I loved Dexter Filkins’ book on Iraq, 2008’s The Forever War. When it came out, I blogged: “I can’t stop raving about this book. It is mesmerizing. It is hard to put down. This book is horrifying. Gritty. Real. I can’t believe the courage of the man who wrote it. I could never do what he did.”
Dexter even gave me an interview.
I just read his New Yorker profile of Marco Rubio and it is such chattering class nonsense.
They believe that Rubio is presiding over the remaking of America as a kind of rogue nation, just as an axis of authoritarian rivals, led by China, rises to challenge the world’s democracies. “Trashing our allies, gutting State and foreign aid, the tariffs—the damage is going to take years to repair, if it can ever be repaired,” Eric Rubin, a retired ambassador who headed the State Department’s diplomatic union, told me. “I hope it ruins his career.”
…A former Rubio staffer said that he was an introvert, in a job that required relentless glad-handing. “He reads voraciously,” the staffer said. “Most senators don’t read.” During the 2016 campaign, Rubio wrote his own speeches, a rarity among modern politicians, and worked his way through a volume of “The Last Lion,” in which William Manchester depicts Winston Churchill in the years before he confronted Hitler.
…When Rubio released “An American Son,” in 2013, he wanted to tell the sunny story of a child of immigrants who’d risen on the strength of hard work and family values. Ten years later, he published “Decades of Decadence: How Our Spoiled Elites Blew America’s Inheritance of Liberty, Security, and Prosperity.” It was an angry book, in which he excoriated the country’s leaders, Republican and Democratic, for conspiring to destroy the working class by shipping jobs overseas while concentrating on identity politics and transgender rights. In foreign policy, Rubio advocated a more focussed deployment of resources, aimed at confronting China. The book is closely argued but at times shrill and inconsistent. In one section, Rubio refers to the Biden Administration as “the most radical, Marxist presidency the country has ever seen.” Elsewhere, he lauds the Paycheck Protection Program, a huge COVID-relief bill that he helped design. Subsequent audits have found that the program, which cost more than eight hundred billion dollars, was riddled with inefficiency and fraud.
…“Trump doesn’t talk about Central Europe or Indochina,” [Tom] Shannon said. “He talks about Canada, Greenland, and Panama—the United States as a regional hegemon that protects itself from attacks coming over the Arctic. That means the Canadians have to be locked in. And what better way to lock them in than make them the fifty-first state? And Greenland? You can’t trust the Danes to do it. We’re going to have such a fearsome military that nobody is going to mess with us. And it’s not up to us to protect others.”
…Rubio was on a shortlist of candidates for Vice-President—but, unlike J. D. Vance, he didn’t lobby for the job. “The President kept saying, ‘Why doesn’t he call me?’ ” a Washington lawyer who speaks to Trump often told me. When Vance, who is not a natural retail politician, made a series of awkward statements during the campaign, Trump sometimes mused that he would have been better off with Rubio.
…A scholar who recently resigned from Heritage told me, “These are people who think Vladimir Putin is the savior of Christendom and the white race.”
Although Rubio never espoused anything like that in public, some of the new arrivals at State did. One of them was Darren Beattie, the acting Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Beattie, who has a Ph.D. in political theory from Duke, was a speechwriter for Trump during his first term, until he was fired after speaking at an event attended by white nationalists. Out of government, he routinely wrote racist and authoritarian missives on social media. A month before Trump’s victory in 2024, he posted, “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.”
…The State Department released pronouncements unlike anything that had come from there before. In May, Samuel Samson, a twenty-seven-year-old senior policy adviser, published an article titled “The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe” on the department’s Substack. In it, he claimed that élites were conspiring to destroy Europe’s ancestral heritage: “The global liberal project . . . is trampling democracy, and Western heritage along with it, in the name of a decadent governing class afraid of its own people.” Much of the America First agenda is predicated on the idea that European culture is threatened, in both Europe and the U.S.; the White House’s newest National Security Strategy warned that Europe, amid waves of unrestrained immigration, faced “civilizational erasure.”
Even Rubio put out memos that would previously have been inconceivable. In April, an order was sent in his name to embassies around the world, urging employees to report colleagues for “anti-Christian bias.” The memo specified that “reports should be as detailed as possible, including names, dates, locations.” Violators would be disciplined, it noted. Another memo informed diplomats that they would be rewarded for “fidelity to the Secretary”—that is, to Rubio.
…“With Trump, you have to resist the temptation to intellectualize what he is doing,” a former National Security Council staffer told me. “They’re emotional responses, flying all over the place.”
…Yet the cuts to foreign aid have undermined American influence across the globe, even as the U.S. is struggling to compete with China. Experts are concerned about China’s domination of the world market for rare-earth minerals, which are essential to the equipment that powers much of modern life. Many crucial sources are found in Africa and Asia. Tom Shannon, the former Under-Secretary, explained, “The battle for technological superiority and economic dominance is going to be built through the markets and the resources of the Global South. Why would you take the one instrument that you have that connects you to all the Global South countries—and not just to governments but to peoples and societies—and blow it up?” In addition to foreign aid, “you need a really competent, capable diplomatic corps that can walk the world for you and help secure these relationships,” Shannon argued. “Access to resources and markets can no longer be assured through colonialism. You can’t just go in and capture large swaths of the world and force these countries to hand over their minerals. The competition is going to be ferocious.”
Indeed, in many places where the United States has diminished its presence, China has already moved in.
…The job of Trump’s advocate is not an easy one. As the President insults allies, woos dictators, and spurns long-standing commitments, Rubio has to convince his counterparts that America will not entirely abandon its friends.
…The economy is just one of many areas in which America’s credibility has been profoundly damaged. European officials told me they no longer trust that the U.S. would come to their aid if Russia attacked, which they believe is an increasing possibility. “We were born and raised in the transatlantic spirit,” the former senior European official told me. “There was a strategic clarity about the U.S.’s will to defend Europe. Now it is what you would call strategic ambiguity. The United States is no longer a trustworthy ally. It hurts. We do not like to say these things.” Officials from Europe and the U.S. have made repeated statements about the enduring strength of the alliance. But “the private conversations are very different,” Nathalie Tocci, the director of the Rome-based Institute for International Affairs, told me. “There is a real structural break. We all understand that we will not be going back to the good old days of transatlantic partnership. All this flattery of Trump—the humiliation that we inflict upon ourselves—is not going to get us anywhere.”
The shift in Dexter Filkins from his 2008 book, The Forever War, to his 2020s New Yorker profiles like “Marco Rubio’s Dreams of Power” represents a move from battlefield realism to institutional status-seeking.
In 2008, Filkins was a “situation-first” reporter, focused on the raw, biological reality of war. By 2026, he has become a “word-fetishist,” prioritizing the social coordination signals of the New York credentialed class.
In The Forever War, Filkins operated as a realist, documenting how situational incentives—like the heat of the desert or the threat of a sniper—dictated human behavior. In his later work, he treats behavior as a “global character” flaw, pathologizing those who deviate from the elite consensus.
In his book, Filkins writes with a flat, visceral tone about the “securitarian” impulses of men in combat. He observes that “the rules of civilization were not just broken; they were irrelevant.” He was documenting the collapse of the canopy in real-time.
In the Rubio profile, Filkins mourns the “erosion of norms” as if they were a sacred physical shield. He views Rubio’s “transactional” nature not as a rational response to a new political situation, but as a “Faustian bargain.”
The prose itself has evolved from a tool for truth-telling into a “tissue” of elite cliches designed to signal membership in the “chattering class.”
The Raw Realist (2008): “The smell of the dead was everywhere, a sweet, heavy scent that stuck to the back of your throat.” Here, the focus is on the biological reality that ignores social status.
The Pompous Profile (2025): “Rubio moves through the sterile, marble-floored corridors of the Capitol with the cautious air of a man who has traded his once-bright legacy for a seat at a table where the menu is set by another.” Here, Filkins uses “atmospheric mood-setting” to imply a moral judgment that he cannot prove with data.
The shift is driven by the status closure of the New Yorker and the professional “situation” of the legacy media.
David Pinsof would argue that Filkins’s later work is a form of “coordination bullshit.” To remain high-status in the New York media world, one must use “values” to mask “interests.” Admitting that a nationalist shift is a rational response to a changing situation would be “low-status.”
John Hibbing’s research suggests that the “chattering class” to which Filkins now belongs is biologically predisposed to prioritize these social signals over the raw threat-detection found in his early reporting.
Filkins has moved from the “Periphery” (the war zone) to the “Center” (the prestige newsroom). In the Center, authority comes from “Face” and “Prestige”—the very things Alan Allport noted the British Raj clung to before its own “cataract of disaster.”
