“May You Live In Interesting Times”

Created
Thu, 21/12/2023 - 06:45
Updated
Thu, 21/12/2023 - 06:45
Are you sure? It seems like this new year can’t get any more turbulent or our political system more volatile. We’re going to have Donald Trump on trial, epic Supreme Court decisions, foreign policy crises and, oh yeah, the most important election of our lives. I’m already reeling with it and I’m sure you are too. We are living through very, very consequential times. Obviously, the end of the cold war shook everything up after 40 years of a stand-off and the modern conservative movement’s long-term project finally flowering changed our politics. But things have been hurtling at warp speed over the past two decades with an epic terrorist attack that sent the nation into a frenzy and enabled a tragic war from which we still have not fully recovered. The financial crisis of 2008 was the worst economic catastrophe the vast majority of us have ever experienced. (Only the very oldest Americans went through the Great Depression.) The technological revolution of the last few decades is changing our lives so quickly that we can’t keep up from day to day. And now we are living through the greatest threat to our democracy at least since the civil war and maybe ever. It’s a lot. I know that people like you who are reading this little old blog and other sites around the internet, trying to keep up with what’s happening and maybe find some perspective are feeling the weight of all this right now. I know I am. But…