Generational conflict is commonplace in history but now increasingly consequential. Many younger Americans believe things are getting worse, and some blame the boomers who came before them. Former private equity executive Bruce Gibney, now 50 and a Gen Xer, labeled boomers “a generation of sociopaths” who have left behind a burden of enormous government debt. Read more
As the dominant economic and social force of our time, a handful of Silicon Valley-based companies shape our politics more than we’d like to admit. These tech oligarchs are not ideological, but instead are motivated by what Lord Palmerston referred to as “permanent interests”. Controlling state power, or constraining it from undesirable intrusions, often requires flexible politics. Read more
The recent deal with China obliges Canada to send raw materials in exchange for manufactured goods, which is far less lucrative for Canada
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at the recent Davos conference — where he called for decoupling from the U.S. while entering a “strategic partnership” with China — was greeted rapturously abroad. His tough on Trump rhetoric is certainly winning political points at home as well. Read more
The 20th century was an era of consolidation and centralisation. Power shifted away from localities, communities and families, moving ever higher up the political food chain. In the ultimate shift, power flowed towards transnational bureaucracies – most notably in Europe, in the form of the EU.
The recent announcement that California led the nation in losing domestic migrants may seem like another nail in the Golden State’s coffin. It’s just another piece of bad news for a state that, despite having the most billionaires in the world, suffers the nation’s highest poverty rate, per recent Census data. The state’s young people are faring poorly: Among teenagers, the unemployment rate tops 21%, just short of twice the national average. And for those under 30, California’s jobless rate exceeds that of every other state except for Mississippi. Read more
Will California implement a wealth tax on its billionaires? The plan has been gaining traction in the state legislature — and while it is some way off becoming law, some billionaires seem to think it will. This week, real estate broker Julian Johnston told Fox News that he’s working directly with three billionaires moving from California to South Florida, where there is no income tax for those who reside there fewer than 183 days of the year. While it looks like California is finally ending its love affair with Silicon Valley, the question of a wealth tax — not just in the Golden State — won’t go away any time soon. Read more
Amid the growing cost of living crisis, Marxist firebrand Zohran Mamdani has been elected to the position of Mayor of New York. Mamdani’s popularity, which is based largely on unease about prices, most notably rents, augurs a possible American turn towards radical collectivism. Read more
“Living next to you, is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”
— Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, 1969.
I have good news for Canadians, including my wife’s family — the grunting has a sell by date. Donald Trump is already on the way out. Even as he postures and shapes the world, sometimes for the better, often for the worse, Trump is rapidly becoming a “lame duck,” even losing his grip on his once loyal vassals in Congress, as well as the constitutional conservatives on the Supreme Court.
There have also been reports that suggest his health may be declining. Trump is 79, reportedly takes more aspirin than his doctors recommend, gets little sleep, sometimes has trouble keeping his eyes open at times during televised White House events, and his ankles swell. His diet of fries, Big Macs and sodas probably doesn’t help.
Yet losing Trump, before or after he slinks into the sunset, will not alter the fundamental realities shaping America’s future and that of Canada. The United States remains North America’s dominant power, standing as the world’s leading fossil fuel producer and military force, as seen recently in both Iran and Venezuela. Married to the country’s technological power — challenged seriously only by China — the U.S. will continue casting a shadow over its far less populous neighbor.
Trump has already changed Canada, even making it more Trumpian. Carney, the former apostle of the climate industrial complex, has rediscovered the importance of Canada’s natural resources, most of all oil and gas. And he is doing much of what Trump did to close the border, albeit with less savagery, as Canada too becomes more restrictive on immigration.
This is happening because our societies converge even as our political leaders squabble. Canada’s population, like that of the U.S., is starting to shrink due to low birthrates among the native-born and less mass immigration. The pervasive power of the supremely global oligarchic tech platforms remains unchallenged, informing — and often poisoning — the already desiccated body politic. And as in America, notes scholar George Dunn, Canada’s unique regions have been bowdlerized by mass communication and culture. Basically, we share the same dilemmas.
Read the rest of this story at National Post
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Photo: U.S. and Canada flags together at Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.
Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration this week as New York City mayor is a moment of reckoning for those who care about preserving the American way of life. As a matter of policy, Mamdani mostly represents a continuation of the lifestyle and identity Leftism of recent decades, rather than a turn to traditional socialism. Yet it’s a telling indicator that his pseudo-socialist message has resonated so deeply with many young New Yorkers, tracking a broader shift toward urban radicalism. Read more
The election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York – alongside the victory of similarly hard-Left candidates in other mayoral races – has left some predicting that urban America will inevitably fall into a “doom loop” of decline, with an exodus of the super-rich leaving cities in the control of a resentful lower class. Yet in reality, the socialist takeover will prove no great win for the working class. If anything, it leaves the haute bourgeoisie even more the masters of places like Gotham than before.
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