There are a few things going on right now in geopolitics and social change! Here’s a quick view on some big-picture strands.
Big themes include a struggle between the old and the new, as the shoots of a better world are trying to come through; the spreading awareness of how far society has been organised for the few at the expense of the many; and negative forces generating their own counterforces, as we keep seeing.
Rewriting the world order
The two old cold war superpowers are in the process of unravelling themselves from inside. Russia is throwing resources and people into the grinder of the Ukraine war, which it started unnecessarily on the whim of Putin and has clung to stubbornly. Presumably that situation will implode sooner or later. Meanwhile the United States…
Well, what happens when you give the worst people who are incapable of living in the modern, fluid world access to big levers of power? It gives them a big opportunity to make the world look like the pictures in their heads. And as it turns out, that looks like a speedrun to fascism, with the country’s democratic structures being too weak, slow, apathetic and complicit to stop it. But it also means those people keep crashing into reality, because they’re operating at a level that can’t see it. What they’re doing is taking a wrecking ball to their economy and their standing with voters.
It’s also isolating the US on the world stage. Faced with unreliability, economic aggression, and threats — like the idea of taking Greenland by force, which would force the EU to protect its citizens — the rest of the world was taken aback but recovered pretty quickly. And then started working around the US, in trade flows and political alliances. The people who don’t understand an interconnected world have pruned their country’s root structure.
The post-WWII balance with the US as a fulcrum is probably gone for good, replaced by a world built on alliances and blocs. China may be the only ‘superpower’ nation, with BRICS and the EU being among the big players. Canada has been notably active in forming new links, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see it benefit as a result.
What next for the US?
The future of the US itself could go lots of ways. Hopefully this period will lead to big overhauls in how its society works, with a new look at values and systems. Change will be hard for people there, indoctrinated in the idea of the master nation. But it’s been a hollow version of its own PR for a long time, and now the world has stopped humouring it. Some form of people-powered discontinuity is really what’s needed.
Politics-wise, the next obvious point is Congressional elections in November — and the question of whether they are free and fair. But there are special elections before then, to fill seats that have been vacated, and there’s a possibility those could flip control of the House (the lower chamber). The current crisis opens the way for more progressive candidates to stand, and if that trend finds its way into the system it could steer the big ship in a better direction. A growing number of long-serving Republicans have declared they will not stand this time, not fancying the fight to defend the recent record, which means those seats don’t have the same uphill struggle as shifting an incumbent.
It seems pretty likely that Trump will be unable to finish his term for health reasons, and many commentators think the coalition around him would then split apart. His actions have been steadily alienating his base. Will other figureheads come to the fore and gather those people, or will the times shift too far against them? There are certainly techbros with strange ideas and deep pockets looking for tame politicians (and already behind VP Vance who would step in).
Them and us
It’s becoming ever clearer to ever more people that societies have been organised to benefit the wealthy and connected few by exploiting the many. The actions of certain billionaires have become very visible, and apart from those who have hitched their worldviews to those wagons (like the mutated environment of Twitter), most can see that their judgment is poor and their values are suspect. There are a lot of weird people swinging around heavy bags of money in the china shop.
The high profile of the Epstein files, reaching into multiple countries, has been accelerating this recently. In some places there have been consequences; in the US the powerful are being protected in a way that everyone can see, and eventually that’s going to burst. ‘The Epstein class’ has become a label for powerful individuals with a broader range of abuses.
In the UK we have issues like privatised water companies giving money to their mates while dumping sewage and letting infrastructure rot, and many other relics of class ideas and 1980s agendas. Events from the peak Covid years and the cost of living crisis sparked by the Ukraine war have focused more attention on those who cash in on hard times.
At the same time — and partly because of it — there’s more community organising and protest, and growing awareness of what we could have if things were different. One very obvious example has been the organising and mutual support by people in Minneapolis, in response to ICE occupation. But generally, the more we see what we don’t want, the more talk of other possibilities gains momentum. That ranges from helping neighbours at local level to big ideas like universal basic income getting ever more discussion.
Also, the more exposure people with bad old ideas get — and the more they crash against reality — the more we see through them. In the UK we’ve had Brexit, and it’s been a disaster. More people will be wary of getting fooled by the same voices again.
UK politics
The recent growth of the Green Party in England and Wales fits in here. Under new leadership it’s become more promotional and media-savvy at just the right time, using the slogan ‘make hope normal again’. It’s been noted many times that we have kind of a ‘uniparty’ now, with Labour, Reform and Conservatives all running with targeting of those who are different and outdated economic orthodoxy. In the face of that closed-down nostalgism that clearly isn’t working, people are ready for a reality check that says we can build a future we want to live in.
Labour has not helped that by running on an election slogan of ‘Change’ then walking back and back on what change it’s willing to deliver. How much power will the Greens get? The next national election isn’t expected till 2029. Things could evolve in all sorts of directions by then. For now, they’re moving the cultural debate, and that’s really important.
It’s pretty clear that the direction of travel is away from the big old parties, the Conservatives and Labour. The story of the 2024 general election was that the Conservatives lost, with voters leaving in multiple directions. The story of the next one may well be a similar thing for Labour. (And remember that Labour’s current huge majority is because of seats falling into its lap, not because of active popularity. It’s very temporary.)
For a while the polls have had Reform in the lead, with other parties jostling together further down, but it’s looking like Reform may have peaked. Best guess at the moment is the general election will be a big mess with an unclear outcome, requiring cooperation for a government — but all sorts could happen by then.
Tech waves
The big tech companies like Google and Microsoft are taking actions that are driving people away from them and will lead to new players becoming prominent. Some of that is because they are based in the US (no longer looking reliable) and have aligned themselves with the Trump regime. Some is the desperate pushing of AI features that most people don’t want. Some is the rise of concerns over privacy, and what they’re doing with our data. And those add on to the background dissatisfaction of gradual ‘enshittification’ of digital platforms.
Countries in Europe, seeing the security risk of having essential functions dependent on such companies, are accelerating moves to become independent, and developing their own regional services where needed. Individuals are also looking at changing the tech platforms they use — I’ve seen that coming up independently from a number of people this year, as well as thinking about it myself.
Will that look like a slow erosion of the wealth and power of these companies, or will there be discontinuous jumps? We can see who some of the new contenders could be, but it’ll be interesting to watch the landscape evolve. Culturally, perhaps the idea of a few big tech suppliers will give way to a more diverse environment — or perhaps we jump between groups of big islands over the decades.
Energy shifts
In the last few days the random and planless war on Iran by the US and Israel has led to reduced shipping of a big chunk of global oil supply, and long-term damage to the infrastructure that produces it. Energy price rises and knock-on effects are heading our way (and oil is used for purposes beyond fuel, eg manufacturing).
That has concentrated minds on the risks of being reliant on fossil fuels, and will lead to a further, faster push on renewables. Presumably not the result the pro-fossil, anti-climate US president would have wanted, but good news for the rest of us long-term (once we get through the short term).
Also, of course, it hardens attitudes even further against the US; and uses up its stockpile of armaments, as there have been multiple reports of it not having enough for a long engagement. And goodness knows what will be the final toll on lives and infrastructure in the Middle East, so often paying for others’ follies.
Wrapping up
I hope you found that canter enjoyable or useful. It’s been a long gap since posting, and I got the urge to put something down. If you’d like, follow me on Bluesky at upwardology.bsky.social.