve ever seen a senior American official make, and that’s saying something.”

But he saved his real fire for the Euros:

The most troubling part was the reaction of the audience: “half the hall in Munich gave US Secretary of State Marco Rubio a standing ovation” and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the Global South half…

It just goes to show the complete absence of reflection in Europe. Rubio undoubtedly tried to appeal to some sort of latent nostalgia for Western imperial dominance among European elites. And it obviously worked (which is scary in and of itself).

But it also shows that Europeans remain naive to the extreme if they believe Rubio’s pitch that he wants Europe to be strong in order to share the spoils of a new age of Western imperialism.

What’s the thinking here? That Trump’s America – “America first” – would suddenly become magnanimous and share with Europe just out of sentiment? That’s not how imperialism works: the whole premise of it is that the strong dominate the weak.

When an imperial power is speaking to you of sentiments, of how much they like you and how they want to partner with you – the much weaker party – that’s cause for worry, not applause…

Enough about Rubio’s revanchism, let’s hear from the “alternative.”

AOC Tests Her Foreign Policy Wings

Being just a Congressional Representative, AOC had to make do with panel appearances rather than getting a featured speech.

Some excerpts from her remarks:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: This is a moment where we are seeing our presidential administration tear apart the transatlantic partnership, rip up every democratic norm, and calling into question, as was mentioned by David Carney at the World Economic Forum, the rules-based order that we have or question mark do we have?

And so I think one of the reasons why not just myself but many of our colleagues here, Democrats that are here is because we want to tell a larger story that what is happening is indeed very grave and we are in a new era domestically and globally.

There have been many leaders who said we will go back. And I think we have to recognize that we are in a new day and in a new time.

But that does not mean that the majority of Americans are ready to walk away from a rules-based order and that we’re ready to walk away from our commitment to democracy. I think what we identify is that in a rules-based order, hypocrisy is vulnerability.

And so I think what we are seeking is a return to a rules-based order that eliminates the hypocrisies around when too often in the west we look the other way for inconvenient populations um to act out these paradoxes whether it is kidnapping a foreign head of state, whether it is threatening our allies to colonize Greenland, whether it is looking the other way in a genocide.

Hypocrisies are vulnerabilities and they threaten democracies globally. And so I think many of us are here to say we are here and we are ready for the next chapter not to have the world turn to isolation but to deepen our partnership on on greater and increased commitment to integrity to our values.

…
Extreme levels of income inequality lead to social instability…it is an urgent priority that we get our economic houses in order and deliver material gains for the working class, or else we will fall to a more isolated world governed by authoritarians that also do not deliver to working people.

So did she pass the audition?

Reactions to AOC

The New York Times gave her audition mixed notices:

…she tied income inequality to the rise of authoritarians and offered a forceful rebuttal to President Trump’s worldview. She also had some shaky moments.
…
The visit also demonstrated the relative foreign policy inexperience of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who has made a few overseas trips since taking office but does not sit on any House committees devoted primarily to world affairs. She struggled at times to formulate succinct answers at a nighttime panel session, during which she was asked probing and specific questions about how to respond to international crises.

Questioned about whether the United States should send troops to defend Taiwan if China invaded the island, she stalled for roughly 20 seconds before offering a substantive response.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was quicker to respond to questions about other foreign policy matters, such as whether she would support military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities — “There’s still so much runway, so much more we can do to avoid that scenario,” she said — and whether the U.S. should re-evaluate aid to Israel. Unconditional aid had “enabled a genocide in Gaza,” she replied.

The Dissident hit AOC’s audition much harder from the left:

While AOC did oppose bombing Iran at the behest of Israel, she repeated CIA and Mossad talking points without giving vital context before doing so.

When asked, “Would you support direct U.S. military strikes on Nuclear facilities if direct negotiations fail with Iran?” AOC responded, “I think that that is a dramatic escalation that no one in the world wants to see. Right now what the Iranian regime is doing particularly with respect to protesters is a horrific slaughter of some estimates have tens of thousands of people.”

