So now that coalition talks to form a German government appear to have broken down and the way forward is not as clear as it once was, one should stop and take stock of where the West and where it is heading. Those who try to explain Donald Trump looking at strictly American causes seem to be missing the bigger picture. While the political earthquake that was Donald Trump’s election is still getting the most press attention (not least of which is his Twitter account), the fact is that the assumptions and governing structure of the post-war era in the West are being called into question in country after country as never before. Even in France where President Macron was dubbed the establishment candidate, this was only due to the fact that his opponent was from a party traditionally associated with right-wing extremists. People forget that Macron’s party didn’t exist 3 years ago. Imagine the next U.S. President in 2020 being from a political party that doesn’t exist right now, and you get the idea how big a deal that is.

When you have political dissatisfaction such as what we are witnessing today across the West, it usually isn’t a case of horrible (aka racist) people finally finding their voice and overwhelming a stable political system that is functioning reasonably well. The fact that folks in country after country with many different economic and political cultures are sending the same message should tell us something. Specifically it should tell us that something big is happening. The fact that the U.S. would elect a political novice, that France would elect someone from a new political party, and that Italy would have a political party led by a comedian leading in some polls in the run up to the 2018 elections is a sign that the political system has failed. While some roll their eyes at people who even after a year still can’t accept that Donald Trump won the election, this lack of acceptance indicates (I think) an intuitive understanding that something deep has shifted, likely irreversibly.

So, what is happening? I think that it can be summed up that the population has finally lost faith in a governing system (and I include the established political media in this) to which they must pay taxes, listen to people who don’t know what they are doing presume to talk down to them, and that has delivered very little tangible for them over the last quarter century. This is not an indictment of one political party; this inept governing is truly bi-partisan. The last large victory of the political system in the West was that of the Cold War. Since then, much of the visible improvement (cell phones, internet, expanded entertainment options) have been largely driven outside of government. To the extent that government was involved in any of these, its role was either minimal or not really visible.

However, what is visible is that many countries are seeing waves of immigrants being let in to either A.) consume social services paid for by citizen taxpayers or B.) to compete with citizens for scarce jobs. In some countries, citizens face regulatory burdens from supranational bodies that they have no control over or any clearly visible way to influence. Or, they simply see that their money is taxed and nothing improves. Schools deteriorate, roads have potholes, traffic gets bad, jails are overcrowded, etc. etc. They vote for one party, and then the other. But nothing changes.

Furthermore, some governments seem to not understand that protecting their citizens from outside threats to their well-being (including economic ones) includes securing the border. When citizens protest and demand that something be done to control immigration, they are derided as horrible people. The political system does what it wants. In Europe, the E.U. pushes forward with integration favored by the elites. When citizens push back, they are vilified and punished. Then they are “invited” to vote again until they get the “right” answer. Social media has made it obvious what many in the political class truly think of the average voter, and it isn’t pretty. In has become apparent that the political class sees itself as a permanent ruling class and voters as mere supplicants, registering their votes at the polls for the ruling class to grant or ignore at its pleasure.

What is worse, is that despite producing failure, nobody in the political class seems to be truly held to account. Sure, a political party might lose an election, but the individual members don'”t really suffer personally. If someone in the private sector screws up, they lose their job. In losing their job, often everything that they have is at risk (Home, marriage, retirement, etc). The failures in the political class, if they result in sanction at all, usually result in a politician being in the minority instead of the majority, a bureaucrat gets transferred to another department, a resignation into another profitable and lucrative niche, etc. In short, failure in the private-sector risks a ruined life. Failure in the public sector risks a demotion; painful perhaps, but not personally disastrous.

Even in the media, the talking heads never seem to lose their talking head position, no matter how stupid or wrong that they end up being. Many of these so-called “experts” talk and talk and talk and talk, and then end up being wrong, and yet they are still pronouncing like infallible sages. Virtually the entire political/economic media assured us that a Brexit vote was going to result in practically a Soviet-style economic collapse. Immediately after Trump won the election, Noble Prize winning economist and New York Time’s columnist Paul Krugman assured us that the stock market would never recover while Trump was President. Since those events/predictions, the stock market in the UK is up by about 17% and the stock market in the U.S. is up more than 20%.

The point is that people have lost faith in the governing class as a whole. And this isn’t due to people being stupid, blind, or misled. That might happen in one election in one country. But not in country after country and election after election. The faith of the governing class in a multicultural country in an open, globalized world that delivers, freedom, happiness and prosperity to all (or almost all) citizens and managed by that same governing class has broken down. It has failed. And like religious adherents across the ages whose religions have failed and/or been called into question by facts that can’t really be denied any longer, devotees of this faith are lashing out (sometimes literally and violently) at those who question and/or oppose their faith. The Western world is changing. It is far, far too early to say what will emerge. I wouldn’t even hazard a guess. The process will take years, perhaps decades. But the post-war era is ending. The failure of governance of the last 25 years is at the embryonic stages of being changed.