We are now properly back from Washington DC, swapping sunny Philadelphia Avenue for the sunny banks of the Cam. In DC we have lived through the run-up to the election, the election itself (all over in a day, when we had expected a week of uncertainty), the inauguration and the first few months of the new administration. A ringside seat.
What everyone here in the UK now wants to know is “what’s it like?”, “what’s everyone talking about?”. I don’t know how typical my Washington supper-time conversation is, but I will give you the low-down anyway (bear in mind that this is all from DC, from the higher end of the age spectrum, relatively affluent, and broadly from the academic, arts, public sector).
In short, everyone is talking about the presidency all the time. Evening conversation occasionally switches away from it, but it is soon back. We are all hooked (me too: I was going to cancel my New York Times and Washington Post apps as soon as I got back, but I can’t bear to). Some of the conversation is predictable enough. When will all this implode (or is it here to stay)? What on earth are the Democrats up to (or not)? Who is the next victim, the next job-loss, going to be? How can political rhetoric have become so cheapened? Did we ever imagine a world in which Fox News would seem to be in charge? What on earth will happen with universities, student jobs, science research, international aid, medical care, press freedom … you name it?
But one theme is perhaps less predictable, and more self-critical. Where did we – the boomers, if you like – go wrong? We imagined that some of our more or less liberal, internationalist, post-World-War, ideas were supported right across the political spectrum. Whatever disagreements there might be, these ideas formed the new baseline in the west, we thought. Did we not notice that some people were unconvinced or had changed their minds? Why did we not speak up effectively in defence before it was too late, and all we could do was put a finger in the dyke?
DEI is a special case of this. At the margins (only at the margins, I think) there were a few silly initiatives, which many people found irritating at best, enraging at worst, and provided ample ammunition to…
