When Mr. Biden addressed the Democratic National Convention in the year 2020, before accepting the nomination for the President of the United States, he stated the following: “I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time.”. His now-dumbfounded claim entails the longstanding neoliberal disillusionment from the actual zeitgeist, ultimately leading to their now decapitation in terms of both political fervor and its espoused intrinsic ideals.
 
Many, if not all, commentators, political operators, academics, and the common citizenry are insinuating the reasoning behind the shift in the recent past. In principle, the leaders of today are commonly reverberated as populist, Machiavellian, anti-institutionalist, nativist, opportunist, chauvinistic, and, at times, mystic; simultaneously, many are trying to accentuate the pivotal punctuation point (event) that led to the change: may it be from the 2008 financial crisis, the rise of social networks (tool of misinformation), the election of Donald Trump, a reaction to “woke” culture or mass global migration towards the west.
 
I deem such practices arbitrary, and most importantly, neither is there a definitive barometer, nor will there ever be a consensus. However, the scenario that pervades the global polity, if not in democracies, is a backlash—a consequence of the failure of the false prophecies of a now-obliterated global order.
 
Without mincing words, the bubble that encapsulated the post-war neoliberal, technocratic, meritorious, market-driven efficiency has burst; in tandem, its ideals, values, norms, modus vivendi, dogmas, ethos, institutional mechanism, and favorability amongst the plebiscite, at long last, have withered away into the abyss.
 
For an extended period of time, the establishment of the now-yesteryear regarded the mainstream as fringe, though the fringe was mainstream. The previously mentioned statement by Mr. Biden personifies the liberal hubris.
 
No. Mr. Trump and his acolytes around the world are not an aberration; to the contrary, they epitomize the longstanding epochal change. A change from neoliberalism to an eclectic coalition; each constituent detests a particular doctrine of the post-war establishment; broadly, they collectively represent a denunciation of the old global order.
 
Though, I would like to emphasize a potent aspect that is left aside amidst the ravaging political cacophony.
 
In my previous treatise, I argued that the homo sapiens—humans, to say the least—are innately illiberal—colloquially, narrow-mindedness and conservatism are inscribed into the human mind. It is, in fact, the task of the institutions—be it school or family—during the formative years of a human to instill ideas sacrosanct towards being a liberal—a free thinker.
 
The crux of the failure of the post-war establishment is that, it entrenched a vicious cycle of division on the basis of intellect; ironically, the anti-thesis of being a liberal. Accordingly, the grievance that many have, whether they are a working-class factory worker, a rural person, or a city dweller working paycheck to paycheck, stems from the loss of dignity and respect, being insulted, and thereafter being looked down upon by the credentialed elite class. A quote by Mr. Buffet is as direct as the prevailing ethos can get: “The more you learn, the more you earn.”
 
The schism is exemplified from voter sentiments, and trends in the preceding elections around the developed world.
 
The neoliberal order will not resurrect; rather, a new philosophical approach is imperative as populism is a backlash towards technocracy. Fundamentally, the two extremes in no sense whatsoever posit viable solutions to the division sowed.
 
The liberal attribute of individual liberty has been detrimental in terms of distancing individuals of differing social classes. Sadly, lost in the process is the sense of community: solidarity—intermixed with diverse social standings.
 
There is a deficit of both morality and civic virtue. The pivot does not require a sophisticated ideology that gives a meticulous answer to each and every peril of human existence; conversely, it should inculcate the equality of dignity—regardless of one’s preordained or later garnered attributes.
 
Alas, with the riddance of the old order, regrettably, it has inadvertently embroiled the homo sapiens with the idea of the “I” at the expense of the “us.”.

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