Jen Gerson: Go home, America. You're drunk.

And we mean this in the politest way possible.

I can’t get excited about the news anymore. Every day’s new top story heralds the latest milestone confirming that we’re well on the glidepath toward the end of Western civilization as we know it.

“Donald Trump eschews peace because Norway won’t give him the Nobel Peace Prize.” Ho hum. That tracks.

“Trump announces tariffs on uncooperative Europeans for failing to give up Greenland.” Honestly, that’s a little grimly funny given how complacent a lot of these guys were about securing trade deals over the last year. Who wants to brag about their “special relationship” with the Americans now?

“Another ICE shooting.” Yeah, that’ll happen when you radically expand your local brownshirt brigade with thousands of underemployed, underqualified and undertrained goons, and then send them into liberal cities in order to provoke a response that will then be used as the pretext for an emergency crackdown.

We’re a little ahead of schedule for the Anschluss of Greenland — but only by about a year if we’re including Trump’s first term in the timeline.

So when, on Tuesday, we got to: “Mark Carney delivers a provocative speech at Davos in which he says the world order as we know it is ‘in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,’” my impulse was merely look at my watch.

Not quite noon mountain time. Very good. Let’s get the tea going.

“Great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited,” Carney said at Davos.

Oh, ya think?

I’m not even trying to be glib, here, it’s just something I can’t help at this point. The speech was excellent. Exactly correct. Well delivered and internationally received. It may be the starting point of a new series of alliances with other smaller nations who “must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

Good God is this man an improvement over Trudeau.

As far as I can tell the speech was just honest. Brutally and straightforwardly. But what about it was shocking or new?

Hands up — be truthful — who actually thought the “liberal world order” was still intact after last April, when Trump blamed the Ukrainians for starting the war? Did that assumption survive the WSJ revelations that Trump’s aide was meeting with Russia to carve Ukraine up as part of its “peace” plan?

The Carney Doctrine is both refreshing and welcome, but the prime minister simply laid out what everybody who has been paying attention for the past year must already know. We’ve been screaming all this into the void here at The Line for more than a year. We are in the bad place, people. America is now run by chuds who think they’re geopolitical geniuses because they won a few rounds of Civilization on chieftain mode. (It’s all fun and games until Gandhi gets the nukes, eh?)

Trump and his ilk imagine themselves to be champions of global realism, or realpolitik: the problem is that there’s nothing real about the philosophy guiding any of their actions. There’s nothing truly self-interested about blowing up the very world order that Americans, themselves, created; the very one that turned that nation into the most powerful and wealthy nation on Earth. Likewise, there’s no pragmatism in a geopolitical strategy that assumes there are no other players on the board, nor that other nations may respond to your clearly stated intentions by behaving in ways you do not like. That’s not diplomacy or governance, it’s LARPing.

Our choices as Canadians are now unavoidably clear. We either submit to political subjugation by economic integration; or we try to forge a new world from the ashes of the old, forming alliances with other smaller nations that share our values, investing in more strategic capability at home, and diversifying our trade relationships. We get smart or we get ate. If they catch us, they will kill us, etc. Move faster. Move faster.

The world order as we know has rested for 80 years on the assumption that America is an imperfect but reliable ally whose actions can be predicted through past history, values, and rational self-interest.

Those assumptions no longer hold. It’s over. We cannot rely on their senate or their Supreme Court to see sense or do the Right Thing. I mean, they might — their institutions may bear the strain — but we can no longer have certainty in that outcome. Nor can we trust the American people to rise up against tyranny in any great numbers: they are not who they think they are, and far short of what they once were. Americans as a people today are unequal to their nation’s history and to their own sense of greatness. This is being demonstrated to us, every single day, in the clearest possible terms.

And we’re physically attached to this voting plurality of unhinged lunatics by a very long, undefended border. The reality of our situation can’t be ignored or wished away any longer. Every prediction and possibility, every assumption and action from here on out, must be weighed from a position of first principles, rather than status quo bias.

So, as for Carney’s speech: yes, of course.

But also … fucking d’uh.

And was anything that he said in Davos actually provocative? Compared to what? Where is the bar for “provocation by world leaders” even sitting, nowadays?

Certainly, nothing the prime minister said at Davos was even surprising when examined next to literally anything Trump posts on Truth Social during his Sundowning hours.

Excuse me while I keep an eye glued to social media between 4:30 and midnight, Switzerland time.

Oh, look, there’s the latest barrage of Trump.

In between ads for six-piece towel sets and sponsored posts from
WG Lifehacks that are presented with phrases like: “Always wrap your car keys in aluminum foil, here’s why!” and: “Sharp pain, tingling, and numbness may be a thing of the past,” along with images of ankles wrapped in cabbage.

Amid this cacophony, Trump writes: “No single person, or President, has done more for NATO than President Donald J. Trump. If I didn’t come along, there would be no NATO right now!!! It would have been in the ash heap of History. Sad, but TRUE!!! President DJT”

Dude was up late prepping for his own Davos speech, which hit on Wednesday morning my time, and included this gem:

“Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful, also, but they’re not. I watched your Prime Minister yesterday. He wasn’t so grateful. But they should be grateful to us, Canada, Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, next time you make your statements.”

Yep, it’s 7:50 MST. Time for coffee.

But, for a moment, let’s zoom back to those ungrateful Tuesday comments:

“Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumption that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security is no longer valid,” Carney noted, then.

Very loud nodding sounds.

But, also: Do we? Do we know this? Because as much as I think Carney has made some progress on matters like defence spending and expanding trade with China, a Canada that really knows this is a Canada that is willing to have a serious conversation about seemingly taboo subjects, like supply management, and health-care delivery. It’s a Canada that treats military procurement as more than just a regional investment opportunity.

It’s a Canada that isn’t running a $78 billion budget deficit because it can’t set serious spending priorities.

In short, the Canada that Carney is describing is one that isn’t satisfied with half assery and speechifying. What would be truly provocative is if Carney didn’t just say the right things, but also demonstrated he was dead serious about following through with a plan to make this country tough enough to withstand America’s increasingly crazy bullshit.

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