In his book The Idea of Decline in Western History, historian Arthur Herman writes, “Perhaps the most salient feature of the twentieth century has been the tremendous upsurge of … cultural pessimism, not just in the realm of ideas, but directly into the arena of politics and culture.” This sense of decline, which Herman chronicles as a recurrent feature of modern society, has long animated a loud minority of the political left, and has now become a feature of an increasingly large share of the political right.
Ryan Streeter is the director of domestic policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
