Q&A: Pankaj Mishra.

MISHRA, Pankaj, 1969-; MODERATES (Political science); HURRICANE Katrina, 2005; RULING class; ELECTIONS

Pankaj Mishra's new collection of essays provides one provocative answer: Such triumphalism is akin to a religious creed, one that presumes that Western-style liberal democracy will be absorbed by the rest of the world, which will evolve toward it just as the Anglo-American sphere did. Mishra describes such liberals, borrowing from the Cold War realist thinker Reinhold Niebuhr, as "the bland fanatics of western civilization who regard the highly contingent achievements of our culture as the final form and norm of human existence." PM: I think it is safe to say that many of those who voted for [Donald] Trump in 2016 and 2020 voted for [Barack] Obama in 2008 and 2012. [Extracted from the article]

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