"Hamburgers will decide America's future". So says Malcolm Kyeyune in a recent essay ruminating on the American journalist Tucker Carlson's recent visit to Moscow where he famously - or, perhaps, infamously - purchased a burger at Russia's new McDonald's clone, 'Tasty, that's it'.
Kyeyune sees Carlson's culinary adventure as reminiscent of Mikhail Gorbachev's decision to do an advert in which Russians would debate whether the fall of the Evil Empire was worth the introduction of fast food chains. Now the shoe is on the other foot, with Carlson highlighting how cheap food is in Russia in comparison to the United States, plagued, as is the rest of the West, with a cost of living crisis.
But this latest fast food fight is really only the tip of the iceberg lettuce. Since the pandemic of 2020, a feeling of malaise has crept into the West. The feeling is palpable and encompasses everything from rising costs of basic necessities to a feeling that the culture is spiralling out of control to a questioning of our basic modus operandi - what happened, some ask, to our freedoms?
In this week's episode we want to discuss whether the West is spiralling into chaos? It feels like a lot of narratives are breaking down right now, and one crisis seems to open onto another like a Matryoshka doll. With a highly controversial election on the horizon in November and the Biden Administration having failed to deliver on its promise of normality, is our ideological Berlin Wall starting to crumble?
***
Please like, subscribe, and be excellent to each other.
Patreon
Special Edition with Harvard's Neo-Realist Stephen Walt: The Balance of Threat
Quit All That Yellen, The Chips Fall Where They May, Multipolar Metallurgy
Avant Lagarde, The IRA Blows Up, Xi Gets A Brazilian
"The Leak", Multipolar Macron, Rare Earth Getting Rarer
CPTPP: Trade Deal or No Deal, Macron's Beijing Bargain, Cast No Shadow Banking
Tanking Banking, French Toast, Bi Bi's Boo Boo
Special Edition: A Q&A with Collingwood & Pilkington
Samo Burja: The Three Mega-Trends That Will Define The 21st Century
Silicon Valley Bailout, All Butter No Guns, The Art of Peace
An OPEC for Lithium, World War Three, The Goulash Archipelago
The Great Divergence, Chips With Everything, Africa's New Rumble In The Jungle
All Turkey's Christmases, Materiel World, Chinese Burns
Ireland's Migration Riots, The Global Popularity Contest, America Hits the Bongbong in the Philippines
The Balloon Goes Up, Sanctions Busting, Nigeria's Stablecoin Faceplant
Housing Crash 2.0, The Rebalancing Act, A North-South Silk Road
Special Edition: Brazil and Argentina form a currency union
The WTO Crumbling, Mining's Green Moment, China Goes Gaucho
1. The Golden Whale, 2023 in Crystal Balls, All the Chips in China
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free