The fever is breaking

A CONVULSION has shaken America and many other Western democracies over the past few years. People became disgusted with established power, trust in many institutions neared rock bottom, populist fury rose from right and left.

On the right, in the United States, this manifested as Donald Trump. To his great credit, Trump reinvented the GOP. He destroyed the corporate husk of Reaganism and set the party on the path to being a multiracial, working-class party. To his great discredit, he enshrouded this transition in bigotry, buffoonery and corruption. He ushered in an age of performance politics — an age in which leaders put more emphasis on attention-grabbing postures than on practical change.

The left had its own smaller version of performative populism. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became a major political figure, thanks to her important contributions to Instagram. The Green New Deal was not a legislative package but a cotton candy media concoction. Slogans like “Abolish ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)” and “Defund the police” were not practical policies, just cool catchphrases to put on posters.