Modernity has Broken our Parties and Ideologies
Faced with new and old existential threats, our leaders are content to be deer caught in the headlights
In vain, we look to political parties for answers. Our world has radically changed within my lifetime, and our ideologies have not begun to catch up to reality. Parties will either die, reinvent themselves, or fall into calamity. If the 21st century has one maxim, it is this: change is inevitable. Life is only going to continue to accelerate in an unknown direction as long as technological progress is exponential. In the face of such uncertainty, politicians seem content to pilfer the populace of their wealth while they still maintain their power.
Parties have had a complete inability to confront the problems of the modern world. Some of these problems, like the omnipresence of electronics, are entirely new to humanity. Others, like growing partisanship, are as old as society itself. Many of these problems are the effect of deeper issues, but it is important that all of them are addressed. Old problems have historical antecedents that can be analyzed to foretell the likely outcome and to see if there is hope in the actions of our forefathers. Through calamity and salvation, we can gain a glimpse into what our future holds, and what is in store for us as a society.
A First for Humanity: All Pervasive Technology
The inspiration for this article came from a quote during Tim Ferris and Balaji Srinivasan’s podcast. Just as the frog does not known it is being boiled, we have not realized how radically life has changed. Take a second to read this (and if it piques your interest read the full transcript I linked of this section) or take a listen to the whole podcast.
I think the future will be more different from the present than is commonly understood. So more different than ours, was the year 2000 that different from 1970? Not really. Certainly there were political changes and obviously China had reformed and the SSR had fallen and so forth. But the rhythms of daily life are actually quite similar. You know? People got up, they went to work, there’s a relative constancy there…
Over the last 20 years, there’s been an enormous change in terms of rhythms of daily life. One way of thinking about that is, what was your daily life when you woke up in 1980? So there’d be an alarm clock, beep, beep, beep. You’d wake up, you’d go downstairs, maybe flip on the TV to look at the morning news, make some eggs, drink some orange juice, maybe read the morning newspaper, go and drive to work where your job involved, if you’re white collar, some papers, and if you’re blue collar, you’re going and hammering something or whatever…
And almost every aspect of that is now changed. How do you wake up? You wake up to your phone, right? What’s the first thing you do? You look at all of your email because you’re getting just all of these are messages, right? Messages are coming into you, right? You have this personal communication device. The first thing you do is different. This is for people who are addicted to their phone, but a lot of people are. You come downstairs or you get up and maybe you’ve got some fitness thing that has read off your sleep. So you look at that, right? Because your sleep was also instrumented. You go to the kitchen and there’s food there, but maybe you just go straight to work and you Uber Eats food to work. Or maybe you don’t go to work at all. And you just work remote from your pajamas in the living room…
So in so many ways, the rhythms of life we’ve turned into these sort of nomadic creatures from 20 years ago. And our political structures and our homes and a lot of those other things haven’t flexed to accommodate that.
The rhythms of our lives have become radically altered. Life has changed many times before, but never this dramatically since the onset of civilization (and it especially has not changed this quickly). Although this analysis may make the late Will Durant roll in his grave, I think it is fair to say that future historians will see a cascade of consequences that abounded from what we thought were mundane changes in our lives.
Finance, relationships, and even our personal health look radically different. We live in an era of instant stock trades, swiping on profiles, and logging calories. Automation will destroy entire industries and create temporary instability. This change is not unprecedented in history, but our newfound dependence on our phones is. The effects of this change is unknown, but one thing can be clearly seen now, the negative consequences of social media.
The effects of social media deserve their own entire post (which I will definitely do at some point) but in short, it has amplified many of our worst tendencies as humans. We have quantified our popularity and societal worth in a totally unnecessary way that only breeds mental illness. Most importantly to this article, social media has made us more divided. It is now extremely easy to live in an echo chamber and have your beliefs reinforced. If you help reinforce your dogma, you are rewarded with a dopamine hit. Beyond the increase in political tension, the damage wrought on our youth may spiral our politics into unanticipated directions.
