A playwriting prof of mine once made the hilariously wild claim that Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet was one of the greatest works of art of all time. After the laughter in the room died down, he explained his reasoning:
Hamlet itself is among humanity’s greatest works of creative output. There are all kinds of reasons to argue either for or against that assertion, but it’s not an absurd claim. So, according to his logic, a faithful production of one of humanity’s greatest works is, therefore, one of humanity’s greatest works.
I still think he’s crazy, but there’s a point there.
There’s a similarly stupid-sounding but kinda reasonable claim to be made that this year was one of the most consequential in the history of humanity.
Yes yes yes. It’s an arrogant, historically naive thing to say. But stick with me a sec. Around 65% of all humans born in the last, say, 300,000 years were born within the last 150 years. Over that same period (give or take a hundred years), we have reshaped the physical composition of the planet, paved it over, fished it out, gassed it up. My great-grandmother, whom I knew, spent her early childhood in a dugout home on the Plains. Now, not only do we have the ability to destroy the planet and everything on it, we have options for how to do it.
And American economic, cultural, and military might has been at the cutting edge of most of it. To make another highly suspect and debatable — but mostly reasonable — statement: America has probably been the most important macro-driver of civilizational and planetary change in the history of history.
And here we are. In ten short months, Trump has begun the unwinding of American global power. He has rewired global trade. He has brought violent chaos into American cities. He has mostly neutralized the 250-year-old system of checks and balances that effected so much planetary change. These are only the big-ticket items of the first year of his second term.
When the trajectory of arguably one of the most consequential nations in human history suddenly changes over the course of a year, you could reasonably say that year was among the most consequential, too.
I still think it’s a pretty dumb, naïve, even egotistical claim to make. But I don’t think I could 100% refute it, either. I’m also chronically online, so my take might be inherently fabulist.
Fabulist or not, this year sucked. How did we get here? This column has been my attempt to draw out the people behind the destruction of our Democracy and those who are standing up to save it.
For the rest of the year, I’m going to do something different with Winners & Losers. This week I’m going to select three candidates for Loser of the Year (LOTY) and let you vote on who you think was the worst among them. Next week I’ll list three more. On December 8th, we’ll tally all your votes and declare a winning Loser.
Then on the 15th and 22nd we’ll repeat the process with the good guys, crowning a winning Winner on the 29th, just in time for a new year.
A few notes on process and guidelines.
You need to be a paid subscriber to vote.
Leave your vote in the comments of this post
Leave your vote in the Lincoln Square Chat HERE. Don’t hesitate to explain your vote (I might include some of your comments when I announce the winner).
There are more than six Losers. I know. If your choice doesn’t make my cut, I allow write-ins. Democracy works, people.