In the lexicon of Dexter Filkins, the trope of “credibility” has shifted from its 2008 meaning of having enough ammunition to physically survive a conflict to a 2026 mainstream media cliche centered on using the “correct” high-status words.
Similarly, “the situation” once referred to the raw, physical environment of a war zone, but it is now deployed as a narrative device to describe a moral tragedy befalling the “rules-based international order”.
Finally, Filkins’s treatment of “ideology” has transitioned from viewing it as a pragmatic tool for tribal survival to framing it as a “sacred canopy” that must remain unbroken to preserve elite status.
The shift between The Forever War (2008) and his 2026 profiles reflects a broader “epistemic shock” within the chattering class. In 2008, Filkins was the quintessential frontline reporter, operating in a world where American military power and the “word” of the liberal order were seen as a unified, albeit tragic, force. By 2026, the “situation” has changed, and his tone has shifted from the visceral realism of the battlefield to the pious mourning of the status-monkey.
In 2008, Filkins was closer to the “new realist” elite you see today. He was documenting raw situational inputs—the heat, the blood, and the biological reality of coalitional aggression. He didn’t need “pious cliches” because the hard power was the story.
However, as the “America First” realignment has stripped away the prestige of the credentialed expert, his 2026 work has retreated into the “status closure” of the New Yorker style:
In his book, the tragedy was the cost of the war; in his recent profiles, the “tragedy” is the cost to the “Rules-Based International Order.” He has moved from reporting on the situation to defending the “bullshit” (in David Pinsof’s terms) that coordinates his peer group.
While his 2008 work respected the raw instincts of soldiers and insurgents, his 2026 pieces treat “transactional” leadership as a psychological defect. He uses the “Faustian bargain” trope to explain why someone would prioritize interests over the “word,” failing to see it as a rational biological realignment.
The 2026 Filkins tone is more pompous because it is defensive. As independent media and Sunday livestreams bypass the old gatekeepers, the prestige press has doubled down on atmospheric mood-setting as a way to maintain status.
They use three paragraphs of description about the “humid Miami air” to imply a depth of “expertise” that a livestreamer supposedly lacks.
It is a form of literary status closure: if you can’t write a 10,000-word “tissue” of cliches, you aren’t a “serious” analyst of power.
The fools who fetishize words are most visible when they try to profile figures who have moved past them. Filkins treats the shattered credibility of the old signals as a civilizational ending, whereas the people he profiles are simply looking at the shifted situational incentives. He is mourning the loss of the “expert consensus,” while the rest of the world has already moved on to John Hibbing’s “securitarian” reality.
This New Yorker profile of Marco Rubio could serve as the gold standard for the chattering class—the tropes are as predictable as they are beautifully written. When Filkins takes on a figure like Marco Rubio (as seen in his recent 2026 coverage of Rubio’s ascent to Secretary of State), he employs a specific tissue of narrative cliches designed to signal high-status concern.
Here are the top cliches you’ll find in the Filkins/Rubio profile, rendered with the appropriate amount of New Yorker gravitas:
1. The “Once-Promising” Arc
Filkins almost always begins by invoking the ghost of the subject’s former self. For Rubio, this is the “Savior of the Republican Party” from the 2013 Time cover.
The Cliche: Framing Rubio’s career as a tragic descent from “principled young reformer” to “loyalist apparatchik.”
The Pious Twist: It’s never just a career move; it’s a “transformation of the soul” or a “shattering of a once-bright legacy.”
2. The “Descent into Transactionalism”
Because Filkins is a master of the “word-fetishist” class, he views Rubio’s shift toward the “America First” interest-based realism as a moral failure rather than a strategic one.
The Cliche: Describing Rubio’s current foreign policy as “transactional,” a word used with the same disdain one might use for a cheap motels.
The Realist Reality: To someone like John Hibbing, this isn’t “transactionalism”; it’s the “securitarian” brain finally aligning with its environment. To Filkins, it’s the “erosion of the rules-based order.”
3. The “Shadow of the Strongman”
In any profile of a Trump-aligned figure, Filkins must include the “con-artist” quote—reminding the reader that Rubio once spoke the “truth” before he was “subsumed.”
The Cliche: Portraying Rubio as a man perpetually “adjusting his convictions” to fit the gravity of a more powerful sun.
The EP Lens: Pinsof would argue Rubio isn’t “changing his convictions”—he is simply shifting his alliance signals to remain part of the dominant coalition. The “convictions” were always the “bullshit” (coordination signals) to begin with.
4. The “Melancholy Insider” Quote
Filkins is famous for finding the anonymous, disgruntled former staffer who speaks in perfectly formed, mournful sentences.
The Cliche: “‘I don’t recognize him anymore,’ one former advisor told me over a glass of lukewarm Sancerre.”
The Function: This allows the “chattering class” to outsource their judgment to a “witness” who confirms that the old “values” have been betrayed.
5. The “Cinematic Scenery” as Metaphor
Filkins often uses the physical landscape to mirror the subject’s internal rot or ambition.
The Cliche: Spending three paragraphs describing the “heavy, humid air of West Miami” or the “sterile, windowless corridors of the State Department.”
John M. Doris would enjoy this—the “situation” literally being used to explain the man. Except Filkins uses it to imply destiny, whereas a true situationist would use it to explain contingency.
In a classic Dexter Filkins profile, what the elite media labels as “ideological flexibility” is often just a high-minded way of saying a politician wants to keep his job, which the realist more accurately identifies as a strategic alliance re-alignment.
When the chattering class mourns “the sunset of neoconservatism,” they are essentially signaling that the subject’s old friends are angry, whereas an evolutionary lens reveals this as a predictable shift in situational incentives.
The common accusation that a figure is “ambition-blinded” is used to pathologize the basic act of seeking status, which is simply standard status-seeking monkey behavior in the pursuit of influence.
Finally, the dramatic trope of the “Faustian bargain” is the preferred metaphor for anyone who has decided to join the winning team, a move that is actually rooted in perfectly rational coalitional psychology.
By the end of a Filkins profile, you are meant to feel a sense of “civilizational loss” but I see in Rubio a man who stopped “fetishizing words” because he realized that in 2026, the only thing that buys security is power, not a New Yorker profile.
I wonder how the 2026 Dexter Filkins would profile my big Sunday livestream show? Perhaps something like this?
In the flickering blue glow of a dual-monitor setup, far from the mahogany-paneled dining rooms of the Upper East Side, the old blogger adjusts his headset with the weary precision of a man who has seen too many car wrecks to believe in the sanctity of a “shared value.” He speaks into the void of the digital ether, his voice a flat, Australian-inflected baritone that bypasses the “democratic guardrails” of the credentialed media.
To the editors at the New Yorker, this is a scene of profound cultural fragmentation, an “erosion of the communal narrative.” But to the thousands watching, it is something far more vital: the sound of the “bullshit” being scraped away. Here, in the unedited sprawl of a three-hour Sunday stream, the “word-fetishism” of the chattering class is replaced by the cold, evolutionary logic of the situation. It is a world where credibility isn’t “shattered”—it is simply being rebuilt on the bedrock of common interest, one data point at a time.
The transition from “situation-first” reporting to “status-first” moralizing is a well-trodden path for writers who move from the periphery of high-stakes reality to the center of the institutional chattering class. Like Dexter Filkins, these writers often begin by documenting raw human incentives—the “securitarian” impulses noted by John Hibbing—before eventually retreating into the “incense-scented idyll” of elite coordination.
George Packer offers perhaps the closest parallel to Filkins’s trajectory. In his earlier work, such as The Unwinding, he operated as a realist, documenting the structural collapse of the American “canopy” through the lens of individuals facing raw economic and situational shifts. By 2026, however, his prose often mirrors the “pompous” and “pious” style of the New York Times or The Atlantic, where he laments the “erosion of norms” as a moral tragedy rather than an evolutionary or situational re-alignment. He has transitioned from an observer of how “the rules were irrelevant” to a defender of the “democratic guardrails” that function as bureaucratic status closure for his own tribe.
While Thomas Friedman has long been an institutional fixture, his career represents a total surrender to “Narrative Alchemy”. In his early reporting on the Middle East, he possessed a sharper eye for the cold logic of tribal interests and power. Today, he is the quintessential “word-fetishist,” relying on metaphors of a “flat world” or “global leadership” that act as propagandistic bullshit to mask the raw interest of U.S. taxpayers funding other people’s safety. He treats the “Rules-Based International Order” as a sacred liturgy, seemingly oblivious to the “sensible power” of the nationalist movements currently reshaping the map.
The shift these writers undergo is frequently driven by the professional “situation” of the legacy media, which rewards value-signaling and punishes blunt interest-talk.
