This world is on the threshold of a new phase in a decades-long larger change in the relation between capitalism and liberal democracy that initially emerged with the collapse of the USSR, though the shift went far beyond that specific collapse. Capitalist economic institutions that had been born under representative democracies in the 19th century were in the 1990s successfully deployed within non-democratic regimes, such as the newly “post-communist” nations (Russia, former Yugoslavia, etc.), China, Singapore, and importantly, many Islamic regimes. The historic connection between capitalism and democracy in the West turned out to be an accident of history, not a necessary interdependence.

As a somewhat predictable consequence of this changed global situation, manifestations of post-liberal politics now rise up within the Western birthplaces of capitalism, such as Brexit, Trump, resurgent white supremacy, and a new phase of the US Christian Right now driven by ideological forces that have overtaken its original moralistic politics. Calling this new phase a sort of neo-fascism is almost right, but does not capture the novelty and specificity of the moment. Calling it the “end of humanism” as some have, has an anachronistic ring, as much of the West rejected liberal humanism in the 80s and 90s with academic postmodernism being unequally yoked with religious anti-humanism. The “new atheists” tried to revive a sort of rational humanist ideology, but their alliance with anti-Muslim politics doomed them to merely echoing the dominant shift, if contradictorily.