Time Will Tell
Western countries largely came into being after the Second World War in that their political and economic systems were formed up after the war. There was the aftermath of the war and the Cold War that shaped the political economy of the West. We still talk about “The West” in the 20th century sense of it, despite the fact that the Cold War is long over and many formerly communist countries are in the EU. The West is as much about political psychology as geography.
A part of that political psychology was a Marxist sense that the moral questions had been resolved, at least with regards to politics and economics. Social democracy was rebranded as liberal democracy in Europe and in the United States it was rebranded as democratic capitalism or free market capitalism. The mainstream political parties accepted the consensus on politics and economics but offered small alterations to it to distinguish themselves from the other parties.
In the United States, this meant that the two parties agreed on all the major items like dealing with the Russians but had different approaches to the same goal. In Europe, the main parties decorated themselves with things like environmentalism, socialism, and some cultural items, but they agreed on the most important items which were relations with the United States and anti-nationalism. The former was in response to communism and the latter was in response to fascism.
This is a highly simplified model of post-war reality, but useful in understanding the psychology of voters and the political class. The consensus and faith in it are what shaped politics until the current crisis. Politicians did not have to worry about policies or ideology, as the ideology was settled, so they just had to select from platforms that had been approved within the consensus. The voters showed their displeasure by voting against the incumbent or their satisfaction by voting for him.
Even in the multi-party system of Europe, voting was a binary thing. If the economy was good, then the parties that were associated with the status quo did well, but if the economy was bad, then those parties were punished. In the United States, you had the added aspect of party fatigue. Even in good times, a party that had been in power for too long would lose an election because the voters wanted a new look. Bill Clinton won in 1992 mostly due to this reason.
This worked fine if the public was satisfied with the consensus and no one was permitted to question the consensus. The fear of nuclear war solved the first part during the Cold War and credit money handled it after the Cold War. While there is always discontent, no matter how good things feel, it was never enough to cause any serious doubt about the status quo. The populist rumblings since the Cold War were marginalized by the media and political class.
That is where the second part of the model is important. The political classes in the West became increasing narrow after the Cold War. The seriousness of the situation in the Cold War required serious debate about the issues of the day, so the debate was open to a broader range of ideas. After the Cold War, triumphalism and the economic boom narrowed the range of tolerated opinion. The uniparty concept we see everywhere in the West is a product of this.
This is how the West has reached the current crisis. As the public has grown unsettled about public policy and the fruits of it, they find themselves with no reasonable options at the ballot box. The mainstream parties all hold the same views. This is especially obvious in Europe where parties that are allegedly polar opposites form governments, often as a way to exclude popular outsider parties. Germany and France now have governments without popular support as a result.
The root cause of the crisis in the West is that old Marxist line about once morality is settled, there is no need for politics. The Western consensus was a moral consensus, which means the politics within the consensus were performative. Since the end of the Second World War, the West did not have much in the way of politics, because everyone agreed on the important moral questions. After the Cold War, the moral consensus narrowed, and dissent was exiled.
The current crisis is due to elite moral consensus narrowing to a set of beliefs at odds with the sensibilities of the public. The moral consensus has collapsed with regards to the elites and the public. What the Cloud People believe is not only different from the beliefs of the people over whom they rule, the Dirt People, but it is hostile to the interests of the Dirt People. It is how the shuffling zombie that is the UK Prime Minister can boast about favoring aliens of British subjects.
It is why there is no solution within the democratic process. That process evolved to give the Dirt People choices approved by the Cloud People. There will never be an option to get rid of the Cloud People on the ballot. The point of the democratic process is to confirm to the Cloud People that they are the Cloud People. We see this with Trump, who is like a giant set upon by a massive swarm of bees. The democratic system will defend its master at any cost.
Proof that the universe has a sense of humor is the fact that the West has reached this crisis because the defenders of democracy are daring the people to do what is necessary for the will of the people to be respected by the state. The smug, soyish faces of the male politicians and the schoolmarmish demeaner of the females, wreaks of contempt for the voters. They see the people as weak and contemptible for not doing what they should, in response to the elites.
Time will tell if this holds. The election results increasingly show that the public in the West do not like their options. As they search for alternatives, the system seeks to eliminate those options. Maybe the people will run out of excuses and rise up to do what they should have done long ago. Maybe Trump succeeds enough to destabilize the system to the point where it falters and is replaced. Maybe we just keep voting ourselves into civilizational collapse. Time will tell.