2024-12-28
34 分钟In 1966, the American political strategist Dick Tuck.
Yes, that was his name, grow up.
Ran for a seat in the California State Senate.
Upon being told that he had lost the Democratic Party primary, he uttered a remark which has passed into political legend.
The people have spoken.
The bastards.
In 2024, more politicians will have ganached similar sentiments than in any other year.
In, nearly half of Earth's population In more than 70 countries had the opportunity to vote.
And in a great many of those jurisdictions, they voted the incumbents out.
This is not to suggest that none of these voters had no good reason for their discontent.
As this year's episodes of the Foreign Desk reflected, we live in a world of trouble, much of which is the responsibility of the people who run it.
Sometimes when the people speak, they are within their rights to offer directions to the door.
It may not just be that, however, though it would be a brave elected politician who pointed it out.
Hefty cohorts among Democratic electorates have embraced a creed of permanent performative unhappiness.
Encouraged by social media platforms and by cynical populists, a tendency has developed to want the fight, not the victory, to wallow in the crisis rather than consider a solution.
This special episode of the Foreign Desk reads the runes scattered by this year's whirlwind of elections to see what they tell us about the year we've just had.
Are we all really as unhappy as we seem to think?
What do these results tell us about the state of the world more generally?
And who were our panel's heroes and villains of 2024?
This is the Foreign Desk.