The Great Mind F*ck: Donald Trump was the star of the technocrats’ debutante ball
A standing ovation at Davos for the US president was an obvious tell; technocracy, power, and the myth of opposition was on full display for those with eyes to see.
They say actions speak louder than words. That aphorism was palpable at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year, the moment Donald J. Trump — president of the United States and (arguably) the world’s greatest villain — appeared on the stage.
First, the audience clapped politely. Then they rose into a standing ovation. They cheered and lifted their phones to record the scene the way people do when they know they’re witnessing something they will want to share with others later.
Is this how people act around someone they abhor?
For years, Americans had the impression that Davos despised Trump, and the feeling was mutual. The global technocratic elite, we were led to believe, viewed him as a bloviating barbarian at the gate. Trump, for his part, leaned into the role. He used rhetoric that sounded like rebellion, mocking multilateral institutions and speaking in a tone that sounded anti-elite, anti-globalist, anti-establishment.
That’s why his appearance in the Alps this year was so striking.
Trump opened his speech with a line that should have landed harder than it did: he thanked the audience, calling them “so many respected business leaders, so many friends… a few enemies.” The room laughed, but not nervously or defensively. It was the laugh of people who got the joke and understood their place in it. The audience was in on the performance.
Friend of Collapse Life and podcast guest, Patrick Wood, has spent decades warning that technocracy is the coming mode of governance — rule by systems, data, metrics, and managerial authority instead of politics or consent. Yesterday, Wood wrote that, in spite of all his bluster about the evils of the globalist elite, Trump is finally making technocracy possible:
“Trump is the catalyst to trigger the Great Reset,” Wood wrote. “Few saw this coming in this way, but Trump has thrown them all under the bus:
The United Nations, Agenda 21, and its Sustainable Development scamThe windmills and solar farmsThe war on carbon and fossil fuelsStakeholder CapitalismThe “stupid” immigration policies that are destroying EuropeNATOetc., etc.
My read at this point is that all of these things were instrumental in getting Technocracy in the driver’s seat in the first place. But now that Technocracy has arrived, they are done with those things. Out with the old, in with the new.”
Trump was not there to dismantle the Davos dream. He was there as the star attraction at the technocrats’ debutante ball. A ball is a ritual, and rituals exist to reassure people. The usual Davos claptrap and side events are still taking place as a way to let the elite class know that power will survive the transition, even if the costumes change. Some of the old guard may step aside, as Klaus Schwab has already done to make room for Larry Fink, but the system endures.
By applauding, and even an occasional ‘whoop’, the audience signaled their readiness.
With his anti-World Health Organization, anti-climate accord rhetoric these past years, Trump hasn’t been taking a wrecking ball to the idea of centralized power. What he’s been smashing is the illusion of legitimacy that once justified global government. After the Second World War, we were told there was a need for multilateralism, for working together, for cooperation, humanitarian action, and a moralized global consensus.
But those structures were built for a different world, and they were already hollowed out before Trump arrived. He just accelerated their collapse and made the humiliation public, turning distrust into spectacle… and delegitimization into a form of gladiatorial entertainment.
Read between the lines, and the message is clear: multilateralism doesn’t work. It hasn’t brought peace, or slowed the advance of environmental degradation, or stopped deadly pandemics from spreading around the world. When something doesn’t work, we should stop doing it. Declare it dead.
That’s what Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, did the day before Trump spoke in Davos. A consummate technocrat, Carney stood before the same audience and calmly said the “old world order” is in the rear view mirror.
“We shouldn’t mourn it,” he said. “Nostalgia is not a strategy.”
(Carney also argued that there is room for “middle powers” like Canada to exercise influence. This is a pipe dream. In a world where might makes right, there is no middle power status; the binary is either hegemon or vassal state. Sadly, Canada will soon find this out.)
What gets ushered in now may not look like anything we have seen before. We need to prepare for a modern form of global monarchy — an unelected authority executing actions at the will or whim of an elite core who no longer feel the need to justify their actions, or be transparent about process, or even pretend to ask for permission. Technocracy promises to be management without moral storytelling and administration stripped of sentimentality. In actual fact, it will look a lot like what we have now, just without the pretense of consent by democratic will.
After his speech, Trump spoke to business executives at a reception and sounded almost amused by how well it had gone. (watch below)
“We had a good speech. We got great reviews. I can’t believe it. Usually, they say, ‘He’s a horrible dictator-type person.’ (I’m a dictator... But sometimes you need a dictator.) But they didn’t say that in this case.”
Trump wasn’t even pushing back on being called a dictator. He was noting that, in this room, that label no longer disqualified him. The word passed easily because it named something that was already well understood: the speeches at Davos were memos being delivered out loud. That’s why the applause matters.Back home in Canada and the United States, we still read politics along now-defunct left-right lines. That’s why we think of Mark Carney and Donald Trump as opposites. The people in the room at Davos, however, read things along a different axis. While we thought the fight was between globalism and nationalism, they saw it as a divide between governance by consent and governance by algorithms.
From that perspective, Trump is no outsider. He wasn’t there to oppose the World Economic Forum, or repudiate Klaus Schwab, or burn down technocratic ideals. He was there to be introduced — or maybe.
The Everything Bundle – The Ultimate Voluntaryist Sampler and/or Homeschool Curriculum
The Everything Bundle Includes THREE (3) books from Larken Rose!
The Everything Bundle is the ULTIMATE sampler of the best of voluntaryist thought. It is $115 in the Art of Liberty Foundation Store OR you can get one free including signed, personalized high-resolution hard cover versions of BOTH of Etienne’s books by “Going Paid” as a Founding Member of the Substack.
Simply “Go Paid” or Upgrade and we will reply with details. Domestic shipping is included, International includes $10 S&H credit and we will reply with total cost.
The Everything Bundle – The Ultimate Sampler of Liberty
“Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! by Etienne de la Boetie2 –
To See The Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many by Etienne de la Boetie2
Anarchy Exposed! – A former police officer reports on his investigative journey by Shepard the Voluntaryist and Larken Rose
The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose
Sedition, Subversion and Sabotage – Field Manual #1 by Ben Stone, The Bad Quaker, and Ken Yamarashi
What Anarchy Isn’t – A short pamphlet by Larken Rose… The perfect introduction to peaceful anarchy – Free On-line Version Here
Three Friends Free – A Children’s Story of Voluntaryism
The Liberator is a 64GB wafer flash drive filled with books in PDF/ePub including BOTH of Etienne’s books: “Government” AND To See the Cage is to Leave It, documentaries, podcasts, MP3s, short videos, and music from the truth movement’s leading artists. New 2025/2026 V2.3 Version!! The credit card-sized format makes it convenient to keep in your wallet to share and copy easily. You are authorized and encouraged to copy your Liberator for your friends AND the Liberator includes stickers that print on readily available Avery label paper to wrap commodity 64GB flash drives available on eBay for as little as $3 each.
Comments ()