Is this the turning point for our civilisation...? Is this the point where we realise our experiment with "alternarives" didn't work? Is this the point where we consider our vote for "something different" unsuccessful and go back to what has been the considered norm from the last few hundred years?
Do we see an end to the Trump, Johnson, Bolsonaro, Salvini style of politics that brought reality TV style leadership to nations?
Will our future leaders learn from this and change the way they work for us and represent us better. Do our future leaders look to bring us all back under our respective flags and help us work towards collective goals instead of single minded isolationism at the expense of every other fucker?
I personally don't think it is the turning point, I don't think it got bad enough for enough people for it to be done with just yet. To me it seems like this yoyo from extremists on either front will continue for a long while to come and the moderate populous will have to sit and watch it play out until one side causes a serious catastrophe that affects many many people before enough people crave again the stabilisation of a centrist platform to give unity and strength.
All the while this is going on in the west, our Asian and Russian friends will be strengthening themselves and waiting with their fingers crossed that some of the pieces from this game fall off the board permanently.
Just a thought that's been rumbling round my head for a few days..... probably solid gold bollocks, but I thought I'd share.
Can't really speak for other countries, but here, where things just naturally roll in four-year cycles, I think these questions are still very much up in the air. A lot of people think the next move will be to roll out Trumpist candidates who are not as obviously vulgar and stupid as he is. Sort of a polished version of him. But I'm not sure--so many people voted for him because of the stupidity and vulgarity, not in spite of it. I've said before that Trump's base loves him for basically three reasons:
(A) he gives them a mish-mash of conservative policies they like (anti-abortion judges, tax cuts, etc);
(B) he behaves like they would if they were in office;
(C) he makes people like me so angry.
So the question is, can the would-be authoritarians find a sort of slicker, more sophisticated figure than Trump to basically run on the same message? One that will appeal as strongly to the guy with the sign in his yard near me that reads "JESUS IS MY SAVIOR. TRUMP IS MY PRESIDENT"? I honestly have no idea. I will say that there have not been many people in our society with the kind of appeal he has, so that almost makes me hope he's a one-off. But definitely the social rot he exposed isn't going away.