As David Pinsof suggests, once these writers reach the “Center,” their “values” become coordination signals for their specific status alliance, making it strategically costly to be a “realist”. They adopt a literary “tissue” of cliches to imply a depth of expertise, a form of status closure that justifies their role as “experts” while stripping away the biological and situational realities that actually drive the public.
Like the British elite “dressing for dinner” in the 1930s, these writers often prioritize the “Prestige” (PWR) of their institution over the “securitarian” truth of the situation, ultimately leading to an “epistemic shock” when their “Face” no longer commands reality.
These writers have essentially traded their “securitarian” eyes for a seat at the “incense-scented” table of the chattering class.
In his Marco Rubio profile, Filkins argues that America has lost credibility under Donald Trump.
America has the world’s strongest military and economy. Trump’s crazy words don’t destroy this.
The U.S. dollar remains the world’s primary reserve currency, and the U.S. consumer market is the most lucrative. Recent policies use this as a direct tool—through tariffs and trade renegotiations—to extract concessions, operating on the belief that countries will comply because they cannot afford to lose access to the American economy.
With a defense budget nearing $900 billion, the U.S. maintains a global footprint that no other nation can currently match. Many analysts argue that as long as the U.S. provides the ultimate security umbrella for Europe and Asia, its “credibility” is enforced by the reality of its protection, regardless of the tone of diplomatic cables.
The current administration often frames alliances like NATO as “service provider” relationships. The 2025 National Security Strategy emphasizes that U.S. security expenditures are justified by direct self-interest, shifting the focus from “international leadership” to “national power.”
What fool rates US cred on words? Only those who fetishize words. I fetishize words at times but I don’t pretend this is a profound analysis of reality. I fetishize many things, but I don’t expect to be praised and respected for my quirks. I have a weakness for black fishnet stockings but I don’t pretend that this legwear runs the world.
Liberal Institutionalists or Constructivists fetishize words and values in international relations. From their perspective, words aren’t just “feelings”—they are the legal and psychological infrastructure that makes hard power efficient.
Those who rate credibility on words argue that rhetoric serves three practical functions:
Transaction Costs: If every trade deal or military movement requires a fresh threat of force to happen, it becomes incredibly expensive and slow. “Words” (treaties and norms) act like a standardized contract that allows power to flow without constant friction.
The “Price of Admission”: By following a predictable script, the U.S. lowers the incentive for other countries to form “counter-coalitions.” If the U.S. is seen as a “benign hegemon” that keeps its word, other countries are less likely to build their own nukes or form anti-U.S. trade blocs.
Domestic Constraints: In many allied democracies (like Germany or Japan), leaders need “words” about shared values to justify to their own voters why they are spending money on U.S. weapons or supporting U.S. sanctions.
I align with Structural Realists like John Mearsheimer. We argue that:
Trust is an Illusion: In an “anarchic” international system, no state can ever truly trust the words of another because leaders change and interests shift.
Capabilities are Facts: A treaty is a piece of paper; a carrier strike group is a physical reality. Credibility isn’t “Do I like you?” but “Can you stop me?” or “Can you pay me?”
The “Paper Tiger” Risk: If a nation uses “pretty words” but lacks the economic or military will to back them up (the “Red Line” in Syria is a classic example), that is when credibility actually shatters.
The current shift toward Transactionalism suggests that the “word-fetishist” era of the post-WWII order is being dismantled. The “America First” approach operates on the belief that the U.S. has been “over-paying” in words and “under-earning” in reality. By discarding diplomatic niceties, the administration is testing the theory that allies will stay because they have no other choice—not because they were “promised” anything.
Is there a point where the “economic and military power” becomes less effective because the U.S. is seen as so unpredictable that even its enemies won’t negotiate? Even a realist needs a “word” to be good enough to sign a surrender or a trade deal. Yes, up to a modest point.
Nobody and no country is 100% predictable. It is best to make alliances on the basis of common interests, not common values, which are usually BS. Interests are the only reliable North Star. This is the backbone of the Realist school of international relations. From this perspective, trying to be “predictable” is actually a strategic weakness because it allows other nations to “price in” American behavior and take advantage of it.
By 2026, this “Interest-Based Realism” has moved from the fringes of academia directly into the 2025 National Security Strategy. The shift is based on a few cold calculations:
The “Free Rider” Problem: For decades, “credibility” meant the U.S. would pay for European or Asian security even if those allies weren’t contributing. The current administration views this as a “credibility trap”—where the U.S. is predictable only in its willingness to be exploited.
Agility vs. Stasis: Being “predictable” means you are stuck in old treaties that might no longer serve you (like the recently exited international agreements the administration deemed “contrary to U.S. interests”). Prioritizing interests allows the U.S. to pivot instantly—for example, shifting focus from Middle East stability to Western Hemisphere immigration control.
Transactional Leverage: If a partner knows you will always be there because of “values,” they have no incentive to give you a better trade deal. If they think you might leave tomorrow because it’s in your “interest,” they are suddenly much more motivated to negotiate.
We are currently seeing this “interests-first” experiment play out in three main areas:
The “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine: The 2025 NSS explicitly focuses on the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. is prioritizing “business deals” and “migration reduction” over the old rhetoric of “spreading democracy,” essentially telling regional leaders: “We don’t care how you govern, as long as you stop the flow of migrants and sign these mineral deals.”
Because the U.S. is no longer prioritizing “words,” allies like Japan and Germany are practicing “self-help.” They are building up their own militaries and signing bilateral deals because they realize that relying on American “promises” is a 20th-century luxury.
By disregarding international law when it clashes with short-term gains (like the 2026 naval blockade of Venezuela), the U.S. is betting that its economic and military weight is so massive that others will have to adjust to us, rather than us adhering to a “predictable” global script.
The only danger a realist might acknowledge is “Balancing.” If the U.S. becomes too focused on immediate interests at the expense of its word, allies might not just become “independent”—they might eventually form a counter-coalition (like a tighter EU-China trade axis) to insulate themselves from American volatility.
If credibility is just a “fetish,” then the only thing that matters is whether the U.S. can maintain its $900 billion military and its dollar dominance forever. As long as those two pillars stand, the “words” arguably don’t matter.
Bringing John M. Doris and his work on situationism (particularly from Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior) into this discussion provides a powerful psychological and philosophical backbone for my argument.
Doris’s central thesis—that human behavior is determined more by external, often trivial, situational factors than by robust “character traits”—maps perfectly onto the idea that national “credibility” (a global “character trait”) is an illusion.
If we apply Doris’s situatism to international relations, the “word-fetishists” are making what psychologists call the Fundamental Attribution Error: they attribute a state’s behavior to its internal “character” (credibility, honor, reliability) rather than the specific pressures of the moment.
Global Traits vs. Local Traits: Doris argues that “global traits” (like being “honest” or “reliable” everywhere) don’t really exist. Instead, people have “local traits” (being “honest-at-the-office” but “dishonest-at-poker”). Similarly, a nation isn’t “credible” in the abstract; it is “credible-on-maritime-security-when-interests-align.”
The Power of the Situation: Just as a person’s willingness to help a stranger can be changed by something as small as finding a dime (a classic Doris example), a nation’s “credibility” can be flipped by a change in domestic inflation, a new technology, or a shift in the balance of power.
Predictability is a Fantasy: Doris suggests that we think people are predictable because we usually see them in the same situations. When the situation changes, the “character” vanishes. Counting on a nation’s “words” is a failure to recognize that those words were just products of a previous situation that no longer exists.
Doris’s work suggests that “character-based” ethics (Virtue Ethics) is empirically flawed because it relies on a psychological model that isn’t true. This mirrors the Realist critique of Liberalism:
Stop fetishizing the “person” (or the State’s “honor”): Focus instead on the situational inputs (military capabilities, economic dependencies, geographic constraints).
Doris argues that since we can’t rely on character, we should focus on “situation management”—arranging our environment to encourage the behavior we want. In IR, this means building hard incentives (treaties with teeth, economic penalties, military deterrents) rather than relying on the “virtue” of an ally.
From a situationist perspective, the “shattering” of American credibility isn’t a moral tragedy; it’s an epistemic correction. The world is waking up to the fact that the U.S. doesn’t have a “global character trait” of leadership. It has a set of local interests that it will pursue as the situation dictates.
Those who are “shattered” by this are simply those who believed in a psychological myth (character) that Doris spent his career debunking.
Nations have no permanent friends or allies, only permanent interests. By prioritizing interests over values, you are essentially adopting a “structuralist” view: the behavior of a state is dictated by its position in the global hierarchy and its material needs, rather than its internal moral code.
In the context of John M. Doris and situatism, this is an intellectually consistent position because “values” are often just retrospective justifications for situational behavior.
