The Great Shift – From Left and Right to Inward and Outward
There was a time—not so long ago—that the machinery of democracy was greased by two great ideological engines: the Left and the Right. They argued, they wrestled, they shouted across the floor of parliament or the Senate chamber like gladiators in tailored suits. But for all their differences, they shared a common blueprint: that society was a ladder. The only quarrel was who should be allowed to climb, and how high.
The Left fought for labour, welfare, state education.
The Right fought for markets, liberty, and tradition.
And voters—those oft-forgotten sentinels of the ballot box—chose their side depending on what they needed most: security or freedom.
But that old battlefield is now a relic. A museum piece. A fossil buried beneath the new topography of 21st-century politics.
Today, the great debate is no longer about left or right. It is about inward or outward.
Not socialism versus capitalism, but patriotism versus globalism.
And I must confess—I didn’t quite see it at first. The shift was too quiet, too slippery. Like a fog creeping in over Westminster or Washington. But then I read Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus, and the landscape snapped into focus. He wrote of a world no longer defined by parties or manifestos, but by the gravitational pull of two opposing poles:
One that looks inward, toward nationhood, identity, heritage.
The other that looks outward, toward collaboration, progress, planetary thinking.
And suddenly, I understood.
The politics of 2025 are not about class. They are not about policy. They are not even, strictly speaking, about truth. They are about orientation—the direction in which we are taught to place our hope.
In Britain, Brexit was the crucible. Leave was not a vote for conservatism; it was a vote for sovereignty—for the flag, the border, the idea of "us."
In America, Trump did not ride to power on a Republican ticket so much as on a nationalist one. He turned “America First” into a religious chant. The GOP bent its knees—not to policy, but to patriotism weaponised.
Meanwhile, the globalists rallied around a very different hymn: climate action, free movement, digital interconnectedness, the shared responsibilities of species over state.
Two camps. Two visions.
One romantic. The other pragmatic.
One rooted in nostalgia, the other in futurism.
One says: We must protect what’s ours.
The other replies: There is no ‘ours’ anymore—only us all.
This, then, is the fulcrum on which our modern democracies now teeter: do we hunker down behind walls, or do we reach across borders?
It is a choice that feels eerily familiar.
In the book A Woman in Berlin, written in the scorched aftermath of the Second World War, the author writes:
“Our people are despondent, our people are in pain. We’ve been led by criminals and gamblers and we’ve led like lambs to the slaughter. Now the people are miserable, smouldering with hate.”
The quote was born in the wreckage of nationalism unbound—and yet it could so easily be describing the feverish mood in parts of Britain, or in the rustbelt of America. A bitterness that lingers long after the promises have collapsed.
Once again, we have circled back to the edge of the abyss.
And let us not delude ourselves—this is not a contest between angels and demons. There are no clean hands here, only clenched fists and trembling fingers.
Patriotism, when left unbridled, does not simply become pride—it metastasises. It hardens into nativism, racial exceptionalism, and the poisonous lie that purity can ever be a national virtue. It speaks in slogans, builds in walls, and sleeps soundly while others suffer.
And globalism—when it drifts too far from conscience—becomes something else entirely. It morphs into a high-minded elitism, speaking the language of data and Davos while losing all touch with the calloused hands of the people it claims to uplift. It forgets that humans are not statistics, and that progress without compassion is simply another form of tyranny.
Both forces, if left unchecked, can betray their own ideals.
Which is why—in any democracy worth the name—we require not just vision, but restraint. Checks and balances are not bureaucratic clutter; they are the guardrails of civilisation. The Supreme Court, or its equivalents, must not bend to whichever wind blows harder. It must stand firm, unseduced by populism or power, guarding the fragile balance between unity and liberty.
Without these anchors, both patriotism and globalism risk becoming just another form of control—dressed up as salvation.
Why Patriotism Has Become a Refuge, and Globalism a Risk
In times of uncertainty, people do not seek truth.
They seek shelter.
Patriotism, then—be it modest or monstrous—has become exactly that: a refuge. A lighthouse in the storm. Not because it solves our problems, but because it offers something far more seductive—a story. A myth, with familiar characters and comforting villains. A narrative in which we are always the heroes, and they—whoever they are—are always to blame.
When the factories closed and the towns were hollowed out, the elites offered spreadsheets.
The nationalists offered identity.
When globalisation enriched the few and outsourced the rest, the economists shrugged.
The patriots waved flags.
And what flags they waved:
“Take Back Control.”
“Make America Great Again.”
“France for the French.”
“Build the Wall.”
“Australia First.”
“Britain is Full.”
These are not policies.
They are mantras—short, sharp doses of political morphine. The verbal equivalent of a hug for the anxious and the abandoned.
Because make no mistake—the rise of nationalism is not rooted in hatred. It is rooted in fear.
The fear of being forgotten. Of being replaced. Of being overrun—not only physically, but culturally, spiritually, existentially.
