China is also proving that absolutely nothing can stand in its way. While Americans mire themselves in debates over whether a Chinese-styled prom dress counts as racist appropriation, China’s scientists and armed forces are winning the race to deploy satellites equipped with “unhackable” quantum internet technology. In another feat with clear military applications, a Chinese drone company has set the world record for simultaneous unmanned flights — 1,374, to be precise.

While the Western approach to digital life is yielding widespread social stagnation and despair, China is taking advantage in other ways. Its gangs have established a new model of global drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere, laundering money in Vancouver’s cornered market back into factories in the homeland. Even the popular Western cartoon character Peppa Pig has been banned, targeted for her role in Chinese memes associated with insufficiently striving and conformist Chinese youths.

And what can we do? Not much. Our elites have barely adjusted to the unfolding shock that the internet can’t be stopped from organizing deplorable people churning out deplorable content — and moving dangerous habits and ideas into the real political world.