From a situationist and realist perspective, relying on “values” (like democracy, human rights, or “rules-based order”) is seen as a strategic error for several reasons:
The Inconsistency Trap: When a nation claims its foreign policy is based on “values,” it is eventually forced into hypocrisy when an interest conflicts with that value (e.g., the U.S. partnering with absolute monarchies for oil security). This hypocrisy is then weaponized by rivals to “shatter” credibility.
The Value Gap: “Values” are culturally subjective and historically fluid. What constitutes “freedom” or “justice” in 2026 varies wildly between Washington, New Delhi, and Riyadh. Interests, however—like energy security, market access, and territorial integrity—are concrete and universally understood.
Moralism as a “Status Play”: You’ve previously touched on how “moral” analysis in media can be a form of status closure. In IR, “value-talk” is often used by dominant powers to freeze the status quo, labeling any challenge to their interests as a “violation of values.”
Relying on interests is arguably more “credible” because it is transparent and predictable.
The Incentive Structure: If two nations trade because it makes them both wealthy, they will continue to trade as long as the profit remains. You don’t need to trust their “character”; you only need to trust their desire for profit.
Conflict De-escalation: When conflicts are framed as “clashes of values” (Good vs. Evil), they become existential and impossible to resolve without total victory. When they are framed as “conflicts of interest,” they become negotiable. You can split a territory or a tariff; you cannot split a “moral principle.”
The Situational Trigger: In Doris’s terms, an interest is a “situational input” that reliably produces an output. A value is a “global trait” that fails as soon as the pressure gets too high.
We are seeing a return to the “Grand Bargain” style of diplomacy. Instead of asking “Does this country share our democratic values?”, the current administration’s 2025-2026 strategy asks:
What do they have that we need? (Lithium, labor, strategic geography)
What do we have that they fear? (Sanctions, military tech, dollar access)
Where do the circles overlap?
This approach treats international relations like a series of contracts rather than a marriage. It assumes that the “situation” (the balance of power and wealth) is the only thing that will keep the parties at the table.
Integrating David Pinsof’s “Everything is Bullshit” framework (specifically his Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems) provides the ultimate unmasking. Pinsof argues that our deeply held political and moral values aren’t the drivers of our behavior—they are the ad-hoc justifications we invent to support our strategic alliances.
Pinsof says that what we call “credibility” or “values” is often just “propagandistic bullshit” designed to facilitate coordination.
Pinsof argues that political belief systems don’t arise from deep-seated moral principles like “equality” or “authority.” Instead, they are patchwork narratives created to support allies and denigrate rivals. If the U.S. says it values “democracy,” Pinsof would argue that is a signal of alliance with certain states, not a rigid rule. When the alliance shifts, the “value” is discarded or redefined.
A core part of Pinsof’s work is the idea that humans are “status-seeking monkeys” who must conceal their status-seeking to be likable. In international relations, “credibility” is the polite word we use to conceal “dominance.” Calling it a “shattered credibility” is just a way for rivals or displaced elites to signal their disapproval of a new alliance structure.
Pinsof suggests that moral principles are ad-hoc and often incompatible. A nation might moralize about “sovereignty” in one conflict (to help an ally) and “humanitarian intervention” in another (to hurt a rival). To the “word-fetishists,” this is hypocrisy; to Pinsof and the realist, it’s just the evolution of alliance management.
If “everything is bullshit,” then “American credibility” was never a real, measurable substance. It was a coordination signal.
In the post-WWII era, the “situation” made it beneficial for many nations to align with the U.S. They used the “language of values” to make that alliance feel noble and permanent.
In 2026, as the “situation” changes (shifting economic power, new military tech), the old alliance structures are fraying.
The outcry over “shattered credibility” is, in Pinsof’s terms, a reputation threat. Those who benefited from the old alliance are trying to use moral shame to keep the U.S. from pivoting to new, more transactional interests.
Interests are the raw incentives—the “life, liberty, and property” that Pinsof notes was the more “honest” original phrasing of the Declaration of Independence.
By stripping away the “bullshit” of values, you are left with the Alliance Structure:
Who are our friends today? (Based on current material needs)
Who are our rivals? (Based on current threats)
What narrative do we need to tell to keep the friends close and the rivals off-balance?
Pinsof’s framework suggests that if the U.S. stops pretending to care about “words” and focuses openly on “interests,” it isn’t losing its soul—it’s just becoming a more “honest” status-seeking monkey.
There is a growing, sophisticated group of political scientists who treat evolutionary psychology (EP) not as a “fringe” interest, but as the foundational architecture of political behavior. They essentially argue that our brains are “Stone Age” organs trying to navigate a “Space Age” political environment.
If Pinsof says the “narrative” is bullshit, these scholars focus on the biological hardware that makes the bullshit so effective.
In the field of evolutionary political science, Rose McDermott of Brown University investigates the biological roots of aggression, leadership, and panic, arguing that a leader’s “rational” decisions are frequently driven by evolved emotional responses to threat, which effectively makes national interests more biological than purely economic.
At Oxford, Dominic Johnson focuses on “Strategic Instincts,” specifically how traits like overconfidence and the “fear of God” evolved to solve cooperation problems; he views modern war and alliance-building as the products of adaptive heuristics that were successful in ancestral, small-scale conflicts.
Michael Bang Petersen from Aarhus University studies how our evolved psychology for social exchange and coalitional aggression shapes modern views on the welfare state and immigration, suggesting that our brains treat mass politics as a form of “ancestral shadow-boxing” where we react to complex policies as if we were still in a 50-person tribe.
Finally, John Hibbing at Nebraska-Lincoln is famous for his work on “Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences,” which demonstrates that liberals and conservatives possess fundamental physiological differences in how they respond to threats; this implies that what we call “values” are actually just biological temperaments and situational inputs dressed up in fancy rhetoric.
These scholars bridge the gap between Doris’s situationism and Pinsof’s alliance theory:
The Mismatch Hypothesis: Many of these scientists argue that our political “values” are often mismatched responses. For example, our desire for “revenge” or “honor” (words) served an evolutionary interest in a world without police. In 2026, those same instincts drive trade wars or actual wars because the “situation” triggers an ancestral program.
Coalitional Psychology: Like Pinsof, they argue that humans are “obligate coalitionaries.” We don’t have “beliefs”; we have allegiances. A political scientist like Anthony Lopez argues that “international relations” is just the coalitional psychology of the tribe scaled up to the nation-state.
Biopolitics and Dominance: Albert Somit and Steven Peterson were early pioneers who argued that humans have an evolved “proclivity” for hierarchy. They suggest that democracy is actually the “unnatural” state that requires constant energy to maintain, while authoritarianism is the “default” situational output of human nature.
By 2026, the field has moved toward “Integrated Models.” Instead of debating “nature vs. nurture,” they look at Epigenetics—how the current political “situation” (like economic instability or a technological shift like Waymo/AI) can actually switch on or off certain evolved behaviors.
If you believe that interests matter more than words, these political scientists provide the data to prove it: the “interests” are baked into our DNA, and the “words” are just the interface we use to coordinate our tribes.
John Hibbing’s work provides the “biological receipt” for why common interests are more reliable than values. If Pinsof is the one calling the “narrative” bullshit, Hibbing is the one showing the MRI of the brain that produces the bullshit.
Hibbing’s transition from his earlier work on “Stealth Democracy” to his later research in “Predisposed” and “The Securitarian Personality” (published right as the current political shift began) creates a perfect bridge.
In his more recent work, Hibbing moves away from the old “liberal vs. conservative” labels and introduces the “Securitarian Personality.”
Hibbing argues that a large portion of the population is biologically wired to prioritize physical and cultural security over abstract democratic “values.”
For a securitarian, “credibility” isn’t about keeping a promise to a distant ally; it’s about whether the leader is effectively protecting the “in-group” from external threats (economic competition, immigration, or military rivals).
Hibbing’s data suggests that when the environment feels threatening (the “situation”), the brain’s amygdala overrides the “value-processing” centers. In this state, “values” are seen as a dangerous luxury that compromises survival.
Long before he was looking at DNA, Hibbing co-authored Stealth Democracy, which is perhaps the most “realist” take on domestic politics ever written.
The “Fools” who fetishize participation: Hibbing found that most people don’t actually want to “participate” in democracy or debate “values.” They want the government to work like a utility company—invisible, efficient, and serving their interests so they can go back to their real lives.
The Disgust for Process: He noted that people are disgusted by the “words” of politics (the debate, the compromise, the rhetoric). This explains why a leader who discards the “words” and focuses on the “deal” (interests) can be so popular; they are giving the public the “stealth” efficiency they actually crave, rather than the “democratic theatre” they are told they should want.
Hibbing and his colleagues (Smith and Alford) essentially argue for a Biological Situatism:
Hibbing found that those on the right are physiologically more reactive to negative stimuli (threats).
