Elites are turning on their own ‘core demographic’—even as Western working and middle classes are being pushed into rebellion.
Farmers’ revolts and geopolitical instability portend a year of flux in 2024, with the winter of 2023 becoming a touchstone for history books to mark as a transition for the international system and, specifically, the end of U.S. global hegemony. The American incapacity to hold together a coalition necessary to maintain essential cargo routes along the Red Sea—and losing face against Yemen’s Houthis, who are equipped with cheap drones—is likely a significant, if under-reported, milestone.
Geopolitics aside, what social transformations might Europeans and Westerners in general expect at home? What have imperial breakdowns meant for those who lived through them in the past? The following touches on a few of the factors that might cause what Arnold Toynbee called “the internal proletariat” to rebel against the political class in the West.
