We’ve got to… accentuate the positive

This was also a time when democracy was under threat from aggressive totalitarianism abroad, as well as at home from the allies and admirers of these dictators – the reactionary demagogues and media barons stoking the flames of division in order to further their own ambitions. Any of this feel familiar? The parallels between the world we live in now and that of the 1930s become starker the more you think about them. Right now this is what we have to contend with: a war of conquest unleashed by a Russian dictator, the cutting off of the supply of gas and oil to Europe by that regime, an influx of refugees fleeing this conflict, the economic distress caused by runaway inflation and the interest rate hikes aimed at getting it under control, the looming prospect of a recession (when we’ve only just recovered from the last one), the rise of populist autocrats, and the environmental disasters that are becoming all too commonplace as we fail to take the action needed to curb glob