Let's talk about the guy who runs the other superpower, because apparently he's been busy while we were all arguing about tipping culture.
Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and president of the People's Republic of China, has been in the big chair since 2012 and just locked in a third term at the 20th Party Congress, because term limits are apparently more of a suggestion than a rule over there.
If you're keeping score at home, that's the kind of job security most of us can only dream about after a performance review.
Now, before the comment section turns into a NATO briefing, here's the vibe.
Xi has positioned China as the counterweight to American dominance, pushing the Belt and Road Initiative, cozying up to Moscow, and generally making Washington's foreign policy people reach for the antacids.
Whether you think that's master strategy or just a really expensive game of Risk is, as the kids say, above my pay grade.
Domestically, the dude consolidated power in a way that makes your company's reorg look quaint.
Anti-corruption drives, a zero-COVID policy that outlasted basically everyone else's, and a regulatory crackdown on tech giants that sent billionaires scrambling like it was a fire drill.
The economy's been wobbling, youth unemployment got spicy, and the property sector is doing its best impression of a Jenga tower during an earthquake.
But here's the thing that gets the foreign policy crowd going: Taiwan.
Xi has made it crystal clear he views reunification as non-negotiable, and the saber-rattling around the island has everyone from the Pentagon to your uncle's Facebook feed on edge.
Nobody actually wants that smoke, but the vibes are, shall we say, tense.
Because the guy running the world's second-largest economy, with the world's largest army by headcount, gets a say in everything from your iPhone's supply chain to whether your 401k has a good year.
Geopolitics isn't just a hobby for people with too many flags in their Twitter bio—it's the weather, and Xi is one of the two guys holding the thermostat.
AITA for thinking this is all just two aging superpowers having a midlife crisis at the same time?
But it's our midlife crisis, and we're all just living in it.
The takeaway: love him, fear him, or can't pick him out of a lineup, Xi Jinping is the most consequential world leader most Americans couldn't name five facts about.
Final Thoughts
Maybe crack a book—or at least a decent news app—before the next headline hits.