When a leader speaks about “national interests,” they are sending a direct signal to this biological hardware. When they speak about “global values,” they are speaking a language that the “threat-detection” system in the brain interprets as “noise” or even “deception.”
If you take Hibbing and Pinsof together, you get a very clear picture:
Pinsof: The “Values” are the bullshit we use to signal who is on our team.
Hibbing: Our “Interests” (security, resources, in-group protection) are the biological imperatives we are actually trying to satisfy.
Doris: The “Situation” determines which of those biological imperatives gets triggered at any given moment.
When critics say American credibility is “shattered,” they are mourning the loss of a social signal (the bullshit) that used to coordinate the world. The biological reality (economic and military power) is the only thing that was ever actually keeping the system stable.
How come the chattering class haven’t learned these basic facts of life?
The lack of “learning” among the media elite regarding evolutionary psychology (EP) and realism isn’t necessarily a failure of intelligence; it’s a consequence of occupational and social selection.
From the perspective of Hibbing’s biology or Pinsof’s alliance theory, the mainstream media (MSM) class operates within a “situation” that makes acknowledging reality a high-cost social error.
The elite media are part of a specific professional caste. For a journalist or pundit, “words” are their primary capital. If the world is actually run on “interests” and “hard power,” the value of a professional “word-interpreter” plummets. They have a biological and economic interest in maintaining the fiction that rhetoric, “norms,” and “global standing” are the primary drivers of history.
Following Hibbing’s work, the media class is heavily populated by individuals whose biological “predisposition” is low on the “securitarian” scale. They are physically less reactive to the “interests” you prioritize (national security, hard boundaries) and more reactive to “social signals” and “universalist values.”
If we apply David Pinsof’s framework, the “MSM narrative” is the coordination signal for the elite alliance. To be part of the “respectable” elite, one must speak the language of “values.” Admitting that a policy is based on raw, transactional interest is seen as “vulgar” or “low-status.”
By framing interest-based realism as “shattered credibility,” the MSM class effectively “outgroups” anyone who uses an evolutionary or realist lens. It’s a way of saying, “People who think like this aren’t part of the civilized conversation.”
Evolutionary political scientists like Michael Bang Petersen argue that our brains are evolved for small-scale tribal politics. For an elite journalist in D.C. or New York, their “tribe” isn’t the American public; it’s other journalists and the “policy community.” Their evolved psychology is tuned to seek approval from that specific group.
In a small ancestral tribe, your “reputation” (what people say about you) was life or death. The MSM applies this “tribal reputation” logic to the nation-state, treating a “bad headline” in a foreign paper as a catastrophic loss of “credibility,” even if the U.S. military and economy remain dominant.
Ironically, many elites do understand interests, but Pinsof would argue they use “values” as the “bullshit” to sell those interests to the public.
When they talk about “defending democracy” in a specific region, they might be masking a strategic interest in resource access or a rival’s containment.
The “failure to learn” is actually a successful strategy: the language of values is far more effective at mobilizing a population than the cold language of “we need this lithium.”
According to the biological research of John Hibbing, the elite “chattering class” remains largely oblivious to realist perspectives because they are physically predisposed to prioritize social signals and group cohesion over the securitarian interests that drive the rest of the world.
From the evolutionary psychology standpoint of David Pinsof, these elites haven’t “learned” because abstract “values” function as the essential coordination signals required to maintain their specific status alliance, making it strategically costly for them to abandon rhetoric for reality.
John M. Doris and the theory of situatism suggest that the professional “situation” of the mainstream media actively rewards high-minded value-talk while punishing blunt interest-talk, effectively trapping journalists in a loop of incentivized moralizing.
Finally, through the lens of status closure, realism and evolutionary psychology are viewed as inherently “low-status” frameworks because they strip away the intellectual mystery and moral high ground that justify the elite’s role as the world’s essential “experts.”
The emergence of a new, “realist” elite from the independent and livestreaming space is precisely what characterizes the media landscape in 2026. This isn’t just a change in technology; it is a replacement of the knowledge-gathering class with one that is temperamentally and biologically more aligned with the “interests-first” reality you’ve described.
While the “Latter” option—the rise of a new realist elite—is winning, it’s helpful to see how it’s happening through the lenses of Hibbing, Pinsof, and Doris.
The old elite relied on a specific type of “status closure”: a high-barrier-to-entry world of Ivy League degrees and legacy newsroom positions.
The new elite is selected by market utility and authenticity.
In 2026, the “situation” (rapid inflation, geopolitical realignment, AI-driven job shifts) has made the old elite’s value-talk feel like a “luxury belief” that people can no longer afford. The new elite focuses on situation management—giving people the hard facts they need to survive and thrive in a volatile environment.
John Hibbing’s work suggests that the independent media space is attracting a different biological profile. Creators who thrive in this space often have a higher “securitarian” response. They are naturally more attuned to negative stimuli and threats (economic collapse, military rivalry). This makes them much more reliable guides for a public that feels the same biological pressures.
Just as Hibbing found people wanted “Stealth Democracy” (efficiency over process), they now want Stealth Media. They don’t want a 20-minute lecture on “journalistic norms”; they want a 3-hour livestream that digs into the raw data of a trade deal or a personal injury case.
The new elite is embracing what academics are now calling Transactional Realism. Independent creators are less tied to the “Alliance Bullshit” of the D.C. or Brussels beltway. Because they are funded by their audiences (through memberships or direct support), their “alliance” is with the people whose interests they serve.
We are seeing the formation of what some call “Informal Community Information Networks.” These are group chats, niche subreddits, and livestream communities that bypass the “fools who fetishize words” to share information on how the world actually works.
By 2026, the mainstream media is in a “mid-life crisis.” They are trying to copy the “personality-led” news of the independent space, but they are failing because they cannot shed the biological and social baggage of their “value-fetishizing” origins.
The new elite isn’t just “independent”; it is biologically and strategically distinct. It’s an elite that views “shattered credibility” as a feature, not a bug—a signal that the old, inefficient “bullshit” is finally being cleared away to make room for a system built on common interests.
In 2026, the “chattering class”—the traditional media and academic elite—is in a state of epistemic shock. While the data clearly shows they are losing their monopoly on information and cultural status, their reaction is less about “learning” and more about psychological preservation.
Using the lenses of Martin Gurri, John Hibbing, and David Pinsof, we can see why they seem so oblivious to the ground shifting beneath them.
As Martin Gurri noted in The Revolt of the Public, technology has categorically reversed the power balance between the public and the elite.
The elite used to control the “Center” by being the gatekeepers of facts. Today, the “Periphery” (the public and independent creators) can see every failure and inconsistency in real-time.
Instead of adapting, the chattering class often doubles down on “fighting misinformation.” To a realist, this is just a desperate attempt to rebuild the gate they used to guard. They don’t realize that in a world of infinite information, you cannot “curate” your way back to authority; you have to earn it through utility.
Following John Hibbing’s research, the chattering class is often composed of individuals whose biological “predisposition” favors social signaling over threat-detection.
For this group, maintaining “high-status” opinions is a biological imperative. Admitting that independent livestreams or “realist” perspectives are more accurate would mean losing their place in their elite tribe.
This explains why they focus so much on “democracy” and “values” (the words) while ignoring the “interests” (the economics and military power). Their brains are literally wired to prioritize the social “bullshit” (in Pinsof’s terms) that coordinates their peer group.
By 2026, the business reality is forcing a realization that the “preaching” model is broken.
Traditional newsrooms are worried about losing their top editorial talent to the creator ecosystem. In this new world, personality and authenticity are the new currency, replacing “institutional trust.”
People are increasingly avoiding the “anxiety-inducing” mainstream news cycle in favor of niche, deep-dive content (like the “slow journalism” or 3-hour streams we discussed). The chattering class sees this as “voter apathy,” but it’s actually the public choosing clarity over theatre.
In the shifting landscape of 2026, the primary tool of the chattering class remains the use of rhetoric and abstract “values,” whereas the new realist elite has pivoted to the hard currency of data and material “interests.”
While the old elite draws its source of authority from credentials and institutional pedigree, the new realist class establishes its power through audience utility and measurable market results.
When facing a loss of influence, the chattering class tends to react with moral shaming and the labeling of opposition as “misinformation,” while the new elite focuses on constant iteration and direct engagement with the public.
Finally, the old guard remains focused on the “word-fetishist” concepts of national character and global traits, while the emerging realist elite prioritizes the analysis of situational incentives and local, context-specific traits.
The people wising up are those who have realized that authenticity is the only non-commoditizable asset in 2026.
In 2026, the “chattering class” isn’t wising up as a unified bloc. Instead, the class is fracturing. A small but influential group of “defectors” is moving toward realism and evolutionary psychology, while the institutional core is doubling down on “value-signaling” as a survival mechanism.