The claims of “tens of thousands of people” killed by the Iranian government during protests comes from biased sources openly supporting war with Iran, such as Amir Parasta a German-Iranian eye surgeon who is a lobbyist for the Israeli opposition puppet Reza Pahlavi and the outlet Iran International, which Israeli journalist Barak Ravid said , “the Mossad is using… quite regularly for its information war”.

In other words, AOC opposing war with Iran but repeating the claim of “tens of thousands dead” is akin to saying in 2002, “I oppose war with Iraq, but Saddam definitely has WMDS”.

She also got knocked for her comments about Venezuela:

Oof.

She did at least piss off Fox News with her remarks on the genocide in Gaza.

And FWIW, she did draw more attention to herself than California Governor Gavin Newsom did with his Munich appearance:

Typically for myopic Western media, the Munich keynote speech by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi received far less attention, his call for multilateralism and cooperation being ignored in favor of swill like this from Politico: “Munich 2026 awards: Kaja Kallas’ poker face, Lindsey Graham cursing and Mark Rutte talking to a dog.”

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41 comments

  1. DJG, Reality Czar

    Don’t you love the strench of immorality in the morning?

    Rubio: “An alliance ready to defend our people, to safeguard our interests, and to preserve the freedom of action that allows us to shape our own destiny – not one that exists to operate a global welfare state and atone for the purported sins of past generations.”

    Purported sins like genocide and colonialism?

    Notice that it is freedom of action: Bombs. Surveillance. Invasions.

    The whited sepulcher.

    Papa Francesco had more than a few words about this kind of immoralism.

    And that uncharted-waters business. Sheesh. Can he get his head out of the comic books? Maybe time to dip into Portuguese history instead of Gilligan’s Island?

    1. ChrisRUEcon

      > Don’t you love the strench of immorality in the morning?

      I most certainly do not! LOL

      But #FFS, setting the bar so immeasurably low that Rubio “compares favorably” to Trump/Vance is exactly the kind of malodorous reality make us apply clothes pins to our noses.

      > Notice that it is freedom of action: Bombs. Surveillance. Invasions.

      Exactly this. The UN is firkin useless and serves only to hold small fish to the fryer while the US/i5Ra3L act unilaterally with impunity.

      As for AOC, wow … but unsurprising, even once-beloved Saint Bernard of Sanders turned his sheep-dog gaze away from solidarity with Maduro. Aside: how does a dude who honeymooned in the USSR, and sang “The Internationale” while there end up mouthing such piss poor positions on anti-imperialism in the Global South?! As his acolyte, AOC is no better; and Matt Duss, apparently now AOC’s “foreign policy adviser”, falls into the same camp as well. All of them, lampooned as “imperialists who want free healthcare” in a once famous tweet.

      Need that 3rd body problem to manifest …

  2. Alice X

    In my world, the strong would not do as they will. The weak would not suffer. But then, I’m just being silly. Rubio is strictly to form, AOC warbles, maybe that is the best she can do or she would be huddling with me under my rock. I’ll show myself out now.

    1. amfortas

      to be perfectly honest regarding where ive come to in imperial politics, i’d rather listen to her warble than listen to any of the others rant and rave and carry on.
      not bad to look at , either,lol.(yes, these are the criteria, these days…i might even watch her SOTU)
      nothing will get better, no matter who sits at the resolute desk(assuming it hasn’t been rendered into firewood and replaced by a gold plated montrance)…but, at the very least…and that is all we have…she does come from an actual Lefty Place.
      and the president has rather awesome power, these days.(I know what i would do, if i somehow landed in a position of such power)
      i get the whole “she’s pelosi’s tool” and sheepdog stuff…and i have zero hope.
      but a presnit that comes out of the actual Left would be some kind of win.
      3 years left of the hair furor, and who knows how much damage he has yet to do to the empire.
      perhaps this utterly insane chaos is what we hafta go through to get to something marginally better for all us little people….trump as a koan that breaks the spell of empire.
      there are certainly depths yet to plumb.
      sack up, people.

