Warnings From the Ages

Nobody will read this essay in 200 years.

The essay’s initial target, Jason Stanley, is right: it’s really good. It also prompted me to start reading his 2018 book How Fascism Works, and although I don’t know whether it will last 200 years, it takes a broad enough historical view that it might—and more importantly it’s very much a book for right now. I keep thinking of how many of his points apply to the last few years of Boris Johnson’s government, not to mention the last few months of Russia going off the deep end, and it’s an urgent reminder that the danger of Trumpism persists despite the change of US president.

Gawker has changed the title of McClay’s essay to “It’s Very Unlikely Anyone Will Read This in 200 Years”. Where’s the fun in that? Leave the circumspect language to academic articles that it’s very unlikely anyone will read in 200 days.

Get yer 200-year-old coincidentally relevant essay right here.

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