The following is an edited transcript excerpt from The Michael Knowles Show.
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The United States is the big dog and President Trump doesn’t want anyone to forget it. Not the Europeans and not the Canadians, the “snow Mexicans” who live in America’s evil top hat up north.
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I love this moment. Trump does sound a little tired. You can hear it. And honestly, that makes sense. The guy basically pulled an all-nighter, flew straight over to Davos, Switzerland, bouncing from country to country in a nonstop whirlwind. And even then, he still seemed more energetic than most of the other zombies wandering around Davos.
I love the slight lethargy in his voice because it makes him sound like Don Corleone:
You should be grateful. We never ask anything of you. You come here on the day my daughter is to be married, and you don’t even have the courtesy to call me godfather. You’ll remember I’ve been very good to you. I cannot grant your request. You tell me not to take Greenland? That I cannot do.
I love this not just because I’m a descendant of the Mezzogiorno in America, but because it’s reality. This is how the world actually works. Not the fake world of the World Economic Forum, not the fantasy land of the United Nations, not the imaginary liberal international system built on polite lies and hollow pretenses.
One of the biggest lies is that every country is basically equal. That we’re all the same.
That has never been true. The world has never operated that way. It’s a fiction. A noble lie, but still a lie.
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Trump is reminding people of the truth. And while people like me might describe him as talking like a mafioso, like Don Corleone, even that’s not quite right. He’s speaking like an emperor. More precisely, he’s speaking like the leader of a great power, which we are.
And that’s a good thing because it is reality.
Politics works better when you acknowledge reality, even when that reality is uncomfortable. Even when it offends your ideology, whether you’re on the Left or the Right. Especially when it offends your ideology.
There are disparities in power between nations. Great nations pursue their interests. The Left hates admitting that. But it’s true.
There’s also another reality people don’t like admitting: you can’t have unlimited inequality in a democratic nation and expect stability. The palace is never safe when the cottage is unhappy. That reality offends libertarians and free-market ideologues on the Right, but it’s still reality.
And if you don’t deal with reality, you don’t flourish. You get revolutions. You get revolts. You get collapse.
And reality doesn’t care whether you like it or not.