If you are depressed over the demented and disgraceful spew of braggadocio and threats delivered by the President at the United Nations today, I suggest you watch Canadian Prime Minister Carney’s September 17 speech to the European Union Parliament - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnYuvyRSTbU . It left me with a rare moment of optimism for the future of the world, suggesting that at least one alliance, with sufficient economic and military power to matter, might stand in opposition to the nationalist darkness which has descended here at home and a few places abroad.
The speech is also a model for those of us in the domestic opposition, showing that a powerful indictment of America’s madness can be delivered by articulating a positive vision, without even mentioning our country or its depraved leader by name.
Listening to Carney’s speech has allowed me to dream of a scenario where the American Century (and to be clear, it ended on January 20, 2025) ends not with global chaos and suffering, but with a moment of creative destruction in which opposition to nationalistic autocratic kleptocracy is reinvigorated, in which a refreshed commitment to democracy and peace emerges, and in which multilateral cooperation finally permits humanity to meet the existential challenges of AI and climate change. Rather than lamenting Trump’s annihilation of the post-war system that prevented world war for the past 80 years (and his having reduced the government of that system’s “indispensable country” to a dysfunctional shell of its former self), Carney envisions a new economic, political, and military alliance dedicated to the values America used to champion.
Whether your children or grandchildren will benefit from renewed participation in the global family of democracies such as that described by Carney, or will continue to live in a country that is a pariah, may well be determined on November 3.