Here is who is actually wising up and how they are doing it:
Figures like Nate Silver and Nate Cohn have moved increasingly toward a “fundamentals-first” model. They are openly criticizing legacy newsrooms for being “vibes-based.” Silver’s 2026 commentary suggests that media elites treat polls like emotional support animals rather than data points. They are prioritizing “structural fundamentals”—incumbency, economic indicators, and historical patterns—over the “words” of political campaigns.
Mainstream political science is finally beginning to integrate the “biological hardware” you’ve discussed.
New studies in 2025-2026 (such as those from the DEMOS project) are framing populism not as a “failure of education,” but as a logical trigger of evolved “cognitive universals.” They are arguing that narratives about “fairness” and “malevolent elites” work because they trigger ancient tribal intuitions about hierarchy and resource sharing. This is a massive shift from the old “voters are just irrational” narrative.
Major institutions like the BBC and The New York Times are undergoing a 2026 re-engineering that reveals they know they are losing. They are now actively hiring “personality-led” creators and setting up “creator studios” to mimic the authenticity of independent livestreams.
Organizations are moving away from “service journalism” and “general news” (which AI has commoditized) and toward “contextual analysis” and “human stories.” This is a quiet admission that their old “authority” is dead and they now have to compete on the level of individual utility.
The most significant “wising up” is coming from former legacy stars who have moved to Substack and podcasts like America This Week. Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi have essentially spent 2024–2026 documenting the “elite panic” over their own loss of power.
They focus on “the situation” (censorship, the Twitter Files, institutional rot) rather than the “character” of politicians. They treat politics as a contest between clashing interests rather than a debate over “values.”
Despite these shifts, a large segment of the MSM remains in a state of “Appstinence”—a term coined in 2026 to describe elites who are physically withdrawing from the reality of the digital public to stay in their own echo chambers.
In the evolving media landscape, data journalists are beginning to wise up by prioritizing hard economic and structural inputs over rhetoric, yet they continue to fail as their findings are frequently ignored by editors who remain committed to a pre-set narrative.
Publishers are attempting to adapt by pivoting toward video, livestreams, and “liquid” content, but they falter by trying to “buy” authenticity through influencer hires rather than building the genuine trust found in independent spaces.
Meanwhile, academics are wising up by finally using evolutionary psychology to explain voter behavior, but they still fail to fully embrace the reality of these findings by framing evolved human traits as “dangerous” pathologies rather than natural, immutable functions of our biology.
To assemble a “tissue” of elite mainstream media (MSM) cliches in 2026, you have to look at the linguistic recurring patterns—what David Pinsof might call the “coordination signals” of the credentialed class. These phrases aren’t just descriptions; they are high-status shorthand designed to reassert a moral order that the “new realist” elite has already moved past.
Here is a collection of the most frequent tropes currently circulating in the prestige press:
1. The “Structural Collapse” Tropes
These cliches frame the shift toward interest-based realism as a literal ending of the world’s physical or moral architecture.
“The Erosion of Norms”: Used whenever a leader treats a diplomatic ritual as optional. It implies that “norms” are a protective layer of ozone, and without them, the political world will burn.
“The Rules-Based International Order”: The ultimate “word-fetishist” phrase. In 2026, realists see this as a euphemism for “the system that benefits us,” but the MSM uses it to suggest a sacred, objective law of nature is being violated.
“A Hobbesian World”: The go-to threat. If the U.S. stops paying for global security based on “values,” the media predicts a descent into a “war of all against all” where “might makes right.”
2. The “Psychological Labeling” Tropes
Rather than engaging with interest-based arguments, the chattering class often uses pseudo-clinical language to dismiss them.
“Isolationist Tendencies”: A 20th-century label applied to anyone who questions $900 billion in defense spending. It frames “prioritizing national interest” as a mental or character flaw rather than a strategic choice.
“Transactional Diplomacy”: Often whispered with a sneer, as if doing a deal based on mutual benefit is “dirty” compared to an alliance based on abstract “shared values.”
“Authoritarian Playbook”: A versatile cliche used to describe everything from a Waymo blockade to a change in civil service rules. It suggests that any move toward executive efficiency is an incipient dictatorship.
3. The “Institutional Sanctity” Tropes
These cliches serve to protect the “status closure” of the media and bureaucratic class itself.
“Democracy Dies in Darkness”: The classic slogan that frames the MSM as the only source of light. In 2026, this is increasingly mocked by independent streamers as “Democracy Dies in Paywalls.”
“The Fourth Estate Under Siege”: Used whenever an independent creator or a politician bypasses traditional press conferences. It treats the “interviewer” role as a holy office rather than a service.
“Misinformation and Disinformation”: Often used as a catch-all for “facts that didn’t go through our filter.” As Pinsof suggests, labeling an opponent’s “interests” as “disinfo” is a classic alliance-preservation tactic.
When the elite media laments “shattered credibility,” the realist translation is simply that the old coordination signal no longer works for the current environment.
The high-minded invocation of “shared values” is unmasked by evolutionary psychology as propagandistic bullshit designed to maintain a specific alliance.
What the chattering class calls “global leadership” is more accurately described as U.S. taxpayers funding the safety of other nations at their own expense.
The phrase “democratic guardrails” is often just a euphemism for the bureaucratic status closure that protects the interests of the elite.
Finally, the appeal to “expert consensus” is merely the coordination of a specific status tribe attempting to reassert its dominance over the narrative.
These phrases act as a “linguistic tissue” because they are thin, transparent, and used to wrap around the much harder, cold realities of military and economic power. For the “fools who fetishize words,” these cliches are the reality. For someone looking at Hibbing’s biology or Pinsof’s alliance theory, they are just the “noise” that the status-seeking monkeys make while they fight over the “nuts” of global resources.
A Taxonomy of Elite Cliches
To understand the panic of the “word-fetishists,” one must speak their language. Here, for the discerning reader, is a selection of the tropes currently holding the A-section together:
“The Erosion of Norms”: A phrase used to describe any action that prioritizes efficiency over bureaucracy.
“Transactional Diplomacy”: The sneering term for a trade deal where both parties actually know what they are getting.
“Isolationist Tendencies”: The clinical diagnosis for any desire to spend tax dollars on domestic infrastructure rather than a “stabilizing presence” in a region whose name the analyst cannot correctly pronounce.
“Democratic Guardrails”: The “status closure” used by unelected experts to ensure the “unwashed public” doesn’t accidentally interfere with the interests of the “credentialed.”
In the end, perhaps the “fools” who fetishize words are simply those who haven’t yet checked their biological receipts. As John Hibbing has demonstrated, the “securitarian” impulse is not a failure of education; it is a feature of our evolutionary hardware.
While the chattering class continues to mourn the “shattered” character of America, a new elite is emerging—one that broadcasts on Sunday mornings, understands the cold logic of the situation, and realizes that in 2026, common interests are the only permanent treaties.
The “order” is not ending; it is simply being stripped of its archaic chariots and thrones. The question remains: can the chattering class learn to live in a world where their words no longer militate against reality? Or will they remain, as always, “predisposed” to the noise?
One reason the chattering class doesn’t like Trump is that he doesn’t use words like they do. the “chattering class” views language not just as a tool for communication, but as a high-barrier-to-entry credential. When they hear the current president speak, they aren’t just reacting to the policy; they are reacting to a violation of their professional caste’s linguistic “shibboleths.”
This “clash of words” is a clash of biological and social strategies.
For the elite media and the “word-fetishists,” mastery of a specific, overly-intellectualized dialect is what separates the “expert” from the “populist.”
The MSM uses complex, “pious” abstractions—like the cliches we translated earlier—to create a sense of moral mystery. If you don’t use the phrase “Rules-Based International Order,” you are signaled as being outside the tribe.
By using blunt, “low-status” language (e.g., “bad deal,” “winners and losers,” “they’re taking our money”), the president effectively demystifies the elite’s work. He treats the “sacred canopy” of diplomacy like a simple PI settlement negotiation. This is infuriating to the chattering class because it suggests their “expertise” in word-craft is actually a form of propagandistic bullshit that adds no value to the actual transaction.
The chattering class is addicted to “global character” words—describing America as “noble,” “reliable,” or “the leader.”
The elite want to believe in a world where “character” (words) drives the situation. The president operates on the belief that the situation (military power, tariffs, energy independence) is the only thing that creates the character.
To the elite, “correct” language is a signal of alliance with the credentialed class. To the “securitarian” brain described by John Hibbing, that same language often sounds like deception. The public often prefers the “unfiltered” style because it feels like a more honest representation of the raw interests at play.
The “new elite” is succeeding because they speak the language of utility rather than status.