Compounding these issues (and also deserving its own post), traditional media has devolved. Nepotism reigns supreme. Monetization has defined media and profit is the only real goal. Journalists go to the same schools with the same professors and run in the same circles in the same cities. Their editors push what sells. A look at CNN’s self-destruction over the last 10 years provides a perfect example of this. From the non-stop “Breaking News” updates over the lost Malaysian Airlines flight, to now having headlines bereft of intellect, CNN is a vehicle to sell what people want to hear. The loss of a healthy and active media makes keeping politicians accountable nigh impossible. The internet’s ‘trend’ based drive for attention has created the 24 hour news cycle. We have all suffered for it, Will Durant said it best, “We are choked with News and starved of History.”
Old Problems
Income and Wealth Inequality
This is a problem as old as time. Civilization upon civilization has collapsed when the elites control too many resources and the commoners control too little. Cahokia disappeared despite being the largest city within a thousand miles in large part due to their massive inequality. Modern America has been able to sustain a higher Gini coefficient (likely due to the unprecedented wealth that even the poor have compared to the past and it may be skewed by just how rich the rich have become) but there are limits to how far it can go. I previously wrote on the problems the US and world face with such a high Gini coefficient (read here). I’d highly recommend reading this piece to get more information on the US and its place with Secular Cycles and Elite Overproduction (both terms coined by Peter Turchin).
I posit that modern society tends to go through cycles of market liberalization and regulation. One is often in response to the excess of the other. In a Laissez-Faire market, the corporations often gain enough influence to bend the rules and raise the barriers to entry to protect themselves. Regulation and Anti-Trust fixes this but a heavy regulatory environment depresses innovation and stagnates economic growth. Reagan’s deregulation was a response to the stagflation caused by the New Deal and LBJ’s ‘Great Society.’ This cycle has resulted in new robber barons who bend the laws to destroy the free market and protect themselves from competition. Just think of how Apple has changed. They went from a company offering the newest innovations to one figuring out how to keep its current customers captive.
Even though 67% of people said they’d like to see Big Tech reined in, I doubt it happens anytime soon. Just take a look at any website dedicated to tracking how corrupted our politicians are and you’ll tremble. Not only are they controlled by a vast array of interests, it only takes a pittance to gain influence over a representative. Depending on the issue, as little as $1,000 can buy a vote. The ease at which one can bribe a public servant into becoming a personal slave has dashed hopes of the situation being ameliorated. Both parties are bought off and are capable of fighting off any amount of public pressure to stop reform.
Inequality is growing in America. There generally are never good answers to solve it that don’t involve wrecking the economy and leaving everyone else worse off. Perhaps the worst solution is to do nothing and continue to write laws that benefit the elite. The Middle Class is becoming harder to enter and many will fall out of it due to the massive student debt crisis. The strategic idiocy in ceding most manufacturing jobs to China only exacerbated the hewing of our social fabric. Societies can only sustain so much inequality and many of the fissures we see now are a result of this. Violence is rising and faith in the future of the country is cratering.
Historical Antecedent: Late 1800’s and Early 1900’s America
Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt. Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg. The feeling of these eras is similar. A few have amassed incredible market share in their respective fields. The value of labor is incredibly depressed and upward mobility is becoming less realistic. Violence is increasing.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was the first tipping point. Violence started in Martinsburg, West Virginia but spread to places as far as Chicago. The Colorado Labor Wars (1903-1904) provide the most poignant example of economic misfortune turned to violence. Intrigue and explosions filled the mountains as miners duked it out with company heads. Books like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle detailed the horrid conditions and quality of products being produced in urban areas. To many, a second American civil war seemed inevitable.
The real question is how was calamity avoided. The aftermath of this period did not see a proletariat uprising nor did it see a neo-feudal system gaining dominance. America was not subjected to the horrors of communism or feudalism. The Progressive Era ultimately saw the US through the period. Some reforms were ill fated but many helped stave off tragedy. Economic and democratic reforms were particularly important. Anti-Trust and safety regulations cooled the flames of revolution. Women’s suffrage created a more fair system for all. The leadership of Teddy Roosevelt helped usher in many of these changes and prevented them from falling into excess. Great challenges still arose and tensions did not entirely go away. The Klan had its largest revival in the 1920’s, for example. Overall, a balanced set of reforms (mostly uncompromised by personal interests) helped to calm the storm.
