For years the signs have been on the wall. The Tea Party in the United States. Golden Dawn in Greece. The Alternatif für Deutschland. UKIP’s inexorable rise in the UK. Etc. etc. We saw these signs. We analysed their historic and political causes. We developed a cosmopolitan narrative of how ‘another’ Europe, ‘another’ world is possible.
But, unforgivably, we missed the most important thing about all this: that those on the bottom of the social heap are consumed by Deep Discontent that leaves them in no mood for complexity – they have no time for sophisticated, complicated analyses, or for lofty political agendas. Continue
