Beware of ‘anti-woke’ liberals: they attacked the left and helped Trump win | Jan-Werner Müller

So-called reactionary centrist' pundits proclaimed that there was a global vibe shift' in favor of the right. They were wrong

Recent exercises in taking stock after one year of Trump 2.0 - for many an eternity of terrifying news and political traumas - tended to leave something out: the fact that, a mere 12 months ago, plenty of pundits (and politicians, for that matter) were instructing us to accept that a global vibe shift" in favor of the right had taken place. And that, in the face of what supposedly felt" like a landslide, resistance was pointless and cringe".

Well, it doesn't feel like that today. But understanding why observers not generally in the pro-Trump propaganda business rushed to portray the spirit of the age as effectively far-right is important. A way of thinking occasionally dubbed reactionary centrism" plays an important role; it could yet again become influential in hindering or at least holding up post-Trump radical reforms which US democracy desperately requires.

Jan-Werner Muller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University