A Few Reasons for Hope

 

Back in early 2020 we joked about how 2020 was one piece of incredibly bad news after another. And we looked forward to 2021 taking over. But 2021 has probably been worse than 2020—notably in number of covid deaths. And the bad news keeps coming.

Here are a few hopeful thoughts:

Crisis tends to precipitate change.

1. In France, a presidential election cycle is beginning. Macron, the incumbent, is a centrist. His two closest rivals are both on the right. And not the centre right, not Gaullists; on the “far right,” people The Economist used to refer to as “thugs.” The “far right” candidates may not win, but the discussion and the issues have changed. The argument always used to be between the Gaullists and the Socialists. The Socialists are pretty much out of the picture.

2. In Britain, we have seen Brexit and the historic defeat of a left-leaning Labour Party in the last general election. Even if Boris Johnson is squishy, he faces competition from the right, from Nigel Farage and UKIP, as well as from the left. If those right of him do not have a presence in parliament, Farage demonstrated in the last European election that this could soon change, if they grow dissatisfied.

3. In the USA, the Democrats narrowly won the last election cycle; but the polls show their popularity now extremely low. It is not just Joe Biden who looks as though he could not get re-elected. Kamala Harris is almost as unpopular. The current cold shower of leftist policies may inoculate the States from voting left for some time to come. Just as it was unlucky for the Republicans to be in power when the Great Depression hit, or in the 2008 financial crisis. Trump himself should have been reelected, had it not been for Covid. Now the Democrats probably own it, and more.

4. The shakiness of the Chinese economy may be bad news for the world’s markets, and may cause recession or depression. That’s the bad news. But it may also cause the regime to fall. That would be much more significant good news. China under the current regime is the main threat to freedom and to world peace. It is more than a little perverse to worry about a bad Chinese economy. 

5. There is a chance that the new Omicron variant of covid is milder—we do not know yet. If it is milder, it may be to our benefit that it out-competes more dangerous strains. If it is not milder, the next strain may be. We may settle down to a covid that is no more dangerous than the seasonal flu.

6. The left is fighting back harder and harder, and making more and more outlandish claims and demands. They are more obviously simply denying truths we can all see for ourselves. This feels like the final act. “First they ignore you. Then they mock you. Then they fight you. Then you win.” The left is spending quickly any moral capital they once claimed. As it gets harder for good people and for intelligent people to be on the left, people may soon be ashamed to admit they are on the left, for fear of scorn or ridicule. When this happens, and it feels close, it is over.

7. The left is now in a position, thanks to political correctness and open denial of realities, of finding humour hostile. As a result, Saturday Night Live is no longer funny; Gutfield is. Stephen Colbert is no longer funny. Steven Crowder is. Nobody hears from The Onion any longer. It is now always the Babylon Bee. When it is no longer fun to be on one side, the other side wins. We saw this in the Sixties when the funny stuff was all on the left: National Lampoon, Month Python, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce. It was the best evidence that the right was intellectually bankrupt then. Now it shows the positions have flipped.

8. More and more public personalities who used to be on the left, or whom we assumed to be on the left, are now moving to or coming out as rightist. Dr. Oz is one recent example. When he announced for the Senate, I automatically assumed it was for the Democrats. He was Hollywood, and he was Oprah. Not so. He was a closet Republican. Tim Poole has stopped insisting he is on the left. Joe Rogan sounds more right wing. Jon Stewart sounds more right-wing. Jimmy Dore sounds more right-wing. People are walking away. I suspect that soon it will not be cool to be on the left.

9. It looks as though the Supreme Court might, by summer, overturn or restrict Roe v. Wade. While this would make no immediate difference even in the USA, it would be a heavy blow to the argument that abortion is a human right, accepted in Canada and perhaps elsewhere largely on the American model.

10. In the end, you cannot hold back the avalanche of information on the Internet.

Hope this helps.