Welcome back to the end of the world, or as the Davos set likes to call it, 'a period of transition.' It is the year of our lord 2024, and the air in the Swiss Alps is thick with the scent of $40 lattes and the desperate, musk-like perspiration of middle-managers masquerading as world leaders. We find ourselves revisiting the ghost of Angela Merkel—the High Priestess of Incrementalism—who in 2018 warned us that we were 'sleep-walking' into a repeat of our 20th-century bloodbaths. It was a charmingly quaint sentiment, wasn't it? The idea that we were merely unconscious, rather than being fully awake and actively sprinting toward the abyss for the sake of a few more points on the S&P 500.

Fast forward to today’s reality, a comedy of errors so bleak it makes Kafka look like a writer of greeting cards. On one side, we have the European elite, a collection of historical enthusiasts who believe that if they quote enough dead philosophers and hold enough 'urgent' summits, the barbarians will simply stop at the gate and ask for a permit. On the other, we have Donald Trump, the sentient neon sign of American decline, who isn't 'forgetting' his old alliances. That implies a cognitive lapse. No, Trump is doing something far more honest: he’s treating the post-war international order like a failing casino, and he’s ready to strip the copper wiring out of the walls and sell it to the highest bidder.

The latest obsession is Greenland. Let’s pause to appreciate the sublime stupidity of it. While Vladimir Putin is busy rearranging the borders of Eastern Europe with the subtle grace of a sledgehammer, the President of the United States is eyeing a giant block of ice as if it were a prime piece of real estate in Atlantic City. The message to Denmark and the rest of the European Union isn't one of strategic realignment; it’s a notice of eviction. Trump understands something that the Merkel-types never could: alliances are not sacred bonds forged in the fires of shared values. They are loyalty cards for a department store that has been out of business since 1989. To Trump, if an alliance doesn't provide an immediate, tangible kickback or a chance to slap a gold-plated nameplate on a glacier, it is functionally useless.

The tragedy here isn't that Trump is 'siding with tyranny,' as the pearl-clutching editorialists like to moan. The tragedy is the collective delusion that there was ever a 'good side' to begin with. The European leaders, who now tremble at the thought of a US withdrawal, are the same visionary geniuses who spent decades building an energy infrastructure that relied entirely on the good graces of a Russian autocrat while lecturing the rest of the world on 'sustainability.' They didn't sleep-walk into this nightmare; they booked a first-class suite in it and left a mint on the pillow. Their panic isn't for the soul of democracy; it’s for the loss of their primary security guarantor, the US military, which allowed them to spend their budgets on social safety nets and artisanal cheese instead of bullets.

We are witnessing the liquidation of the West. Trump is simply the bankruptcy lawyer with the loudest tie. His goal isn't to destroy alliances out of some grand ideological conviction—conviction requires a level of intellectual depth he hasn't displayed since the 1980s. He wants to destroy them because the wrecking ball is the only tool he knows how to use, and the audience loves the sound of the glass breaking. Meanwhile, the liberal establishment stands in the wreckage, clutching their history books and weeping about 'lessons learned.'

History doesn't teach lessons; it provides a script for the next generation of actors to perform with slightly worse CGI. Merkel’s 'sleep-walking' metaphor was flawed from the start. We aren't unconscious. We are staring directly into the sun, marveling at how bright it is while our retinas burn. The destruction of these 'old alliances' is merely the logical conclusion of a century of hypocrisy. We pretended that trade would make us friends, that treaties would make us safe, and that the 'international community' was something other than a lunch club for people who hate each other. Now the bill has come due, the waiter is a lunatic, and the exit doors are locked from the outside. If you’re looking for a silver lining, you’re in the wrong column. The only thing left to do is sit back and watch the 'guest of honor' at Davos offer to trade NATO for a beachfront hotel in Nuuk.