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This year’s World Economic Forum gathered under the theme "A Spirit of Dialogue," which turned out to be aspirational. The five-day gathering in the Swiss Alps featured everything classic Davos is known for—billionaire networking, earnest panel discussions about global challenges, champagne receptions—but the substance underneath had shifted. The post-war consensus that built these institutions is cracking, and everyone in the Congress Centre could feel it. Some gave speeches pretending otherwise. Others walked out of dinners. A few just booed. What nobody could do was ignore that the ground beneath global cooperation has fundamentally moved.
Donald Trump ⬅➡
After days of terrorizing Europe with not-so-veiled threats of seizing Greenland, he told Davos "I won’t use force" then pivoted to using the World Economic Forum stage to launch his Board of Peace. His strategy of publishing allies’ baffled text messages and threatening 200 percent tariffs on their wine may have left the Davos crowd confused, but it succeeded wildly on one front: keeping Trump at the center of everyone’s attention.
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Mark Carney ⬆
His WEF address starkly declared "the old order is not coming back," earning a standing ovation from the people who made up that old order. Somehow, the new Canadian prime minister emerged as Europe’s defiant face of anti-Trumpism despite Ottawa being 3,500 miles away from Brussels.
Emmanuel Macron ⬇
His defense of European sovereignty was upstaged by the €659 ($774) Maison Henry Jullien mirrored aviators he wore to hide a ruptured blood vessel, turning his "Eye of the Tiger" reference into global meme fodder. Top Gun cosplay doesn’t make for great statecraft.
Jensen Huang ⬆
After years of billboards promising AI miracles lining the promenade, the Nvidia CEO made his Davos debut in his trademark black leather jacket and created traffic jams in the Congress Centre as attendees mobbed him for selfies. Gigaflops really are the new geopolitics.
Al Gore ⬆
Reportedly heckled Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick from his seat at a BlackRock dinner after Lutnick criticized European leaders. It may not have been a dignified look for the 77-year-old former vice president, but it was the first time in ages people were talking about what he had to say at Davos.
Christine Lagarde ⬇
The ECB president walked out of the same dinner before dessert was served, maintaining her institutional dignity while Gore’s boos dominated the coverage. Turns out the path to relevance at 70 isn’t silent protest—it’s becoming the cantankerous crank willing to make a scene.
Originally a staple of Newsweek's print edition, Conventional Wisdom used arrows to track whose stock was rising or falling in the political circus. We're reviving it in the digital age because the problem it lampooned—hyperbole and partisan certainty masquerading as insight—has only intensified.
CW assigns arrows—up, down, or sideways—to the figures and forces shaping current events. The arrows don't predict the future or claim special insight. They capture the prevailing winds of the moment, uncluttered by tribal howling. In an era when partisan media reinforces rather than questions assumptions, CW operates from the center—skeptical of left and right alike, committed to puncturing inflated reputations and recognizing overlooked truths.
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