The Loss of Religion and Shared Beliefs
Belief in God used to be an unquestioned certainty in the US. Sure, plenty of people privately did not, but the norm was a mainstream Protestant faith. This faith created a system of shared values and a common culture. For a variety of reasons, some intentional and others not, religiosity has significantly declined in America. In the early 2000’s many saw this as a positive change, a way to a more rational future. Reality has born out something quite different. To quote an excellent article by Shadi Hamid, “As Christianity’s hold, in particular, has weakened, ideological intensity and fragmentation have risen. American faith, it turns out, is as fervent as ever; it’s just that what was once religious belief has now been channeled into political belief.”
The youth of America are without the community that most Americans grew up in. The church did give a shared morality but it also gave a strong community. For all the faults and shortcomings of these communities, they provided a solid foundation and place for social activity. I personally grew up in a church where most things I did, from Boy Scouts to sports teams, revolved around the church. The loss of this community has followed the collapse of social clubs in America, a potential fallback to prevent the intense social isolation that has arisen since. One of the most important things about these communities was that they pulled together people of different backgrounds, especially people from different socio-economic and racial backgrounds. Isolation has pushed us further into our tribal tendencies.
In America, there is more to our shared belief than just Christianity. We also have had a shared civic religion that comes from our founding fathers. A quote by Abraham Lincoln in Philadelphia embodies this feeling quite well, “All the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world from this Hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” Until very recently, the American governmental system and founding documents held a sacred space in our collective minds. Citing an amendment of the Constitution was often enough to win a debate since all accepted it as a core truth. This belief is no longer hegemonic. For example, the anthem is kneeled for and a recent poll found only 36% of young people are proud to be an American.
The most problematic part about losing our shared beliefs as a society is that no alternative has risen up. We have turned to politics and money to replace our religion. Either your entire focus is on making as much money as possible or parading your favorite beliefs. Trump represented a messianic figure to many. Social justice campaigns are like a crusade to many others. Without our communities or agreed upon beliefs, we are bound to fight each other. Public morality allows for greater social cohesion, even if that morality has significant flaws. Shared beliefs are one of the core elements of a functional nation, hence why the founders of this country worked tirelessly towards creating a civic religion. Shared beliefs allow for shared goals. The ambitions of the people of the United States are what has allowed for it to accomplish so much. If the closest thing we can excogitate to a solution is to destroy the other half of the country, then we are doomed.
Historical Antecedent: 14th and 15th Century Khmer Empire
Many empires were built on the belief that their emperor was divine or, at a minimum, had ultimate religious authority. The Khmer initially had a mythology around their emperors that tied into their Hindu beliefs. Their ruler was known as a God King. This gave the state religious authority and made what the emperor said of the utmost importance. Not only did the emperor exert a great amount of real authority and power, he also was revered. This belief likely helped give the Khmer enough authority to order the construction of one of the greatest architectural feats on the planet, Angkor Wat. The city had an incredible network of buildings that could deal with both drought and floods. It would have taken an immense effort and years on end to build.
The Khmer expanded and continued to innovate for centuries. Things began to change with the introduction of Buddhism. The religion grew in popularity among the masses and even the emperors were tempted by it. Eventually, the emperor converted to Mahayana Buddhism. This was a more lax form of the religion that allowed local traditions to be blended with it. It still did not allow a divine ruler with absolute authority. The emperor abandoned the God King title and subsequent emperors who were Hindu reclaimed it. At first this was not an issue, but over time the authority of the state became massively eroded. The belief that their leader was a God had been shattered. Eventually, Theravada Buddhism would win out and totally destroy any illusions of a God King.
Although this change is not solely responsible for the Khmer’s collapse, it does show how their social fabric became ripped. In the period after the conversion, there is much less architectural work. It seems as if the Khmer Empire’s goal had become to survive rather than to expand. A society that lacks belief can only maintain the support of the people for so long. If the Khmer had more fanatic support, perhaps Angkor would have been held onto more fiercely. In reality, when the Portuguese found the city the locals did not know who lived in it a mere few hundred years before.
Cultural Decay
“The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.” -Jerzy Kosiński
It is the job of the artist to give meaning to their art. In our era, this principle has been broken. Most abstract art requires the viewer to give their own meaning to the work. All forms of art reflect the culture they were created in. Abstract, and often lazy, works of art show an unsettling truth about modernity. We have lost a deeper sense of meaning. Our lives have become monotonous and robotic as we drag ourselves from home to work and back home on a tight schedule.
