World Leaders are Off The Deep End
I saw this posted on X last night and, while I should not have been surprised, it somehow still disturbed me:
To start with, the fact that world leaders find the top three items on the list of such concern confirms for me the control agenda that they deny is their priority. The next three I understand. In the context of a leader who wants to maintain control, inflation, and economic hardship are an express ticket to societal unrest and an election exit. Cyber attacks seem like an extension of the AI generated disinfo to me.
Equally concerning to me is the fact that the things that citizens would expect their leaders to be most concerned about when it comes to the well-being of their individual nations, those items are low priorities. Disrupted supply chains for food, censorship, disrupted energy chains, public debt distress, institutional collapse within the financial sector. These are the basics that I would like for my leaders to be focused on first and foremost. I sense that the “elite” class (as also evidenced by a recent poll of ivy league grads vs the rest of the population) are rather clueless as to the fragility of the systems that we have created that have led to the prosperity and wealth of the West. They take for granted that these things are a given because for people whose paths have been cleared, paved and carpeted in red hard work (the real, meaningful hard work that results in the creation of businesses and physical things, the difficulty of surviving without the financial backup of well off parents) is foreign to most of them. They are unaware at just how brutal the real world can be.
I was catching up on Substack reading last night and came across this from one of my regulars:
It is a little long and, frankly, a little bleak. But, I do believe it accurately captures the situation in which we find ourselves. It does offer some hope. But, it is important to realize that nothing can be done as long as the left/right political divide remains as acrimonious as it is today. For the West to avoid the downward spiral into global authoritarianism, both sides must realize that it is in none of our best interests to battle among one another until the larger risk is extinguished. I think this is the right analysis. It is why someone like RFK Jr. appeals to me these days. Historically his politics are too far left for me. However, he as much as anyone has recognized the authoritarian streak that is dominating US politics and has openly declared war against it. His priority should be that of all of us: restore the norms of our republican (small “r”) rule of law and then we can get back to arguing about policies to move the country forward.
I only wish he had a fighting chance.