      1. chris

        Pretty sure our Antoinette of Color will happily toe the line and follow the plan if elected to higher office. There is a system. It wants war and a few other things. Like digital currencies from the central bank. AOC is not going to change or challenge the system. She will not restore Congress’s role in committing the US to war either. She would take over the reins of the imperial presidency that Trump would hand off.

        1. Hepativore

          AOC has demonstrated time and time again that she will just roll-over in the face of the Democratic Party establishment. Because the neoliberals/DNC are just as war-hawkish and pro-Israel as Trump and the neocons in the Republican Party, AOC would just be another ineffectual, Democratic Party hack much like Biden or Buttigieg.

          The Ukrainian war, Gaza conflict, Israel and ICE funding would continue under an AOC presidency, just that she might be more apologetic about it. Basically, she would fulfill the time honored Democratic role of being the good cop to the bad cop Republicans, but the underlying policies remaining largely unchanged.

          I mean, does she have any left-wing credibility left at this point?

          1. amfortas

            pleasing to look at, and tolerable to hear, is all.
            see:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E956OY3mJXE&list=PLR1VVi2S5xz8_U0xcgHUC6d0YklttAKpd&index=4
            but Krystal will never be our first woman presnit(tm).

            i am a pessimist about all of this, and much more.
            our prospects in the imperial core are grim.
            i foresee, as you all know, a collapse in the worst possible way, and then a burning times and a period of warlordism.
            its gonna be gross and ugly and painful…because there are too many of us who still believe in the red, white and blue and all the mythology that goes with it.
            its like addiction to heroin, or something…we, as a people, hafta hit rock bottom.
            and we aint there, yet…for enough of us.
            but that encounter with the hard floor is coming, and soon.

            1. Hepativore

              I am pessimistic as well, as I think that most revolutions fail and there is a huge likelihood that the military will happily follow orders to wipe out huge swaths of the civilian population if our leadership ever ordered them to, and while a lot of people own firearms, I think that would be of limited use when the military has access to missiles and artillery as well.

              Also, even in the event of a “successful” insurrection, whomever rises to power in a post-revolutionary US would probably be just as bad if not worse than our previous government that was replaced. The people who tend to be revolutionary leaders are generally the type of people who crave power enough to want to challenge the existing order in the first place and are often only staging a revolution as they want to be the ones putting people before the firing squads or behind the plows instead of the people in the existing regime.

            1. Alice X

              government of the people, by the people, for the people,

              Alas, as it was with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

              We learned that happiness was the pursuit of property (not all of us).

              Those that had property then, and many more in addition along the way (its always a war zone, so not too many) now clarify that ours was destined to be:

              government of, by and for the property

              I’m so cynical I would wretch, but I know what is enough for my humble self.

              Still, I am angry for the well being of the world.

              Rule One in the US Congress:

              you can appear to be trying to do something, but if you actually try it, you will be primaried…

              There are similar descriptions for the other two branches.

        2. motorslug

          Agreed. She was pathetic and fully neocon when she agreed with TPTB in respect to Juan Guaido/Venezuela.

      2. Bugs

        She’s better than the alternative. I’m done with accelerationalism. What we are going through right now is just pure incompetence and worse, outright malice for people who have any empathy for their fellow human beings.

    2. chris

      It may be too much to ask the strong to consider their strength an obligation to protect the weak, but I remain amazed that anyone besides a very small number of elites likes the status quo. All this imperialism and it’s not getting anyone anything. We have less food, less energy options, less trade, less support for science, and less peace. Unless your last name is Trump or some other politically connected family, who is for this? Who do these people think will fight for them in these wars?

      1. Alice X

        The purpose should not be to ask the strong of anything, but to destroy them.

        Rise like lions, ye are many, they are few.

        1. chris

          This might be a conversation worth engaging in…

          Are you speaking on a political level, a personal level, some other context that I’m ignorant of?

