Richard Fernandez does a PJ Media column called Belmont Club, and often has insights COTTonLINE has relished. Today is no exception.
September 2025 has been an interesting month.The undeclared cold civil war in the West is everywhere coming out of the closet. Both the Woke and Populist coalitions in every country have openly declared political war on one another — clashing over ideology, generational voter bases, and economic policy.
The eerie thing about it is not that the kinetic level of confrontation has increased; even the Kirk assassination followed a string of attempts on other figures. It's just that no one pretends not to see the conflict any more. Yet it is still a cold conflict in the West — for now.
Fernandez doesn't pretend to know where this is going, or how it will turn out. We continue to live in what the ancient Chinese called "interesting times," viewing same as a curse.
The current deadlock over funding the government is but a minor skirmish therein. Woke is currently on the back foot.
Later ... I find it curious, as Fernandez notes, this same conflict is occurring in a number of countries at the same time, not all of them "Western." And it didn't particularly begin in the US.