The chattering class is losing influence because their “word-fetishism” has been exposed as a luxury belief—one that costs too much and explains too little.
In a volatile 2026 environment, people don’t want a “pious” explanation of “shattered credibility.” They want a realist breakdown of how a trade policy or a court ruling affects their actual situation.
The reason the chattering class won’t “wise up” is that doing so would require them to burn their own “credentialed” dictionary. They would have to admit that the “strongman” isn’t illiterate; he’s just using a more biologically honest language of interests that they have spent their lives trying to suppress.
In Alan Allport’s new book, Advance Britannia: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1942-1945, he describes the British imperial class in the 1930s as a “tiny coterie” of officials and diplomats who maintained a “white patrician class” lifestyle, obsessed with bridge, cocktail parties, and “dressing for dinner” even as the foundations of their power crumbled.
This group relied on ‘PWR’—the Prestige of the White Race—a concept that functioned exactly like the modern “word-fetishist’s” obsession with “credibility” and “norms.”
Just as today’s elite prioritize “shared values” as a coordination signal, the Raj relied on ‘Face’, assiduously propagating a self-image of invincibility because they believed that if the “brown and yellow peoples” thought them invincible, they would remain so.
David Pinsof would identify this “Face” as the ultimate propagandistic bullshit: a narrative used to maintain an alliance hierarchy that was no longer supported by the underlying “interests” or military capabilities.
The “cataract of disaster” Allport mentions represents the collision between the elite’s “incense-scented idyll” and the raw situational incentives of the masses.
While the diplomats focused on the “theatre” of imperial governance, union organizers were surreptitiously appealing to plantation workers and miners to become “sensible of their own power”.
John Hibbing would note the biological mismatch here: the imperial elite were biologically and socially predisposed to prioritize the social signals of their “cocktail parties,” while the workers were responding to the “securitarian” realities of their economic situation.
When the 6,000 miners at Batu Arang “downed tools” in 1937, it was a situational shift that no amount of British “word-fetishism” could talk away; the response was eventually the blunt instrument of “armed troops” and “truncheons,” proving that when the “words” fail, only hard power remains.
The elite’s inability to see the “awakening sense of nationalist consciousness” fanning out from the South Asian subcontinent is the 1930s version of the modern “Elite Blind Spot”.
They viewed the industrial dissent and political protests as something to be “smashed” by legal curbs and truncheons, failing to realize that the “situation” had fundamentally changed.
By the time over 80,000 Indians were arrested in the early 1930s, the “prestige” was no longer contested—it was shattered, yet the chattering class of that era continued to “dress for dinner” as if the canopy were still intact.
The parallels between Alan Allport’s description of the British Raj and the modern “chattering class” reveal a persistent historical cycle: a credentialed elite becomes so enamored with their own social signals—what they call “norms” or “credibility”—that they lose the ability to see the hard reality of the “situation” shifting beneath them.
Allport describes the British imperial class of the 1930s as a “tiny coterie” of officials and diplomats who directed a vast imperial marketplace while remaining sequestered in a world of bridge, cocktail parties, and dressing for dinner.
This group relied on a concept called ‘PWR’—the Prestige of the White Race—which functioned as a silent but “completely understood” rock upon which their claim to suzerainty rested.
In this “incense-scented idyll,” the elite obsessed over ‘Face’, believing that as long as they projected an image of invincibility, they would remain invincible in the eyes of the governed.
From the perspective of John M. Doris’s situatism, this was a fatal error: the elite attributed their power to their “global character” (their prestige) rather than the specific situational inputs—military dominance and economic control—that actually sustained it.
While the elite were preoccupied with their social theatre, the ground was shifting through the awakening of those David Pinsof might call the “out-group.”
By the 1920s and 30s, union organizers were surreptitiously appealing to plantation workers and miners to become “sensible of their own power”.
In March 1937, 6,000 miners in Malaya effectively “downed tools,” halting coal deliveries and triggering sympathy strikes by 100,000 others.
John Hibbing would identify this as the “securitarian” impulse overriding the elite’s “words”: the workers realized that their material interests and collective power were more real than the “Face” or “Prestige” the British were selling.
The “chattering class” of the British East responded to this industrial dissent with “armed troops,” “truncheons,” and “police spies,” yet they remained fundamentally blind to the “new ideas” and “nationalist consciousness” spreading across the subcontinent.
By the early 1930s, over 80,000 Indians were arrested for political offenses, and protests were met with gunfire and batons.
Despite this violent reality, the elite had “hardly anyone” who possessed an inkling of the “cataract of disaster” lying just around the bend.
They had become “conceited” in their own imperial civilization, a classic example of status closure where the “word-fetishists” were so committed to their self-image that they could no longer recognize the structural collapse of their authority.
In 1942, after the catastrophic fall of Singapore, the British “chattering class” found themselves in an unprecedented epistemic crisis: their “Face” had been utterly destroyed by a superior situational power, and their “words” no longer carried the weight of invincibility. To attempt a “restart” of their credibility, they moved from a posture of effortless superiority to a desperate, hyper-moralized rhetoric designed to re-bind their crumbling alliance.
Having lost the material “situation” in the East, the British elite doubled down on what David Pinsof would call “coordination bullshit,” framing their struggle not as an imperial defense, but as a global crusade for “civilization” and “decency”.
Allport notes that as the “incense-scented idyll” of the British East was punctured, the “words” shifted; officials began using a new vocabulary of “partnership” and “trust” with the colonized populations.
Even as they arrested over 80,000 Indians and used “gunfire and batons” to maintain control, the elite’s official propaganda continued to propagate a self-image of “assured, potent, conceited imperial civilisation”.
The British fought back using all “instruments of law and violence,” yet they remained largely oblivious to the “cataract of disaster” because they were still “dressing for dinner” in their minds, clinging to the status symbols of a world that had already ended.
The British elite’s biological predisposition toward social signaling (the cocktail parties and bridge games) left them incapable of responding to the “securitarian” reality of the Japanese military threat or the rising nationalist consciousness of the masses.
The “situation” had shifted from one of unchallenged naval suzerainty to a “thunderbox” of industrial dissent and military vulnerability, yet the “word-fetishists” in the colonial administration continued to act as if their “Prestige” (PWR) was an immutable trait.
As Jan Morris suggested, the British reasoned that if they appeared invincible, they would remain so; however, the “sensible power” of the miners and workers proved that raw interests eventually override even the most “assiduous” propagation of a self-image.
This 1942 effort to restart credibility was essentially an attempt to use status closure to ignore a total material defeat. The British were “dressing for dinner” while the “soviet” was forming in their mines, much like the modern chattering class clings to “norms” while the economic and military situation re-aligns around them.
In 1943, the British “restart” of credibility shifted toward a specific audience: the American “chattering class.” To persuade their skeptical allies to help them recover their lost Eastern Empire, the British moved away from the blunt “Prestige of the White Race” and toward a more sophisticated, “pious” rhetoric designed to appeal to American liberal sensibilities.
The British elite began framing their imperial presence not as a matter of raw suzerainty, but as a “moral trusteeship”. They used “words” to suggest they were preparing the “brown and yellow peoples” for a slow, responsible transition to democracy—a classic example of what David Pinsof calls “coordination bullshit” designed to align with American anti-colonial rhetoric.
Recognizing that the American elite fetishized “values,” the British started describing the war in the East as a shared defense of “civilization” against “barbarism”. This was a strategic attempt to mask the raw interest of recovering lost rubber estates and mines under a canopy of “global leadership.”
The British “chattering class” attempted to show they had “learned” from the “cataract of disaster” at Singapore by promoting a new self-image of a “progressive” empire. They moved from “dressing for dinner” in stiff dinner jackets to presenting themselves as modern, efficient managers of a complex transoceanic marketplace.
Despite the British “word-fetishism,” the American military and political realists remained focused on the situation rather than the rhetoric. They were more interested in American economic access to Asian markets and military dominance in the Pacific than in restoring the “Prestige” of the British Raj.
While the British elite were biologically and socially predisposed to believe their “words” could re-establish their authority, the American public often viewed this as an attempt to have “U.S. taxpayers funding other people’s safety”.
Ultimately, the “sensible power” of the nationalist movements in India and elsewhere proved more potent than the British “restart”. The British continued to use “all the instruments of law and violence,” but the “incense-scented idyll” had been permanently shattered by the reality of the 1942 defeat.
The 1943 British effort was a desperate attempt to use status closure to convince the world that their “credibility” was an immutable trait rather than a situational byproduct. It failed because, as you’ve noted, when the “situation” changes, the “words” of the chattering class lose their magic.
The final “epistemic shock” of 1945 was the moment the British imperial elite realized that their “pious” coordination signals had failed to secure the American “guardrails” they desperately needed. As Alan Allport describes, the British entered the post-war era still “dressing for dinner” in their minds, only to find that the situational reality had moved permanently toward a new, American-led transaction.
