The howling you hear in your dreams is not just the collapse of Democracy – it is the inescapable end of Empires. And it is the sudden, seeming inevitability that is crushing.
The revulsion at seeing social and political achievements rotting before our very eyes is something we should get used to because it’s not fixing any time soon.
As we look on in horror at the US impeachment farce the UK Brexit farrago, one thing might at least save us from waking up every morning with the collective used-to-be-a-democracy hangover.
Whether it was The Romans, The Mongols or The Conquistadors – we know that Empires rot from within. They begin with high-minded if misguided people full of energy and self-confidence (and violence and acquisitiveness) imposing their ideas and culture on others while plundering other countries but often imposing strong administration and co-operative structures to shore everything up. They end with the promotion of mediocrity and the corrosiveness of cronyism and nepotism.
Ironically – one thing that helped the UK’s international credibility after the empire fell away and we became "the sick man of Europe" was its association and closer connection with the EU.
And I wonder if, as things imploded in the past, Roman or Mongol or Spanish people watched and asked ‘how did it come to this’? As their leaders failed and the mediocre were promoted and nepotism infected every branch of administration and corruption became normal – did they eventually sit back and despair? Did they drown in the slough of despond?
In The Pilgrim’s Progress John Bunyan’s 1678 Christian allegory, the reader is exhorted to recognise despair as a sin. Bunyan's hero has to be constantly wary of “the slough of despond”. But just how do you avoid despair or despondency? How do you avoid slipping in if you are an intelligent, humane human being in the US or UK for example? Part of what leads to a sense of despair, I am sure, is feeling that nothing works. And that is something many must be feeling now.
If one regards the very extensive list of undesirables in high office and seemingly immovable, it is hard to imagine there isn’t some outer force working on behalf of the self-serving low-lifes. How do you end up with half-wits running countries? How do you end up with known liars, cheaters, thugs and corrupt delinquents running – not banana republics and communist or fascist states but Western democracies – because that is what we have.
As the UK’s opposition remains non-existent and Democrats in disarray seem ready to help let Trump in for a second term, neither the US or UK look like bucking the trends of the past by rebalancing with strong cohesive opposition to become the first nations to reign things in before hitting the rocks of history.