When I talk to people my age or younger (I am 34), I’m disturbed by their sense of “futurelessness.” They often speak about feeling doomed, thinking that democracy or even the world is nearing its end. We know that among teenagers, feelings of sadness and hopelessness have escalated to unprecedented levels. That’s been ascribed in part to the isolating effects of smartphones and social media, but we also know that there are plenty of reasons to feel pessimistic about the state of the world. The climate crisis, for instance, has been found to cause “distress, anger and other negative emotions in children and young people worldwide.” I also don’t think it helps that we are heading into what has been called a new era of Great Power conflict, in which nuclear-armed states are constantly a few steps away from World War III, with U.S. leaders treating Russia and China as enemies. Plus there are the destabilizing and unpredictable effects of AI, from its acceleration of carbon emissions to its use in the creation of terrifying new weapons to the destruction of livelihoods to the (far-fetched, in my opinion) fears that we will create a “superintelligence” that will use its superior wits to exterminate humanity. 

However, all of these problems are solvable, or at least their harms can be prevented from spiraling out of control. There is no reason we have to develop new weapons systems and let them proliferate. We can dial down tensions with other nations. We can deal with climate change, stopping additional catastrophic warming and addressing the harms. In fact, our world is a wondrous place abundant with resources, our ingenuity can create near-miraculous technologies, and there is no reason why every person on earth cannot live in peace and comfort, their basic needs met and their lives filled with joy and love. We are all mortal and will die, which makes existence always somewhat sorrowful, but we can make it so that for the duration of people’s lives, they are taken care of. There is no reason why violence, poverty, abuse, and loneliness need to persist. We don’t have to destroy ourselves through war and environmental devastation. Nothing forces us to do this.

But one of the reasons people are so hopeless is that they don’t feel they have any control over the problems that we face. They feel let down by their institutions. “The government” is not the collective apparatus through which we come together to get things done. It is something alien and hostile, something that does things to you rather than doing things on your behalf. In the United States, our federal government feels distant and its functions are opaque. Getting any kind of robust response to the climate crisis, for instance, feels impossible. 

When the news came out that Donald Trump had been shot, the first reaction of many of those I knew was a deepening of that sense of hopelessness. The vision they saw stretching out before them was: Trump will sweep into office, bent on revenge against the “vermin.” We all know Joe Biden is a weak candidate who looks like he’s on a path to defeat, if he remains the nominee. Biden has dug in, and our most progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have stuck by him, in a political move that I as a leftist find a deeply demoralizing betrayal. Now, Trump looks like a martyr, and even has the political sense to get a spectacular photo op out of his assassination attempt. If you are someone who just wants a functional government, a country without mass shootings, a serious response to the climate crisis, affordable housing, and universal healthcare, the present political situation can look very, very bleak. We could have Medicare For All, but instead it looks like we’re going to have to spend the next four years hoping that Trump is too incompetent and easily distracted to implement the worst parts of Project 2025. Temperature records are being shattered all over the country right now, and the climate crisis is only going to get worse, and yet we face the prospect of having a president who not only denies the crisis is happening but wants to accelerate it by expanding the production and use of fossil fuels. The recent situation in Houston, where a comparatively weak hurricane has left millions to suffer without power in the heat, is a preview of what will probably be much worse situations to come, and has shown that our institutions are simply not up to the task of protecting us. 

I certainly don’t feel good about the future. The speed at which global warming is breaking records, and the lack of any serious attempt to fight it, makes me wonder what the world could possibly be like in 25 or 30 years. The increasingly deranged rhetoric of the American right—calling leftists “un-humans” and Pride flags the symbol of a Marxist occupation of the country—make me wonder what such angry, delusional people could be capable of doing to stop those they see as their enemies. Are there any limits? Many on the right seem to see demons everywhere. They believe immigrants are coming across the border to rape people, transgender pedophiles are trying to groom your children, Antifa are burning down cities, etc. They consider themselves on a mission to take back the country and vanquish their enemies, and reject the very idea of reason and compromise. (See Steve Bannon’s recent interview with David Brooks, in which he says this explicitly.) After the collapse of the Bernie Sanders movement, with Joe Biden looking feckless and incapable of inspiring anyone, what can those of us who want a better, more peaceful world look forward to? So many of those I know were inspired by Bernie, who seemed to offer a path toward the kind of America we’d like to live in. Now where’s the path? 

"The Prologue and the Promise" — Mural by Robert McCall

It may not be clear right now, but I think one can be forged. Again, the first thing to remember is that there is no good reason why we cannot build a future of global peace with everyone’s needs met. It is possible. An event like the genocidal assault on Gaza can make you lose faith in humanity. But that horror could be ended if the United States had committed, humane, competent leadership that was willing to force an end to the war (we control the weapons supply to Israel, remember) and broker a just resolution to the conflict. Seemingly “endless” conflicts can be ended, as the Irish example shows. There is no reason to see perpetual violence as an inevitability.

What we need is political organization. Donald Trump may win the 2024 election, but not because there is widespread support for a right-wing agenda in this country. There isn’t. And if Trump tries to implement that agenda, he needs to encounter organized resistance. We need a popular left that is committed and strategic. It should also be welcoming, humane, and fun, attempting to appeal to the majority of the population rather than a small ideologically committed fringe. We need to know what we stand for, to have clear plans and answers to the questions of how to implement them successfully. We must use our imaginations to think about how things can be different and to inspire us to press forward in dark times. (For instance, personally I like to write utopian fiction, and have produced two books of it before. I find this exercise nourishes my capacity to believe in the possibility of solving human problems.) We must study social movements of the past to see how they won, and study institutions to see how they succeed and fail. Whatever happens over the next years, Current Affairs will be trying to do its part in that project, helping to refine a humanistic left vision, persuade people it’s worth believing in, showing how it can succeed, and defusing right-wing attempts to brand us as subversives, traitors, and “vermin.” Hopelessness creates a self-fulfilling doom loop, and we must face the future with the determination to make it worth living in. There is no other option.