"And right from the beginning you knew this was different, because it was happening in small villages, market towns, and then, it wasn't on the TV any more. It was in the street outside. It was coming through your windows. It was a virus, an infection. You didn't need a doctor to tell you that. It was the blood. There was something in the blood." - 28 Days Later
As I type these words, it has been 171 days since the American people, in a free and (mostly) fair election, chose Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States.
It has been 309 days since the people of the United Kingdom voted to exit the European Union.
Rodrigo Duterte was elected to the Presidency of the Philippines 355 days ago.
And five days ago, Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front, dog-whistler extraordinaire, became the second-most popular candidate for President of the French Republic. In a bit over a week, she may well actually win that job. It seems unlikely - but the past year has been an unlikely year.
When I toured the United Kingdom, in the run-up to the Brexit referendum, I ripped off Marx, and wrote that there was a specter haunting Europe. I may have been right at the time, but there's certainly no specter haunting Europe today. Right-wing, xenophobic populism doesn't "haunt" anything, not any more. It holds mass rallies, and wins elections, shutters universities and borders (and, perhaps, minds). It's in our streets. And, while I refuse to believe that it is in our blood ... I don't know. Not any more.
Perhaps I can learn.
Political flânerie has been my favorite vice for years; an odd political moment strikes - in Scotland, in England, in Iceland, wherever - and I go. I walk the streets. This is not journalism - journalism is journalism, and you'll never find more grueling or necessary work. But - there's something to be said for being in the place where news happens. In the street where it happens. And I need to be in the street where it happens. (Sorry, Lin-Manuel Miranda).
Which brings us to now. To right now. I'm flying to Paris, to walk the streets in what might be France's last days as a liberal democracy. (Probably not, of course, but I am so done with "probably.") I'm flying to Budapest, to attend a conference on press freedom at the Central European University - perhaps the very last conference on press freedom at Central European University, since Victor Orban's government has enacted legislation outlawing the place. And I'm flying to Berlin, because (and this will never not be weird) the Germans may be liberal democracy's best hope for a liberal, democratic European Union.
I'll write about what I see, of course. Not because I'll have any great insight - I won't. And not because my command of the facts will be better than the BBC's, or Le Monde's, or Der Spiegel's - it won't be, and you'd be foolish to rely on me instead of serious people.
But. I'll be there. And if I'm very, very lucky, I'll learn something.
Join me, won't you?
