Do they get to hang on to their distinctive way of life in this new world order? What about the Tibetans? The Japanese?
How Brexit shattered progressives’ dearest illusions
Politics in this expansive sense will come to an end in the imagined progressive future because there will be nothing left to debate. The big questions of politics will already be answered, the big disputes settled once and for all. Everyone will understand that all particular forms of solidarity are morally indefensible (just various forms of racism) and that all strong political stands against humanitarian universalism in the political realm are politically unacceptable (just various forms of fascism).
It would be one thing if progressives understood their universalistic moral and political convictions to constitute one legitimate partisan position among many. But they don’t understand them in this way. They believe not only that their views deserve to prevail in the fullness of time, but also that they are bound to prevail.
It is this faith in the inevitability of progressive triumph that has led so many commentators to respond so intensely to the rise of Donald Trump.