Art is merely a symptom of a deeper lack of meaning and turn towards the frivolous. The speech “Greed is Good” from the 1987 movie Wall St illustrated our current values best. Listen to a top song in any genre and an underlying message is clear, the singer’s ability to attain wealth makes them better than you. Status and money are the new gods and their pursuit is holy, just go to a business school and you’ll see. Along with the collapse of our values, our culture has been in a state of decay for quite some time and several developments evidence this.
The loss of manners has been one of the biggest tells. There may be an element of the old complaining about the young in this, but the majority of people feel that manners have declined. We all have some sort of personal story about how things have changed. For me, writing a thank you note after getting a gift was instilled into me as something that must be done but this practice seems to be getting rarer. Social media and our lives being caught up on the internet have not helped this trend. Children today are likely to become more individualized and less concerned with others than the past generation if this trend continues. Manners may be a small and often merely traditional part of life but they illustrate the level of social trust and respect in a society. A society without them is one where a dog eat dog mentality has set in.
Many of our current societal ills come from this mentality. An absolutely excellent blog post captures this idea (read here). The article essentially argues this; throughout history, when young men become dissocialized they turn to isolation or to violent acts. Historically, this has often been groups of marauders roaming the countryside. Nowadays, we see school shooters and random acts of violence and we also see people totally withdrawn from society like the Hikikomori. I tend to agree with this assessment, without a common culture to fall back on young men sometimes go ‘feral’ as the author puts it. Our lack of values and inability to install morality and meaning into our youth will not have a good outcome.
Historical Antecedent: Antebellum South
This is not the first time in American history that cultural degeneracy has become celebrated. Before the Civil War, the American South shared many of these traits (although quite different in some respects). A neo-feudal economy reliant on slavery was responsible for nearly all the prosperity in the region. A people who rely on slavery will always struggle to achieve much and will become incredibly lazy. In this period, having a work ethic was generally frowned upon and the common view was that African slaves should do everything for them.
While slaveowners held up a form of chivalry, there were much deeper issues afoot. Visitors to the South remarked upon the laziness, tendency to alcoholism, common fighting, and loose sexual morality that plagued much of the culture (which had been directly imported from the hinterlands of England). The system itself was built upon a belief in racial superiority and constant fear of a revolution (either by the slaves or by the poor whites and slaves working together). These aspects make it quite different than today but the lack of a deeper meaning seems to have similar effects. When life was purely about enriching one’s self at the expense of the lives of others, there is not much of a true higher calling.
This culture eventually collapsed after the civil war. Remnants of it still exist (in several different cultures in the US), but it proved unsustainable. It was certainly executed by a loss in the civil war but it likely could not have survived in the long term. People began to reminisce on the South after the war but still abandoned many of its worst aspects. There’s a reason I grew up hearing the phrase to, “Quit whistling Dixie” (a colloquialism that means to stop living in the past). This era of history shows us that a culture that is divorced from a higher calling cannot live long. We must either find a new direction and ascribe meaning to ourselves or face calamity like the South did.
Hyper-Partisanship and Rising Extremism
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground provides a deep look into mankind. When arguing that man is inherently an irrational being (and in denial of its own reality), he writes the following
Now I ask you: What can one expect from man since he is a creature endowed with such strange qualities? Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in bliss so that nothing but bubbles would dance on the surface of his bliss, as on a sea; give him such economic prosperity that he would have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with ensuring the continuation of world history and even then man, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer libel, would play you some loathsome trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive rationality his fatal fantastic element.
Despite many worrying trends in the US, life is still incredible compared to past eras. Even in the present there have been positive trends such as less smoking, teen pregnancies, and homicides. A simple snapshot of the present will not yield any explanatory value. With our loss of values we have also lost much of what gave our lives meaning before. The root causes of our partisanship run deeper than Doestoevsky’s postulation, but it illustrates that even in the best of times we will create conflict if we do not have meaning.
The beginning of the breakdown of our political system can be traced back to the 1960’s but the 1990’s provide a much clearer view. In essence, Newt Gingrich introduced hyper partisanship as a vehicle to power (read more here). Bipartisanship was discouraged for Congressmen and all the emphasis was put on winning elections. Fighting the other party at all times was more important than any legislation. This torch was carried on with a sprint by Nancy Pelosi and the blaze grew when Paul Ryan banned amendments to bills from even being discussed on the House floor.
