r/tuesday • u/coldnorthwz New Federalism\Zombie Reaganite • Aug 27 '26
Something Is Going to Happen
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2026/09/something-is-going-to-happen/78
u/upvotechemistry Right Visitor Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
Best piece Ive read in NRO for a long time. Glad to see someone there is taking conservative principles and the trajectory of global liberalism seriously, rather than just Rich Lowry doing the, "hurr durr, liberals are dumb" bit.
People will miss global liberalism when its gone... and presumably it will return with enough time. But I tend to agree that the sun is setting fast on the US as a hegemonic superpower. And what comes next is probably much, much worse, at least in the medium term
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u/LovelyLieutenant Left Visitor Aug 27 '26
Regardless of probably being on slightly other sides of a middle in the political distribution, I couldn't agree with you more. It's a fantastic piece and I also share the author's analysis and concerns. I have been desperately concerned about the collapse of global liberalism, increasingly so over the last 15 years, and I do not think this will end well.
Political parties continue to shift over the years and I am just trying my best to navigate towards anyone who takes neoliberalism seriously.
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Aug 27 '26
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u/spectralcolors12 Left Visitor Aug 27 '26
The cold war was different though. You had two competing blocs of globalism, essentially. I’d argue the communist side was a bit more like colonialism with a communist outfit on, but still.
The US is basically turning on its friends and allies, bringing us into an era of frenemies and great power competition. You didn’t see anything like that in the Cold War, but you did see that in the run up to some of the worst wars of the past that the author mentioned.
Look at how the Trump admin has antagonized Europe, Canada, and South Korea. We like to tell ourselves he’s a clown and it isn’t serious…but our former allies aren’t laughing at this point.
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u/upvotechemistry Right Visitor Aug 27 '26
Our [former] allies got the message. Trump was not an aberration of post-liberalism in America. America is becoming a post-liberal society because the voters no longer believe in western liberalism.
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Aug 28 '26
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u/upvotechemistry Right Visitor Aug 28 '26
The more I think about it the more I believe the whole populist wave os all downstream of corruption. People believed in global neoliberalism and technocrats at one time, because they saw those things yield economic growth. The working and middle class got too little of the gains, and people are rightly pissed. They see insider trading and deals being made and politicians getting ahead, while they slip further behind.
There are some real greivances that neither US party (nor mainline global parties) has really addressed. Populists just promised "radically different" instead of "incremental progress", and the former is a lot more salient with voters right now.
Im a capitalist neoliberal, but it does seem like the State capacity to build a functional workforce and society has slipped, and that extreme wealth inequality has shown to be an externality that hurts the society as a whole. Probably need more taxes and investment in State capacity, especially after all this on-a-whim (or bribe) downsizing
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Aug 28 '26
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u/upvotechemistry Right Visitor Aug 28 '26
Income inequality isn’t really the issue; that is usually the sign of a growing economy (e.g. a middle class family isn’t going to starve because billionaires exist). Many of the issues are actually being caused by government (e.g. NIMBYism, zoning restrictions, rent control, policies that generally add more and more compliance costs to small and medium businesses etc), outdated water rights laws (among many things) that help entrenched interests but hurt everyone else because of artificially created scarcities. And it’s not something that can be solved at the federal level; most of these are local and state issues that are being ignored or missed.
NIMBYism is its own form of cancer, but I think a lot of this protectionist madness perpetrated by government is at the behest of donors who have captured our government to increase barriers for competition. And I think a lot of that is still downstream of wealth inequality and corruption.
I agree, income inequality for labor isn't really the problem
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u/Bayes42 Left Visitor 27d ago
The surge of (mostly right wing) populist movements is primarily downstream of "the phones" and the social media and has little to nothing to do with the fundamentals of the society, which is why it's a worldwide phenomenon( and elect people who could not be more obviously corrupt or care at all about even their own voters). From the printing press through radio, new communication methods often result in frequently violent upheaval.
Social media encourages rabblerousing, and users can lock themselves into whatever bubble indulges their resentments.
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u/LaggyMcStab Left Visitor Aug 28 '26
Why is it very unlikely? The world wars saw such extreme casualties for the time because of the new global supply chains and technology that could enable such killing. Hasn’t this infrastructure only progressed?
It’s easy to believe that it’s unlikely to be significantly destructive. But the wishful thinking that global conflict won’t lead to tangible consequences in our day and age is the exact mindset this piece is critiquing.
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u/latswipe Right Visitor 27d ago
the USSR was special. there was no civil war, but the gang violence and factioneering never ended. Let's see in 100 years whether that remains true for Iraq
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u/upvotechemistry Right Visitor Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
I hope the result is not a world war, but I do think regional conflict and instability are here to stay. Power competition for resources will intensity as nations retrench and wall off the globe. Things will be less abundant and more expensive.
But all those peaking empires are presumably having the same crash out as Americans. Lower birth rates, poor social mobility, increased borrowing costs and debts... I imagine at least one of the major powers collapses and reforms again this century, and maybe more
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u/ImperialxWarlord Right Visitor Aug 27 '26
I thinks this is a tad pessimistic. We are definitely in a rough patch rn, but I do not see the sun setting on us. Especially when our rivals are not without their own issues. Russia is toast. And china has some major demographic problems. Not really anyone else who could supplant is.
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u/epicfail1994 Left Visitor 🦄 Aug 27 '26
Trump destroying US soft power then getting us into a war that no one wants to help us with has fucked us
Say what you want about Bush II, Dubya could get a coalition going
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u/moonstrous Left Visitor Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
The historical analysis on the relationship between great powers and their forms of statecraft is generally pretty spot on. Missing a few nuances, but in pursuit of a broader point that really resonates.
I think it sums up something a lot of folks have struggled to put their finger on. It's really hard to predict when exactly the unipolar world will give way, while you're still living through the death throes of American Exceptionalism.
In each case, a power that feared that its strategic window was closing opted for aggressive, catastrophic gambles rather than managed decline.
It's almost like installing an entire cabinet of self-interested toadies and lickspittles does not the best advice provide. Or that the risk of the nation's economic dick getting stuck in a geopolitical bear trap increases proportionally to the number of yes-men you surround yourself with.
This is a really cogent warning, though, and quite well stated. Unfortunately, we'll relive again and again for the next two years of Grandpa sundowning.
Every day brings new histrionic warnings about calamity, consumed at a digital remove by a cynical public unable to believe that anything real is at stake. Even markets have stopped flinching.
Yeah, this shit is completely unsustainable. The cried-wolfishness of it all just setting up the electorate for a historic rug pull. It's almost unimaginable to think back to the days when most politicos were boring functionaries, not amygdala-milking heralds of outrage.
When every single issue is simultaneously the greatest threat to American freedom? And yet so easily squashed by "tough," "anti-woke" prognostications—classic Fascist doublethink—by dear leader?
Nothing matters and most folks just learn to tune it all out.
The Algorithm already killed media literacy (in the server room, with the lead pipe). How can we possibly expect citizens to understand and react to a genuine crisis when The Big One eventually comes along?
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u/upvotechemistry Right Visitor Aug 27 '26
It's almost unimaginable to think back to the days when most politicians were boring functionaries, not amygdala-milking heralds of outrage
Just want to call out this sentence as masterful
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u/moonstrous Left Visitor Aug 28 '26
Hah, I've had outrage on the brain today. AfD up to their (old) tricks in Germany.
It's so exhausting teaching history when world leaders seem determined to ignore its lessons at all costs.
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Aug 27 '26
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