The coronavirus is sure to change the world. Already, businesses have adapted (or gone under), politicians have surged in popularity (or crashed in flames), and cultures have adapted to a less social, less intimate realty. With a few vaccines just around the corner, I think it may be a useful time to think about some of the less noticeable ways in which the virus has inalterably shifted the social, economic, and political landscapes.

[Originally written in February 2019, this essay explores the fictionalized versions of bureaucrats and politicians and how those fictional versions have blended into public desires for fast political action with swift sweeping policy changes.]The depiction of bureaucrats and politicians in fictional media is almost always negative.

[The following was mostly written in early January 2019. The essay was unfinished so I added the final two paragraphs on some hopeful signs for a post-covid bounce back for liberal democracy]The march of far-right ideas and the return to nationalistic discourse should be an immense concern to the peoples of the west.

[Preface: the following is another part in my time-capsule series of writings from the past couple year. As a result a few things mentioned are about contemporary events of the time (April 2019) and some noticeable elements have changed as we've learned more about how the country voted earlier this month. For example, I mention the problem for the GOP on race where they appeared to do a bit better than the previous several election cycles.

The 2010s saw an explosion in populist political parties and movements. From Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the United States, to the Brexit movement in the UK, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and a whole host of both left and right wing across the democratic world. Populism isn’t new but it also had spent a fair bit of time out of the geopolitical limelight. In the United States populist movements were a common feature of the 19th century.