James Marriott at the Times of London:

The technocratic, good-mannered, optimistic and consensual politics we grew up with and which have prevailed in the West since the Second World War is not a normality to which we will inevitably return, but a part of history.

So far this new era seems to be marked by rejection of tolerance, reading and science in favor of bigotry, illiteracy and superstition. Life expectancy is actually declining.

I remain hopeful that this trend will change course yet again and we’ll move forward into a world that’s even better than the 20th Century. But that’s not the direction trend lines are now going.