Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

The Two-Hundred-Year Era of 'Left' and 'Right' Is Over

| November 14, 2016

The political categories we've inherited are obsolete, but we don't have anything to replace them with yet.

U.S. democracy may be government of the people, by the people, for the people. But who are "We the people"?

In the United States, every couple of years, one finds out. Elections reveal how the identity of the people — the sovereign person — has changed in body, will, and soul. As with human beings, certain moments in the life of the sovereign being are revealing of its true personality. Donald Trump's victory was one such moment.

Before the primaries, it was possible to dismiss the electoral relevance of white working-class America, and those left behind by globalization more broadly, and many did: Look no further than the desiccated Washington-consensus platitudes regurgitated by Hillary Clinton and most of the Republican primary candidates....

Continue reading: http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/14/the-two-hundred-year-era-of-left-and-right-is-over/

For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation: Simpson, Emile.“The Two-Hundred-Year Era of 'Left' and 'Right' Is Over.” Foreign Policy, November 14, 2016.

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