Police using tear gas to hold back pro-Trump supporters rioting at the Capitol. Trumpians are motivated by fears that their children are being indoctrinated, the police will be abolished and American history rewritten. Picture: Getty
Thirty years ago, one of the most influential books of the past half century was published. Francis Fukuyama's The End of History captured an idea of its time. In the early 1990s, communism had gone the way of fascism. After decades of conflict, the two great anti-democratic ideologies of the 20th century were defeated.
This had world-historical significance, Fukuyama argued. Political history was effectively over because liberal democracy had so comprehensively defeated the alternatives. Every...