By 1945, the British “chattering class” discovered that the Americans had no interest in restoring the “Prestige of the White Race” (PWR) or the “incense-scented idyll” of the British East.
While the British had “assiduously propagated” a self-image of invincibility, the 1942 “cataract of disaster” at Singapore had already taught the Americans—and the nationalist movements in Malaya and India—that British suzerainty was no longer incontestable.
The British had fought back using “all the instruments of law and violence,” arresting over 80,000 Indians and using “gunfire and batons,” but they could not arrest the “awakening sense of nationalist consciousness” that was now backed by the shifting global balance of power.
The “tiny coterie” of diplomats and businessmen found that their “transoceanic imperial marketplace” was now being directed by Washington, where the “situation” was measured in oil and market access rather than “cocktail parties” or “curry tiffin”.
From the perspective of John Hibbing and David Pinsof, 1945 was the ultimate failure of “word-fetishism.”
The British elite were “biologically predisposed” to believe their social signals (their “Prestige”) could command reality, but they were out-maneuvered by an American elite that recognized the old British “values” were merely “propagandistic bullshit” for an alliance that no longer served American interests.
John M. Doris’s situatism explains why the British were “heading for trouble”: they had spent the 1930s focused on the “theatre” of empire while miners and workers were becoming “sensible of their own power”. When the situation became a “thunderbox,” the elite’s “conceited imperial civilisation” lacked the material floor to survive the fall.
The British elite of 1945 are the quintessential ancestors of today’s “chattering class.” They were the first to learn that when your “Face” is gone and your “words” are exposed as a status-seeking myth, the “cataract of disaster” is inevitable.
The parallels between Alan Allport’s account of the British imperial “coterie” and the modern chattering class’s failure to anticipate the rise of MAGA, Brexit, and European nationalism are striking. In both cases, a credentialed elite became so sequestered within their own “incense-scented idyll” of high-status rhetoric that they mistook their own social signals for the bedrock of reality.
Just as the British Raj was obsessed with ‘Face’ and the propagation of a self-image of invincibility to maintain suzerainty, modern elites have relied on the “pious” language of the “rules-based international order” to coordinate their status.
The British elite believed that if the “brown and yellow peoples” thought them invincible, they would remain so; similarly, the modern chattering class believed that if they assiduously preached “global values,” the populist “situation” would remain contained.
David Pinsof would argue that both groups used “values” as coordination bullshit to maintain their specific status alliance, rendering them incapable of seeing when the underlying “interests” had shifted.
Allport describes the 1930s as a time when workers became “sensible of their own power,” leading to revolutionary soviets in Malayan mines. This mirrors the tectonic shifts of MAGA, Brexit, and the AfD.
The miners who “downed tools” in 1937 recognized that their material power was more real than British “Prestige” (PWR). In 2026, nationalist movements operate on a similar securitarian impulse, viewing elite rhetoric as a “luxury belief” that does not serve their immediate interests.
Michael Bang Petersen suggests that our brains treat modern mass politics like “ancestral shadow-boxing”; while the elite focus on “global traits,” the public reacts to policies—like immigration or trade—as if they were in a 50-person tribe protecting its resources.
The British elite of 1942 were “heading for trouble” because they ignored “industrial dissent” and “nationalist consciousness” in favor of “cocktail parties”.
Much like the chattering class’s reaction to the rise of the right in Italy or Germany, the British imperialists used “law and violence” (arresting 80,000 Indians) to maintain a crumbling “idlyll” rather than wising up to the shift.
John Hibbing’s research explains this failure: the elite are biologically predisposed to prioritize social signals (their “Prestige”) over the raw threat-detection that characterizes the securitarian/nationalist voter.
The 1947 exit from India was the ultimate collapse of status closure, where the British were forced to realize that their “words” could no longer militate against the reality of the situation.
They had spent years “dressing for dinner” while the world around them was being re-engineered by “sensible power” and American “interests.”
The chattering class today is experiencing its own 1942 moment; they are “mourning the loss of a word” (credibility) while the public is busy building a new architecture based on common interests and hard power.
In 2026, the parallels between the “cataract of disaster” facing the British Raj and the current predicament of the Western chattering class have become undeniable. Both groups suffered from a profound inability to recognize tectonic shifts in nationalist consciousness, preferring instead to retreat into a “pious” idyll of their own making.
The British elite of the 1930s were obsessed with ‘Face’ and the ‘PWR’ (Prestige of the White Race), believing that the mere propagation of an image of invincibility was enough to maintain their suzerainty.
Today’s “word-fetishist” elite relies on the prestige of the “rules-based international order” as their version of ‘Face’. They treat “credibility” as an immutable global trait rather than a situational byproduct.
Just as the British continued “dressing for dinner” while their empire crumbled, modern elites engage in moral shaming and labeling movements like MAGA or the AfD as “misinformation” to avoid acknowledging a loss of structural authority.
Allport describes a 1930s world where the masses—plantation workers and miners—began to become “sensible of their own power”.
The 1937 Malayan strikes were a “securitarian” response to material reality, much like the rise of the right in Italy or the Brexit vote represented a public choosing clarity over theatre.
According to John Hibbing, the chattering class is biologically predisposed to prioritize social coordination signals (like “shared values”) over the raw threat-detection and group-resource protection that drive nationalist movements.
Realism is rejected by the elite because it is “low-status”; it strips away the intellectual mystery that justifies their role as “experts”.
By 1945, the British experienced a final “epistemic shock” when they realized the Americans would not act as the “guardrails” for their old prestige.
The American “new elite” of that era cared about situational incentives—market access and security—rather than the British “incense-scented idyll”.
We see this today as independent media and Sunday livestreams bypass traditional institutions, rendering the elite’s “expert consensus” irrelevant to the actual “situation”.
The British Raj used “all the instruments of law and violence” to stop the nationalist tide, yet failed because they could not arrest an idea whose time had come.
The chattering class in 2026 remains “conceited” in its own civilizational narrative, often failing to see that common interests are the only permanent treaties. Like the diplomats in 1942 who had no “inkling” of the disaster ahead, modern elites are often the last to know they are losing because their status depends on not wising up.
In 2026, the “new elite” in California—composed of sophisticated legal practitioners, independent media creators, and policy realists—is increasingly using the “Advance Britannia” model to map out the current nationalist pivot. They see the chattering class’s shock as a predictable repeat of the British imperial “epistemic failure.”
The shift toward nationalism in the U.S. and Europe is being analyzed through the lens of a “civilizational idyll” meeting a “securitarian reality.” Policy realists in California are moving away from the “incense-scented idyll” of international treaties that prioritize global prestige over local utility. They recognize that, like the British PWR (Prestige of the White Race), the modern obsession with “rules-based” labels is a status signal that no longer buys security.
Much like the union organizers in 1930s Malaya, the new elite identifies movements like MAGA or the rise of the AfD as populations becoming “sensible of their own power”. They treat these shifts as a rational response to a situation where the elite “coterie” has ignored industrial dissent for too long.
The right’s rise in Italy and the growth of nationalist parties across the West are viewed as a “cataract of disaster” for the old guard, but a necessary “situational reset” for those who prioritize interests over rhetoric.
The new elite navigates this landscape by stripping away the “mystery” of the chattering class’s “expert consensus.”
By analyzing the “pompous” and “pious” cliches of the mainstream media, realist analysts expose these signals as “coordination bullshit” designed to preserve an out-of-date status alliance. Following the research of John Hibbing, the new elite understands that nationalist shifts are driven by deep-seated “securitarian” impulses that are biologically more potent than the “values” preached at elite cocktail parties. Rather than relying on “democratic guardrails”—which are often just bureaucratic status closure—the new elite uses Sunday livestreams and direct digital engagement to speak the language of “utility” that the chattering class refused to learn.
The final lesson of 1945 was that no amount of “dressing for dinner” can save an elite that has lost its material floor. In California’s 2026 political landscape, the winners are those who have abandoned the “idlyll” to engage with the “situation” as it exists.
There are some great quotes in the 1987 movie Broadcast News. Aaron Altman (played by Albert Brooks): “I’ve been offered a job at the L.A. Times. It’s a nice, comfortable coffin.”
This is Aaron’s warning about how standards slip—not through a grand evil gesture, but bit by bit through “nice” people:
“What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he’s around? … He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing… he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance. Just a tiny bit.”
Other quotes I love:
Jane Craig: “It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you’re the smartest person in the room.” Aaron Altman: “No. It’s awful.”
On the loss of substance:
Aaron Altman: “You’ll never know the pleasure of writing a graceful sentence or having an original thought. Think about it.”