- Quoting an investor named Santiago Pliego, Ferguson enthused that the vibe shift “is spurning the fake and therapeutic and reclaiming the authentic and concrete”.
- It is “a healthy suspicion of credentialism and a return to human judgement… living not by lies, and instead speaking the truth”.
In geopolitical terms, Ferguson went on, this meant that Trump’s threatened tariffs taught both Canada and an “emollient” Mexican president a lesson in humility. Whereas “the overall effect of Obama’s second term was to tilt the balance of geopolitical advantage in favor of our enemies: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea”, Trump is now reversing that effect. Even more, wrote Ferguson, “slowly, Putin is realizing that Trump is not going to hand Ukraine to him on a plate”.
- Trump is handing Ukraine to Putin on a plate;
- China, Russia and North Korea are delighted at the way the US has disengaged from Ukraine and the rest of Europe; and
- far from being humbled in the face of Trump’s tariffs, Canada is retaliating and steeling itself for a trade war.
- As for Pliego’s affirmations of the spiritual vibe shift, Trump is a prevaricating fake, and
- the lack of credentialism among unqualified cabinet secretaries hardly elevates “human judgement”.
The concept of the “vibe shift” confuses the slowly rising foundations of actual change with the tides of fashion.
“The Hegelian treatment”
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“Vibe shift” is the mot du jour – as the world tries to explain the generational changes on display in American politics right now. But is it the mot juste? Lee Siegel investigates how inadequate this term is in describing the cultural moment. NH
As it is seized upon by figures like Niall Ferguson, the phrase is more of a cudgel than an instrument of clarity. What this cant term does do, in its trivial assimilation of radical change, is provide a kind of rationale, a moral framework even, for the impending historical catastrophe the political right is fomenting. And in that sense, “vibe shift” is just another name for letting things slide.
How the right weaponized the “vibe shift”
What’s brewing in America isn’t a cultural turn – it’s a political catastrophe.
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