At this point the path to Trump is well known and has been speculated on by authors more knowledgeable than myself. Everyone has an opinion on how we got here but no one will deny that we live in a much more polarized society in 2021. It is not hyperbole to say that we are the most polarized we’ve been since the civil war, even researchers are saying it. It is now common to say that Americans live in two Americas.
Our recent politics were never mirthful but they were also not so truculent. The media’s turn towards the monetization of hate and sensationalism have played a major role in this degradation. As someone who has both liberal and conservative friends, its incredible to see how little each knows about certain issues. Their respective echo chambers have sealed off reality from them. A quick anecdote is my left leaning friends not acknowledging Antifa’s influence and destruction and my right leaning friends doing the same with groups like the Proud Boys. The great irony is that they both can call it out on the other side and have dozens of examples ready to condemn their chosen enemy. The negative partisanship has gripped the nation.
This partisanship has combined with rising inequality and societal dismay. This concoction of negative factors has led to a dramatic increase in extremism and political violence. The occupation of Portland and attempted coup of 1/6 are both poignant examples of political violence in action. Perhaps even more frightening, 1/3rd of Americans are supportive of this tactic.
These problems only promise to get worse. Our two antecedents, the antebellum period and the progressive era, have many similarities to the present. We have become culturally divided in a way seen only before the civil war. In addition, Warren G. Harding’s campaign slogan “Return to Normalcy” (and subsequent failure to do so) is a mirror image of Biden’s campaign. We live in a time where you can find people openly supporting Nick Fuentes and physical attacks on the opposition are normal. An incompetent administration (who has strayed from their campaign of centrism) stands no chance against the wave of rebellions that will crash if left unchecked. To illustrate the challenge we face from extremism simply look at the two figures below.
Historical Antecedent: Late Republican Rome
The poet in me would love to make the dramatic comparisons of characters from this period. They’d likely come out of order but its a fun game. Perhaps Bernie Sanders is a Gracchi Brother and Trump is a Sulla. Maybe AOC will become Saturninus, Bloomberg is Crassus, and Cesar has yet to enter the public sphere. There is much more to this oft used comparison than just a quick look at characters, however. This period saw growing inequality, corrupt entities we would now call political parties, and a relatively new sense of power and wealth in the world.
The Republic had a robust system. This system had incredibly powerful checks such as the Tribunate of the Plebeians’ power and the power of the Censor. Unfortunately, such strong checks created an impossible gridlock. Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune, used his power to block anything from being done until his preferred law could be passed. This law was to be his vehicle to fame and power. Eventually, he utilized the power of the mob to force his way through. He failed but unbeknownst to him, he had unleashed a toxic force that would end the Republic.
We have already seen this force unleashed in the US. Tiberius was followed by his brother Gaius who was followed by Saturninus and then Sulla and so on. The storming of the capitol on 1/6 truly introduced mob tactics to the forefront. While they had remained a fringe tactic of groups like Antifa, this was their tacitly approved use by the largest political figure in the country. Once blood has been drawn, the fight will be to the death. An ancient Roman, Lucan, said it best, “Deep are the wounds that civil strife inflicts.” Many of the other conditions for major changes in our government and society are there just as they were in Rome. What makes this period unique in its comparison is that the use of the mob and brute strength came into being where they had not before. Time will tell if we fall down the road to Cesar as Spengler predicted, but it would appear we have already taken our first steps onto the trail.
Republicans
Its difficult to surmise whether the Republican party is merely in denial or just discombobulated. It seems content to make displays of nationalism without ever explaining what the nation means to them or why they are right. Most of all, they have had no answers to the radical changes in our society and have not offered any real vision for the future.
The turn towards Trumpism (or something like it) was inevitable in hindsight. The issues mentioned beforehand have created conditions for extreme dissatisfaction with the status quo. The business friendly, faux patriotic Republican was never going to have longevity. What the Mitt Romneys of the world considered successful policy in DC, clearly did not do much to help much of middle America. The reactionary, populist politics of Trump offered a solution. It successfully created scapegoats for the issues and seriously took on the societal elites who have created the impending disaster we all can see on the horizon. While some of the policies may not be great in the long term (although some will be), they were absolutely fantastic at addressing many issues in the short term. One must question whether the economic and foreign policy success in the administration was worth the fissures it created in society however.
