‘America No Longer Matters.’ Davos Isn’t Worried About President Trump

By week’s end, Donald Trump would be joining the gathering–a neat symbol of his ingestion by the globalist class. A year ago, this group had been mortified by Trump’s election and the rise of populism around the world. But the destabilizing President who once seemed like an existential threat now seems more like a harmless diversion. A year after Trump’s election raised the prospect of revolution, the elites have regained their confidence. The revolt had been put down, stock markets are up, and globalism is making a comeback.

The phenomenon of Trump is no longer interesting to people,” said Timothy Snyder, a Yale historian whose book about tyranny Trump helped send shooting up the best-seller list. Over his shoulder, I spotted former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry entering the reception we were attending. “A year ago, everyone thought Trump was just fascinating,” Snyder added. “I spend a lot of my life in Europe, and what I see is that the Europeans have moved on. America no longer matters.”

The globalists, it seemed, had more important things to discuss. Things like connectivity and artificial intelligence and inclusive growth. The plight of refugees and how to address global pandemics and “drones for all.”

Trump may represent the antithesis of everything the Davos crowd holds dear. But on the other hand, that crowd is making a lot of money these days.

If anything, the globalists seemed inclined to view Trump, who was scheduled to arrive on Jan. 25 and give a speech the following day, with benign tolerance. Dialogue is one of their cardinal virtues, and most seemed determined to give Trump a hearing. “I don’t agree with Trump, but I believe in listening to people you disagree with,” said Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychologist and best-selling author. Trump’s “America first” vision, he said, was “horrifying,” and his derision of expertise and multilateralism was “childish.”

“We know what he’s probably going to say,” Pinker mused with the air of a man who could hardly care less. “‘Davos Man, screw you.’”

The political scientist Samuel Huntington coined the archetype “Davos Man” to symbolize the “emerging global superclass.” It wasn’t a compliment; his essay on this trope was titled “Dead Souls.” The rootless, denationalized elites, he argued, were out of touch with ordinary people’s yearning for tradition and community. It was this theme that Trump’s onetime strategist Stephen Bannon invoked when he said Trump’s enemies were “the party of Davos.”

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