Hope In Darkness
Why despite all evidence to the contrary, and without being naively Steven Pinkeresque, there may be reason to look forward to a better future
We live, as the Chinese would say, in an interesting time.
Since the middle of the last decade we’ve seen a tsunami of mindless populism sweep the globe, with predictably catastrophic consequences. As a result, the thin veneer of civilization upon which we all rely is being stripped away while ordinary people go about their lives utterly oblivious to what is happening around them. At best, a few look at events in their own nation and imagine the problem is entirely local and unique.
In the USA excitable liberals have been celebrating the fact that an entirely uninspiring geriatric candidate received enough protest votes to defeat the populist incumbent who gained the second-greatest percentage of votes in US history. But these celebrations are naïve at best, for key elements of the Republican Party have made it plain that they will do everything possible to hold onto power regardless of the cost to the nation. Although Trump may slither out of the White House in a few weeks, his poisonous legacy will grow and grow like cancer. In the next four years the far-right Supreme Court will overturn decades of liberal judicial activism…
