Canada, Germany, California

Gavin Newsom speaking at the 2019 California Democratic Party State Convention in San Francisco, California, by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0

Politically, the past few weeks have been interesting.

Almost to the day four weeks ago, Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. I don't need to rehash the fits into which the mainstream and rightwing press went. President Joe Biden's administration was declared dead and done, the Kabul debacle something from which he would never recover.

Fast forward four weeks, and what? Things are very different.

Afghanistan has been forgotten again, as many of us predicted. The media just couldn't maintain interest in that tragedy once almost no American lives were involved, not once the Biden-Harris Administration carried out the largest humanitarian evacuation in history, not once the cable news media ran up against the fact that Americans were plenty happy to be out of that quagmire, even if some were unhappy with how everything rolled out.

Then last week, Pres. Biden dropped the hammer on COVID and the "vaccine hesitant". He took measures to deal with the drag COVID was having on the country. And those of us who are fully vaccinated, who have done what we were supposed to do, are backing him 100%. The Republicans thought they had a winning issue with COVID. That just goes to show that the party has no one of any strategic nous in it any longer. What played well to a diminishing base was toxic to the vast majority who behaved—and continue to behave—responsibly.

What we're seeing both here and abroad is the return of faith in left-liberal politics. Right-wing populism has been all the rage for the past few years. Strongmen promising easy answers to their populations. But the problem with right-wing populism is that it doesn't actually solve any problems. It confronts "problems" of its own making: abortion, immigration, culture. It has no idea how to solve actual problems which affect people's lives. And that's why, eventually, they falter and stutter and fail. Left-liberal political parties are far from perfect; if you want perfection, hope that God exists, because that's your only hope. But left-liberal parties operate from the starting point of wanting to fix real problems. We're seeing that play out across the world.

At the same time that Pres. Biden was having his "horrible" month, it seemed that Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau's decision to call a snap election was backfiring on him. The Conservative Party was leading in the polling, and seemed poised to take the reins in Ottawa. But the Liberal Party has fought back, and  most polling show it as winning a majority in this coming Monday's election. The Conservatives themselves are vying against a right-wing populist party, and as such tacked right to see off its challenge. It seems that Canadian voters are souring on that triangulation.

In Germany, the Social Democrats, which just a few weeks ago seemed poised to come in third in the federal elections set for Sept. 26. First the Green Party was ahead, then the Christian Democrats took pole position. Then the massive summer floods happened, and everything changed. The CDU's ham-fisted reaction had an immediate political impact, as it began losing ground, and the SPD is on the verge of having the largest share of seats in the Bundestag. Its candidate for the chancellery, Olaf Scholz, has the benefit of having served in the Grand Coalition between the SPD and CDU, but not being of the majority party. Unless something dramatic happens in the next nine days, the Social Democrats will be heading the government. Again, compassion and competence are winning out.

And then we have California, my love, my home. Again, around the same time as the fall of Kabul, the great and the good were either panicking or scoffing at we Californians, as it seemed that we were ready to recall Governor Gavin Newsom. As I have pointed out at length, this panic and/or derision stemmed from a dearth of polling, and a ridiculous Survey USA poll which skewed the aggregations. No matter how many of us told people to be calm, to wait for more polling, to just do the work, the angst would not subside. And the media loved it, as it would make for exciting content. The final result? A rejection of the recall by around thirty points. Again, the great and the good either feared right-wing populism, or were cheering on its victory for a good storyline. Calm, rational governance just isn't sexy. 

It's early days. But what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' inauguration may have portended was the breaking of the populist fever. It had sucked up so much oxygen that people were hard-pressed to remember what competent government felt like. Eight months in, and it seems that not just here, but in other parts of a Western world buffeted by strongman politics, such politics are wearing out their welcome. Left-liberals are showing that democratic, inclusive governance still has much to offer to citizens. The future will belong to the Russias and the Chinas only if we allow it to. They can get things done fast, but they can't get things done well. I truly hope we're seeing the end of the West's flirtation with demagogues. As the 1930s showed, such a flirtation never ends well.