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- As of Thursday, Jan 22nd 2026, we're still here.
As of Thursday, Jan 22nd 2026, we're still here.
500ish words from Greg Iwinski
Greg Iwinski
January 21, 2026
Wild stuff going on! Air Force One had an electrical issue and had to return to DC after taking off for Davos, and social media spent the night speculating on if it was a health scare for our oldest-elected President! Don’t worry, he’s fine.
Thing You Need To Have Seen: Canadian PM Mark Carney’s speech to the World Economic Forum, declaring a “rupture” in the world order that can no longer sustain a unipolar American dominance or such a tightly intermingled global economy.
In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless. And in it, he asked a simple question: How did the communist system sustain itself?
And his answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: "Workers of the world, unite!" He doesn't believe it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists.
Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.
Havel called this "living within a lie." The system's power comes not from its truth but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing — when the greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack.
A good 20 minute watch. Carney sounded serious and measured. But if that’s too boring, you can also watch Emanuel Macron’s speech, which had more “What if Matthew McConaughey liked baguettes?” vibes.
“tres bien, tres bien, tres bien”
Trump’s Davos speech was surprising.
I mean, the rambling free-association topic jumping to cover up mental decline wasn’t surprising.
The silent audience wasn’t surprising.
The “repeatedly saying Iceland when he meant Greenland” wasn’t surprising.
The flub of “Without the United States, you don’t have a country” wasn’t surprising.
What WAS surprising was that almost every cable news station and newspaper ran with the headline that “Trump Rules Out Use Of Force over Greenland.”
There are more than a dozen headlines like this from huge outlets. But here’s what Trump said:
"We never asked for anything, and we never got anything, we probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength & force where we would be frankly, unstoppable. But I won't do that. Now everyone's saying 'oh good.' …I won't use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland."
That only means “Trump rules out using force” if you have never seen or heard Donald Trump speak before. To think a tossed-off phrase in a speech counts as a binding resolution is either disqualifying naivete, crippling incompetence, or worse an attempt to normalize and downplay the President’s insanity to create a false reality where people in charge must be sane and smart.
And then, in a final stroke that is absolutely the dictionary definition of a Trump fight, he went into a meeting with the head of NATO and came out praising a great deal — “the ultimate deal” — that’s great for America and Europe and Greenland and fixes all the problems and brings back all the melted ice and gives Santa an extra large workshop to make even cooler toys.
A huge win for the President, forcing NATO to accept reality and give him Greenla—
what’s that? Greenland isn’t mentioned the deal? Oh. Oh, it’s not a deal? It’s a framework of a FUTURE deal? And it conveniently lets Trump avoid doing the Feb 1 tariffs he threatened that made the stock market dive almost 1000 points this week?
Aside to reader: this is why you don’t try to pre-write / live-write Trump stuff, because at the end of the day he’ll do something that not only finishes the story, it burns all the previous chapters to ash. He went to Davos, he gave an insane speech, Europe gave mild in-person pushback, Trump folded and like Roy Cohn taught him called a loss a win — the ultimate win, you’ve never seen a win like this, it’s huge, in fact many people are saying they didn’t believe anyone could win as big as we’ve… winned.
And in the same way the dummies who said he ruled out force misread him, people will assume this is the end of the story. But Grandpa gon’ get back on his aeroplane and go home and get in the recliner and start watching his SuperTivo (story for another time) and he’s gonna get the itch for territorial expansion and bing bong boom we’ll be back here again.
FUN! Aren’t you having fun? Isn’t this a great way to live your limited and ever-shrinking time on Earth???? Knowing what everyone means when they say they’re planning for when “IT happens?” Finding out a new ally we’re attacking that we’ve been friends with since your grandparents were born?
See you tomorrow!
So, I was GOING to talk about how there is another government funding bill coming up next week that provides a chance for Democratic leadership to talk big and then very publicly fold like the cowards they are, but that’s gotta be another day. Maybe… next week! TIMELY!
little tiny side note before I go: gavin newsom straight up sucks as a politician and every day there’s more tape that proves that. he is a candidate solely for rich white people who think The West Wing is real life.