The fundamental problem of the Trump era is that it was truly a reaction. Trump offered a rebuttal to growing inequality and the growing cultural dominance of the left. What he did not offer was any kind of vision for the future. Its more important to understand how technology changed our daily lives than it is to understand changes in polling on various issues. Our lives are fundamentally different and we have no idea what effects that has had on us. Our ideologies and institutions cannot handle this new world and need to reform or die. The current Republican party is a strange mix of classical liberal values and reactionary tendencies. It says it supports free speech in the face of the growing (and frankly, terrifying) censorship of the left, yet it censures anyone who has spoken out against Trump. The post-modernist and post-truth ideologies have infected the right just as they did the left. The party is at war with itself and seems to wish we still lived in the Pax Americana of the 90’s and 00’s. The party finds it easier to ignore societal inequalities instead of offering solutions. As it stands, the Republican party will attempt to market itself as a bulwark against the inevitable tide of history. In the UK, for example, the Conservative Party has always been able to adapt to its changes and in America it might happen too but I won’t hold my breath.
Grifters and anti-intellectual conmen stand at the forefront of much discourse in conservative media. For every Ben Shapiro, there are 10 Charlie Kirks. The Republican Party (or conservatism more generally) needs to create a new ideology for the modern world instead of riding societal divisions to power. To use a phrase I mentioned earlier, they need to quit whistling Dixie. The times have changes and only bold, continuous innovation is sustainable.
Democrats
Surprisingly (or perhaps not) the issues facing the Democrats are not that different at their core. Democrats also have no real vision for the future or way to address the changes (apart from taking action on climate change). The Left and the Democratic party are two very different things right now (more so than the Right and Republicans). The left has a burn it all down approach to solve injustices and offers absolutely no alternative system. I wrote about this extensively in my last piece (read here). The destructive nature of post-modernism has only intensified many of the aforementioned issues facing America. Instead of using a controlled burn to take out overgrowth, the left has unleashed a wildfire on the entire forest.
The Democratic establishment has no idea how to handle this. Many of these attacks on injustices in society (some very real, others more imagined) are extremely popular with young, college educated people. The elites of society have been pushing for these social issues and they make great rallying cries. The unfortunate reality for people like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden is that the barrel of the gun has already turned on them. It becomes increasingly hard to justify their own hold on power when they are willing to parrot the slogans and beliefs of revolutionaries. The two party systems forces communists to vote Democrat and the growing internal struggle has hit a fever pitch (especially without Trump around to unite the left).
Corruption has infected Democratic cities. This has stifled the introduction of new members into Congress as old leaders stay in power for decades. Now that the inevitable shift is happening, Democratic leadership is realizing that there wasn’t much of a buffer between Clinton era politics and AOC. The Democrats have taken a similar approach to the comparably old Republican leadership. Stoking the flames of civil strife can help win elections while avoiding hard questions about their policies. Both parties are starved for answers that both fix the problems in this article and don’t endanger the personal wealth of themselves and their corporate overlords. Instead, they have chosen to let the status quo reach its natural conclusion. As they see it, a civil war would happen after they’re dead anyway.
The progressive understanding of social justice is an orchid. It is difficult to maintain, is riddled with internal contradictions, and is cannibalistic. It makes a great vehicle to power but a poor provider of answers in an ever confusing world. Increasingly, the focus of this ideology seems to be to shut down opposition and remove them from the Overton Window. Ultimately, the ideology is not complex and does not have an alternative vision for how society is supposed to function once it gets the changes it wants. To succeed the Democrats need to find a way to genuinely push for social reform, even when it means endangering their personal wealth. If they could become the party of Anti-Trust and Anti-Corruption they could capture back many voters they lost to Trump. Once again, I wouldn’t bet on it happening. This would have to be accompanied by a serious vision for addressing societal inequalities, not simply a demonization of their enemies. Charismatic leadership and realistic policies could dominate American politics. Neither party (or any current ideology) seems likely to capitalize on the opportunity they have to reshape society in a positive direction. As it stands, it seems modernity will swallow us whole.