A Letter From America

Rick Wilson

Watch the Complacency

In these sweet end-of-summer days, the Burnham Bump is a tempting lure to complacency.

A hope that regular order will once again prevail, and that the chaos Reform UK promises can be managed without much more mess.

Please don’t believe that.

The temptation you’re feeling now, with Labour led by a man who seems to ‘get it’ and the right’s vote split three ways, is understandable. It’s also the wish-casting that let Republicans, Democrats, and the American press believe in 2017, and again in 2025, that the guardrails would hold Donald Trump’s feral urges; and, for a brief lacuna, believe that Joe Biden would quietly repair the damage after Trump’s first term.