          There will always be people and states who are weaker than others. There will always be people and states who are stronger than others. You would ask the strong for nothing but their death? The way healthy societies have managed the tension between the weak and the strong is mutual obligation. That kind of balance is completely absent in the West and the US. If the more fortunate believed that they had anything in common with the weak and poor, so as to believe in reciprocal obligations, we’d be in a better world.

          1. Alice X

            Do I seem angry? I am.

            I want humanity to equalize itself and its bearing with all life on earth.

            History shows us what has been, we see presently what is.

            Now the task is to change what will be. That or our demise.

    3. upstater

      I don’t have the stomach to listen to AOC’s panel discussion… but did she really say David Carney? If so, that says a lot.

  4. mrsyk

    Thank you NWT, I think. I confess that upon reading the title I put the phone down and headed off to the fridge for a beer.
    I don’t know who coined “Little Marco”, but it fits the bill. Visions of brown shirts. And what DJG said.
    As for AOC, less toxic at first inhalation. I imagine the donkey clown-car will be over capacity. Who’s the king-maker on the blue side these days? Hillary?
    I heard on NPR that over half the senate attended Munich.
    Edit, sloppy typing

    2. Alice X

      I confess…

      to having a bottle of brandy in front of me…

      as one saying goes

      our politics is

      1) nihilists except for their own power

      2) hacks who only want to throw the other bums out

      I’m past knowing which is which

      or which is worse

      maybe there is hope under my rock

      2. Airgap

        “When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?”.

        Excerpt from Invisible Monsters, by Chuck Palahniuk.

        As I read this it resonated.

  5. LY

    I tried looking up what actual pull AOC has in Foreign Affairs. She’s on the Energy and Commerce committee, but not Foreign Affairs, as the NY Times article notes. Nor is she on Armed Forces.

    For me, it’s hard to say whether her public positions are due to her trying to stay within what is considered acceptable, or her being coopted, or her just being in the Democratic/liberal bubble. I’m mainly talking about her positions on Iran and Venezuela, as I don’t know what she has said on Russia. Anecdotally, having a more nuanced position on Russia, is what I find hardest to talk about with my centrist and liberal/Democratic identifying friends and acquitances.

    1. Carla

      “Anecdotally, having a more nuanced position on Russia, is what I find hardest to talk about with my centrist and liberal/Democratic identifying friends and acquaintances.”

      Me too.

    2. nippersdad

      Glenn Greenwald did a piece the other day about AOC in Munich, and he was less than impressed. If you were wondering who her advisor is, Greenwald has fingered Matt Duss, Bernie Sanders’ advisor, and placed most of the blame on him.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-orbgB4vdU

      Given Duss’ influence, it is kind of surprising that she was able to go as far on Israel as she did. Maybe even he can read the tea leaves.

      1. Nat Wilson Turner Post author

        Oh dangit, I meant to quote Greenwald in this post and go in on Duss but I got distracted in another rabbit hole. Thanks for linking here.

          1. AppleJackyl

            Ro Khanna fumed that an author of an email to J Epstein had their name redacted. The author appears to be on close terms w/ JE and to be a major Republican politico since they brag they got more votes than Jeb Bush got in the 2015 Iowa caucus (“in at least one district, at least”, they boast). Speculation is the redacted author is Marco Rubio. But on Reddit: ” UPDATE: u/cowation figured it out, it appears likely that this is Gwendolyn Beck:

            -Ran for congress in VA in 2014 as an independent

            -Got 5,420 votes compared to Bush’s 5,238 Iowa caucus votes

            -Known associate of Epstein’s. Also pals with prince Andrew and disgraced senator Bob Menendez.

            Not currently involved in politics as far as I can tell, her linkedin lists her as the Manager of Senior Health at Virginia Hospital Center.”

