Herewith a few vignettes from the past week or so: Elon Musk told massed protestors in London over a video link that “violence is coming. You either fight back or die.” The organizer of the protest, known as Tommy Robinson, is a far-right agitator convicted multiple times for everything from assault to mortgage fraud. In Spain, the final stage of the Vuelta a Espanã bike race was abandoned as sometimes violent pro-Palestinian protestors swamped the finish line in central Madrid. In the US and beyond, social media posts celebrating or rationalizing Charlie Kirk’s murder were followed by heated campaigns to fire or otherwise punish those who made them. President Donald Trump’s response: “We have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.”
The emotional tone of global politics has reached fever pitch. Anger is driving out compassion. Self-righteousness is strangling debate. And emotion is smothering reason, invading areas of statecraft once reserved for cool-headed professionals, most notably foreign policy. Emotion is also driving regular people away from the public sphere. A recent poll of English voters found that 60% say that politics makes them feel angry, 55% say that it makes them feel fearful and 80% say that it makes them feel frustrated.