The Great Convergence and its Discontents
For nearly fifteen years, victories that civil society had considered impossible just... kept happening. Brexit was a shock. Trump 2016 was a shock. Bolsonaro was a shock. Each time, the same institutions that had failed to predict the previous "impossible” outcome confidently assured everyone that they had learned from their mistakes and could now see clearly. Each time, they were wrong in precisely the same way. The unthinkable – which was becoming very fucking thinkable even before large swathes of the 'old country' voted to destroy its own economy and isolate itself from the European Union – should have been at the forefront of everyone's minds. It just wasn't.