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COVID-19, Brexit, and #NeverTrump Are All the Same Power Struggle.
Centralization vs distribution of the political economy
While you reflect on the year-end essays that summarize the events of 2020, you might struggle to make sense of the disjointed, incoherent, and nonsensical experiences that characterize 2020.
If there is one theme that connects, explains, and makes sense of all of these disconnected and incredible phenomena it is this:
Politics.
The study of politics is about power: who has it, how did they get it, and what will they do with it. What makes the last 4 years so fascinating, and 2020 especially insightful, is the way that the trajectory of power in the United States and the World has begun to change.
And there are good reasons for it.
The 20th century achieved new heights in technological atrocity. Although World War I was supposed to be the “war that ends all wars,” basic questions at the intersection of European geography and industrialization were left unresolved by the Great War.
The problem of geography is the position of Germany. A fragmented Germany is not a threat to the peripheral empires of the European peninsula. However, a unified Germany is a serious problem, because the…