Nationalism is not always a battle cry. Sometimes, it's a whimper in the dark.
And what of globalism?
Ah yes—the globalists. The wide-eyed idealists. The technocrats. The climate scientists and crypto-missionaries.
They offer a different vision: borderless trade, supranational cooperation, the unification of humankind through code, commerce, and carbon policy.
On paper, it is glorious.
In reality, it is often deeply disconnected.
The globalist elite fly private jets to climate summits.
They speak of empathy while erecting digital empires.
They preach equality from yachts named Serenity.
They dream of open borders, but live behind gates of polished steel.
Is it any wonder the working class distrusts them?
Because the problem with globalism is not that it’s wrong.
The problem is that it has forgotten how to speak human.
Where nationalism speaks to the gut—tribe, emotion, survival—globalism too often speaks in sterile abstractions. It champions GDP growth, digital transformation, climate cooperation, carbon offsetting.
It sounds like a TED Talk trapped inside a spreadsheet.
And those in the rust belts of the world—the steelworkers in Port Talbot, the ex-miners in Kentucky, the shipbuilders of Marseilles—don’t care about the air quality over the South China Sea.
And frankly, they shouldn't have to.
It’s not apathy. It’s survival.
But the people we've elected to run our part of the show—those who claim the mantle of leadership—must find a way to connect the global mission to the local struggle.
They must make it stick.
Because if they don't, someone else will.
The people—those same men and women who once clung to Labour, or Roosevelt, or the promise of a better tomorrow—now ask:
“Do these people even see us?”
“Do they care?”
“Or are we just data to them?”
And the answer, too often, is silence.
And so here we stand—on the threshold of a new political age. The old spectrum of Left and Right is fading like an old war poster in the rain, and a new battlefield has emerged:
Those who would circle the wagons.
And those who would tear down the fences.
Neither side has a monopoly on wisdom.
Both have their prophets.
Both, their charlatans.
But one thing is certain:
The centre cannot hold if no one is standing in it.
What History Warns Us, and Where We Must Now Look for Answers
History does not repeat itself, but as Mark Twain once observed, it rhymes. And the melody we’re hearing now is deeply familiar—like the low drone of thunder on a distant horizon. We've heard it before. In Rome, as it collapsed beneath the weight of its own ambition. In Weimar Berlin, where disillusionment fermented into fascism. In every nation that traded liberty for a promise of greatness, only to find itself shackled by the very chains it cheered.
The 20th century did not fall into chaos overnight. It stumbled there—step by deliberate step.
And at each crossroads, a people, just like us, believed they were immune.
They weren’t.
Neither are we.
The collapse of ideological order is always followed by a desperate search for meaning.
That’s what we are living through now—not a political cycle, but a civilisational shudder.
The Left and Right no longer hold the answers because they are not answering the right questions.
People aren’t asking how to redistribute wealth or deregulate banks.
They’re asking:
Who am I in this world?
What do I belong to?
Who will protect me when everything changes?
These are existential questions.
And that’s why the answers people reach for are emotional—not logical. They turn to patriotism not out of arrogance, but out of panic. They reach for globalism not out of arrogance, but out of hope.
But both impulses—if untethered from humility and history—can turn lethal.
Because history does not care for our feelings. It has no sentimentality. It simply waits. And when we fail to listen, it punishes us with astonishing precision.
So where do we look for guidance?
Not to the extremes. Not to the shouters on TikTok or the demagogues with golden cufflinks and plastic flags.
We must look to those who can hold two truths at once.
We need leaders who understand that patriotism and globalism are not enemies—they are instincts. Both valid. Both dangerous. And both necessary.
We must love our nation—but not at the expense of our neighbour.
We must cooperate globally—but not forget those who feel left behind locally.
We must speak with empathy—but govern with strength.
We must build economies—but never forget the humans who live inside them.
In short, we must reject the binary. We must rebuild the centre—not the bland, bureaucratic middle ground of compromise, but the moral centre. The human centre. The place where duty still means something and decency is not up for debate.
There is a great reckoning underway. Not just in parliaments and polling stations, but in households and hearts. And if we are to navigate it without losing our soul, we must remember the one thing history demands of every generation:
Courage.
The courage to think.
The courage to question.
The courage to say “no” to the easy lie and “yes” to the difficult truth.
This is not the age of ideology.
It is the age of decision.
And the question that faces us all now—left, right, patriot, globalist, citizen of somewhere or nowhere—is simple:
What kind of world are we willing to stand up for, when the shouting finally stops?
References:
Harari, Y.N., 2023. Nexus. London: Vintage.
Applebaum, A., 2020. Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. London: Penguin.
Goodhart, D., 2017. The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics. London: Hurst.
Fukuyama, F., 2018. Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Friedman, T.L., 2005. The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Anonymous, 1954. A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City. London: Virago.
Twain, M., [n.d.]. Attributed in various writings and speeches. (Note: actual authorship disputed)
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