Now: Trump will not be the Republican nominee (yes, really). Bernie Sanders won’t beat Hillary. Far-left antics at Amherst and Oberlin and Claremont McKenna and Yale are not as significant as elite college graduates like to think.
In Europe, Jeremy Corbyn probably won’t be Britain’s next prime minister, Marine Le Pen probably won’t be France’s next president, Sweden probably isn’t about to turn fascist, the E.U. probably isn’t about to break apart. Houellebecq’s vision of an Islamified Europe, like ISIS’s vision of a new Islamic empire or Putin’s Stalinist nostalgia, is more a resonant fantasy than a plausible atlas of the future.
It’s still wise to bet on the current order, in other words, and against its enemies and rivals and would-be saboteurs.
But after liberalism’s year of living dangerously, for the first time in a long time it might make sense to hedge that bet.
Source: Ross Douthat – Cracks in the Liberal Order – The New York Times (h/t @dscotto10)