‘Narrative’ politics, as it has evolved over the last two decades, is a uniquely insidious force.

It appears able to displace consideration of reality even amongst a political leadership who are entrusted to know better. Yes, of course, there’s always been propaganda, spin, press plants, etc. But the ‘narrative force’ is different. Its power seems to originate from something completely new — advanced digital media. The printing press, mass-circulation newspapers, radio, television, even the early-stage internet — all mere precursors. Digital media puts it all together in terms of political impact.

Unchecked, the ‘narrative’ goes to absurd extremes. So absurd that a superior force — actual reality — eventually intervenes. I think this is what happened in 2024, which was, when you think about it, a veritable bonfire of unsustainable political and cultural narratives.

But so what? Fundamental economic and social questions are still not being addressed. Much of the pre-2024 narrative was not necessarily substantive. It may be better explained, especially in its distracting absurdity, as post-WFC camouflage for the continuation of business-as-usual. That business being various kinds of rent-seeking, extractive financialization, relentless wealth concentration, etc. In effect, the period 2008-2024 can be seen as an era of ‘narrative neoliberalism’.

Yes, Trump and his crew incinerated the camouflage, and it was fun to watch the well-deserved wrecking. But was the purpose to expose our hard reality and thereby start dealing with it? Or simply as an exercise in gaining political power, because a ‘counter-narrative’ can be as powerful a force as a reigning narrative?

Perhaps those are questions for future historians. But ‘what happens next?’ is far from academic. This is because, unlike any point in the US since 1945, fundamental issues need to be addressed. Kicking the can further down the road will have serious and inexorable consequences.

On the surface, the landscape looks chaotic. How could it be otherwise? The revolutionary regime is new and still consolidating its power, banishing long-entrenched opponents, performatively demolishing various iconic symbols of the ancien regime, and announcing (and often retreating from) radical decrees. Those on the losing side scream in outrage, to increasingly lesser effect, while they search for a way back in. The whole political circus is energized by a polarizing figure of unique genius for this purpose, Trump.

But underneath I am sure there are (there always are) serious people developing plans. They know that the US faces fundamental issues that will drive fundamental change. Managing that change, and to what end, will be the critical challenges, and the fact of upheaval in itself frames the risks and opportunities. Note that agency within the frame is not limited to the revolutionaries who launched the upheaval, even after they’ve apparently consolidated their power. Far from it. You know the story — Robespierre to Napoleon, Kerensky to Lenin, to name just two. It’s entirely possible that follow-on revolutionaries, if they emerge, will make the current crew look tame.

Who knows what form these plans are taking? But I’m guessing that they’ll be roughly divisible into two opposing groups, if only because that seems to be historical pattern. On the one side, there will be those with aspirations for deep reformation of government (and society, too, to the extent it can be influenced by government), as the way not only to comprehensively address near-term critical issues but to restore the nation to a better path. Of course, their idealistic visions will be tempered in due course, but a deep reformation will involve as a first step the dismantling of the existing order. Things will evolve from there. In my own narrow focus on loan programs, I already see some hints of a stern, reforming mindset, bent on dismantlement. Call this ‘post-neoliberalism’.

On the other side will be those for whom the current neoliberal arrangements have worked rather well. On a personal level, they can easily navigate any travails that unaddressed national issues might cause, and maybe even profit from the exercise. But it’d be a shame for such a lucrative enterprise to blow up completely, and so their plan will be focused on the various band-aids, emergency moves, quick patches and short-term repairs that will plausibly work, more or less, to keep things going. The overall inadequacy of such ‘solutions’ for the nation will become apparent, but slowly. Much narrative force will be needed, once again, to camouflage the reality. But more robustly this time, and with less absurdity, because the impending reality will be, as it were, no joke. I assume they’ll steal and modify various parts of the post-neoliberal plan, especially the uplifting and aspirational bits — that’ll help keep people confused. Already, the ‘Abundance’ narrative has that smell. Call this plan ‘neo-narrative neoliberalism’.

All interesting, no? But at this point, I take sides, unequivocally. I have no doubt that post-neoliberal (or post-liberal, if they go that far) policies will be a hard and uncertain road to possible renewal, of some kind. I don’t expect much, except a lot of work, and nobody else should either. Maybe there’ll be some virtue in it that path, sometimes. It’s honest and real, or ‘reality adjacent’ anyway, and that seems important.

But neo-narrative neoliberalism is just a degenerate path to national suicide. It’s dishonest and corrupt, and even the prospect of seeing the ‘neo-narrative’ emerge in scale sickens me — what blatant and disgusting lies will they spin this time? I try to stay as neutral and realistic as possible in all political matters because it keeps things more analytically interesting. This one, however, I just hate.

So, taking sides is easy. No matter how little a post-neoliberal plan achieves, at least it opposes the other one. That’s sufficient for now, I think.