Attention Economy


Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Be Wary of Hubris After a Political Victory

The strange liberal nonchalance about Trump’s return
Having supposedly worried too much about him last time, people are overcorrecting
https://www.ft.com/content/e11b77b4-eb8a-438c-ba74-39715781bf35
Janan Ganesh:
There is a hubris in Maga-world right now that just wasn’t there in 2017, in part because Trump hadn’t won the popular vote. Talk of much higher economic growth, territorial conquest, putting a US flag on Mars: if this doesn’t reek to you of pride before a fall, of imminent over-reach, then we just have different antennas. (And I hope mine is wrong.) In all democracies, a party is never more dangerous than when high on fresh electoral success. The difference with the US is the size of the stakes for the outside world. Think of George W Bush after his historically good midterms in 2002, or Lyndon Johnson’s escalation in Vietnam after 1964, when his vote pile could be seen from space.