      2. AG

        Is Duss still around?
        I thought he entered entertainment (like Miss Psaki)
        Is it possible Duss has NO Wiki entry?!
        Anyway. My aha-moment was with Duss on DEMOCRACY NOW spring 2022.
        I learned everything I needed to know about him in that single interview about Russia.

    3. Alice X

      The fish cannot see the water, or the fish bowl.

      Power concedes nothing…

      Every politician is speaking to a power space.

      1. Alice X

        If the power space one politician speaks to is merely the quashed aspiration of demand of the many, then the politician has no power space.

        workers of the world unite…

        never mind for now.

        The redoubt

        Another, perhaps final refinement of a link our host offered a short while back (my apologies, it’s monetized —– the revolution will not be televised).

        The GDF Held and we did not sell

        I think the female voice is more in keeping, am I biased?

  6. ALM

    Whoever is grooming AOC is doing a lousy job. Or maybe she’s just vacant like Kamala. Either way, she always gives the impression of doing half of her homework.

  7. herman_sampson

    Have not read AOC yet, but Rubio could be summed up as “our way or the highway, UN had better tag along, as the USA will do as it damn pleases.” What moronic criminals we have “leading” us.

  8. The Rev Kev

    Not much of a choice between Rubio and AOC. If Rubio became Prez, he would continue Trump’s policies. If AOC became Prez, she would never reverse any of them. It’s a stacked deck.

  9. Tom Stone

    Antoinette of Color is easier on the eyes and Little Marco is the more confident liar.
    Pretty much a toss up.
    Neither is overtly insane which means either would be an improvement.
    In the sense that drug resistant syphilis is worse than the usual kind

    1. Bugs

      AOC would be better on a thousand issues that matter to the left. For one, she’d quickly let up on Cuba. Just mouthing the words “working class” in relation to foreign policy is a giant step in the right direction.

      1. amfortas

        thats where im at. better than nothing.
        and i think about the feed store…an aoc sticker on my truck, etc.
        10 years ago, i got to hold forth to rednecks about a new new deal, after all.
        id rather such ideas be in the local lumpenmind as we fall off the cliff, than not.
        and i think theyre even more ready for it, now…especially since i get to say “either that, or baby eating pedophiles…”.

  10. ciroc

    If Trump showed even a little courtesy, like Narco Rubio does, he would be met with nothing but respect. This would make everyone in the EU eager to wear a “MEGA” cap.

  11. Gulag

    The common thesis of Lenin, Hobson, and Luxembourg before World War I, and then revisited to explain it, was that the root cause of conflict was imperialist competition fueled by pressure to invest capital abroad because weak domestic consumption did not offer adequate returns (See Andrea Capussela review of the new Milanovic book on substack).

    A brilliant contemporary theorists of inequality, Branco Milanovic, has recently argued (see his new book “The Great Global Transformation,”) that we are now in a phase of imperial competition not so much for the domination of foreign resource markets and territories as before 1914 but for the domination of the rules that determine international economic behavior.

    The root cause of this more recent shift to conflict is a combination of internal economic problems caused in the U.S., on the one hand by stagnant real wages and job losses primarily because of imports from China and outsourcing to it, as well as the pressure to export generated by low domestic consumption in China.

    This has led to a key inflection point where discontent among the middle and working classes in the U.S. began to threaten centrist Democrats and centrist Republicans. This threat then became even more amplified by the 2008 economic crisis and the victory of Trump in 2016.

    I would give the name of this accelerating resentment– populism–with the right wing variant represented by Trump and the more left-wing variant represented by Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020.

    In 2026, the international political reality appears to offer only the possibility of more Trumpian national market liberalism combining neoliberalism at home with mercantilism abroad. Because of what passes as the left in the U.S. is so unbelievably weak and engaged in its own hallucinations on so many different levels, the only immediate realistic political choices may be the continued success of this Trumpian right or a return to the worst forms of international neoliberalism supported by both Dems and Repubs.

    To make matters even more intense, in the next few weeks we may discover whether the last few words of the new Milanovic book will come to pass—“wars are our way to try to reach for that “forever.”

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