- How Trump and MAGA are bringing about a new world order that sidelines the US;
- And how the US is sinking into totalitarianism;
- How Trump thinks he made a deal about Greenland while actually accomplishing nothing;
- Listening to Sibelius.
The significant speech at Davos wasn’t Trump’s, it was Canadian prime minister Mark Carney’s. Again, we’re living in history.
Vox, Caitlin Dewey, 21 Jan 2026: Canada’s prime minister just declared the end of the world as we know it, subtitled “Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s historic speech, explained.”
Since World War II, Mark Carney told the crowd in Davos, Switzerland, global politics have largely adhered to a system of norms that prioritized shared prosperity and cooperation. But as President Donald Trump lays waste to those norms, long-time US allies — Canada included — are taking steps to counter America’s influence, even after Trump’s current term.
It’s hard to overstate just how new and strange that is: America’s nearest neighbor, and closest ally, calling for the development of a new world order that sidelines the US. “When historians look back at this era, this speech by Mark Carney will be seen as an inflection point,” wrote Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a New York Times journalist.
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And here.
NY Times, opinion by David French, 22 Jan 2026: The Carney Doctrine
There will be more twists and turns, highs and lows, but I’m afraid it’s time to recognize a sad reality: It’s over.
This week, two things happened that, taken together, send a clear signal to the United States and the world: The American-led alliance of democracies is in the midst of a rupture. We have broken faith with our allies, and our allies are choosing resistance over submission to Trump’s aggression and greed.
Before we get to the dramatic developments in Davos, Switzerland, let’s set the stage. On Sunday night we learned that President Trump sent the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, a message that can only be described as deranged and delusional. You may have read it before, but please read it again.
French comments about the letter, and how “Congress is led by invertebrates — with many of them apparently convinced that he’ll subjugate the world in much the same way that he subjugated them, through threats, bluster and the unyielding support of millions in the MAGA mob.”
On Tuesday, however, the prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, said no. He delivered what might be the most important address of Trump’s second term so far. To enthusiastic applause in Davos, he articulated a vision of how the “middle powers” — nations like Canada — should respond to the great powers. It is decidedly not according to Trump’s plan.
First, Carney spoke the plain truth. “For decades,” Carney said, “countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.”
But, Carney said, this order was always “partially false.” We knew “that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”
Of course that world order, which Heather Cox Richardson and others have described as running the world for the past three quarters of a century with the US seemingly in the lead, has always been aspirational, just as constitutional notions of freedom and justice for all have been aspirational. But now the US, apparently, is giving up, sinking back into a tribal swamp where priorities are selfishness, xenophobia, and religious fundamentalism. And so the world is ready to move on without us.
And even if, when Trump is gone, our former allies will know this:
They now know that there is considerable appetite in the American population for at least some form of Trumpism. They know that one of the two American parties is firmly in the hands of people — including Vice President JD Vance — who may even be more hostile to NATO than Trump himself. They’ve watched as former Trump opponents, men like Marco Rubio, have been assimilated into the MAGA machine.
As long as that is true, that means the Western alliance will always be precarious. You cannot build an enduring economic order or a stable defense strategy when chaos and confusion are always one election away.
Somehow, American “exceptionalism” is at the core of this problem. It’s about the arrogance of Americans thinking we’re exceptional.
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Or unable to resist succumbing to the totalitarian trends that other nations succumbed to and overcame. Once again, base human nature lies within all of us, even those educated enough to understand the value of cosmopolitan, shared values. Perhaps every population is one demagogue away from…
The Atlantic, Ali Breland, 21 Jan 2026: The Trump Administration Is Publishing a Stream of Nazi Propaganda, subtitled “Government social-media managers have transformed official feeds.”
The U.S. Labor Department is embracing Nazi slogans and tropes, the Pentagon’s research office is deploying neo-Nazi graphic elements in its social-media feeds, and the Department of Homeland Security recently posted lyrics mimicking a popular song by a band with ties to an ethno-nationalist social club.
The official social-media channels of the Trump administration have become unrelenting streams of xenophobic and Nazi-coded messages and imagery. The leaders of these departments so far refuse to answer questions about their social-media strategies, but the trend is impossible to miss: Across the federal government, officials are advocating for a radical new understanding of the American idea, one rooted not in the vision of the Founders, but in the ideologies of European fascists.
With many examples.
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Meanwhile, someone apparently assuaged Trump to settle with the agreement that’s been in place since 1951, that the US has free reign in Greenland (which Trump has confused with Iceland) to establish military bases there. Trump declares the win!
The Week, Morning Report, 22 Jan 2026: Trump backs off Greenland threats, declares ‘deal’
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Listening to Sibelius again this week. Years ago I had a set of his symphonies on EMI, four CDs for the seven symphonies. (Given to me, I think, by Larry Kramer, who worked at the parent company of EMI.) In trying to find them a few months ago, I could only find three of the CDs. Missing the disc with symphonies 4 and 6. Finally, I went to Amazon to find a complete set, and settled on this one:
And it’s fine. Listening to number 6 right now, the one I’m least familiar with.
And yet. My favorite is Sibelius’ 1st. Maybe because I first heard it at a significant time in my life.
I think I’ve blogged about this before. Especially about the two very soft “bump bumps” at the end of the first and last movements.
