"The World is Tired of White People's Bullsh–t"

"The dollar isn’t dead, America's not finished, BRICS is not magic — but the world is clearly tired of following countries that keep confusing chaos with leadership."

by Ken Oswald "__yak" Vann, Jr.

Thursday 14 May 2026

The world is tired of following these crazy, old white people into expensive nonsense.

BRICS does not have to be a family reunion to matter. It only has to be useful enough for countries tired of asking Washington for permission.

That sounds harsh until you look at the receipt. The United States and Europe still talk like they’re the only adults in the room, but half the room is now wondering why the “adults” keep showing up with sanctions in one hand, bombs in the other, debt everywhere, collapsing public trust at home, and leaders who look like they need a nap, a confession booth—probably both. I’m not saying every Western leader is some cartoon demented demon pedophile in a bad suit and an even worse haircut. I’m saying the rest of the world is no longer willing to pretend this shit is normal just because the press conference is led by a white face with a few flags behind it.

BRICS is not some perfect anti-American superhero team. It started with Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and has expanded to include countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, and Indonesia, with Saudi Arabia’s status still treated differently depending on the source. The point is not that all these countries love each other. They don’t. India and China have real tensions that are not going away any time soon, lol. Iran and Gulf powers do not suddenly become cool because somebody came up with a logo and a badge. But that's the thing, BRICS does not need to be a family as much as it only needs to be an exit sign.

And that is what America should be worried about.

Contrary to what this administration has led people to believe, for decades, U.S. power was not just aircraft carriers, bombs, and patriotic movie trailers. It was the dollar. Oil moved through a dollar-centered system. Global reserves sat in US currency. Banks around the world feared U.S. sanctions. Countries understood that if Washington locked you out of the financial plumbing, your economy could start wheezing by Tuesday afternoon.

The empire was never just bombs and bases. It was the dollar sitting underneath the whole table — trade, oil, debt, sanctions, fear — until the rest of the world started noticing the cracks.

That kind of power makes a country arrogant, makes politicians believe pressure is policy, mistake fear for respect, and think the world is still sitting out in the lobby waiting to see if they're getting a promotion or being laid off.

But shit's changed.

China is way too big to bully like a small country. Russia has already been sanctioned into a corner, so threatening more sanctions is like threatening to repossess furniture from a burned-down house. As far as I know, Iran still sits near the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most important energy chokepoints on Earth. The Gulf states still like American protection, but they do not want to be treated like gas stations with flags forever. India wants everybody’s business and nobody’s leash.

I'm of the belief most Americans were under the impression that Trump’s foreign policy leaning into tariffs, threats, military escalation, and dollar weaponization will get the rest of the world to tremble.

It definitely did not do that at all, lol. The world just started calculating.

In the real world, countries are looking at ships, fuel, routes, insurance, sanctions, and leverage — because power moves through water long before it shows up on a chyron.

That is the part cable news usually misses. CNN and Fox News cover foreign policy like this shit's the MCU: America good, enemy bad, white girls singing dramatic renditions of all the music Jeffrey Epstein and Trump did blow to, retired general points at a map. But countries do not move on vibes. They move on incentives. If the U.S. keeps proving that access to its system can be turned into a weapon, then other countries will build ways around that weapon. Not because they are morally superior, but because they are not fuckin' idiots.

This is where BRICS becomes dangerous to American dominance. Not because it replaces the dollar tomorrow. It won’t. The dollar is still deeply embedded in global trade, debt, banking, and reserves. But dominance does not disappear all at once. It erodes when countries stop believing they have no alternative, and that erosion is already showing up in the global economy.

The IMF’s April 2026 outlook projects global growth at 3.1% in 2026 and 3.2% in 2027 under a limited-conflict assumption, while warning that the Middle East war, higher commodity prices, inflation pressure, and tighter financial conditions are weighing on the world economy. That is banker language for: “Everybody remain calm while the kitchen is visibly on fire.”

This is the part of foreign policy they hope sounds too far away for you to care about — until it shows up as gas prices, groceries, shipping costs, and inflation.

And if the Strait of Hormuz remains unstable, this shit will get real really fast. Reuters reported that OPEC cut its 2026 oil-demand growth forecast after the Iran war and Hormuz disruption pushed fuel prices higher and strained consumers and businesses. The EIA reportedly warned that if Hormuz stayed shut longer than assumed, oil prices could be about $20 a barrel higher near term.

So let's be clear: our grocery bills are not separate from foreign policy—gas prices, rent, credit card interest rates, small business costs, none of that is separated from the foreign policy decisions our country makes.

Foreign policy becomes real when it stops being a headline and starts sitting on the kitchen table next to receipts nobody feels like looking at.

If energy gets more expensive, fertilizer gets more expensive. If fertilizer gets more expensive, food gets more expensive. If shipping routes get riskier, insurance gets more expensive. If insurance gets more expensive, goods get more expensive. If inflation stays sticky, interest rates stay higher. If rates stay higher, housing stays broken. Then politicians go on TV acting confused, like the economy just caught some mysterious STD.

No. Our government's foreign policy has been fuckin' lot lizards for years and we were are cool with the shits because money was coming in, but now that bills are spreading money thin, those Valtrex prescriptions get inconvenient and hearing your partner lie about why you're having to take antibiotics isn't as endearing as it was the first time, lol.

I digress.

Midterms matter because foreign policy is not just presidential theater. Congress controls the blank checks, the oversight, the war powers, and the excuses.

This is why the midterms matter. Not because Congress is full of heroic geniuses. Let’s not insult each other. Most of these people sound like they need help opening a PDF. But Congress still controls budgets, oversight, sanctions, war powers, investigations, and whether a president gets treated like an elected official or a weather event we all have to survive.

If voters continue to give this administration a blank check, they are voting for more escalation, more inflation risk, more emergency politics, more surveillance logic, more military spending, and more money flowing to the same contractors who somehow discover a new national security crisis every time their quarterly projections need a little seasoning.

America can still change course. That is the point. This country is not weak. It still has deep capital markets, energy capacity, agriculture, technology, universities, cultural influence, and military reach. But real power is not just making people fear what happens if they cross you. Real power is making people believe their future is safer with you than without you.

Right now, America is putting that belief to one hell of a test.

We can keep acting like the world has no choice—the world will spend the next decade proving itself.

The dollar is not dead. America is not finished. But the world is clearly done pretending there are no other rooms to walk into.

BRICS will not replace America overnight. The dollar will not die because somebody held a summit, served bottled water, and met under a new flag. But decline usually does not arrive with trumpets. It arrives as higher costs, nervous allies, bolder rivals, weaker trust, and leaders still reading from the old empire script while the rest of the world quietly changes the channel.

America does not have to fall to lose its place.

It just has to keep mistaking arrogance for strength until everyone else stops asking permission.