Just don’t call it an annus mirabilis. There has been too much suffering in Ukraine for that.
What is in good taste — and crucial to do — is to name the many ways in which the west has rallied this year. Autocrats are good at fitting individual setbacks for the US and its friends, such as the withdrawal from Afghanistan, into a story of inexorable decline. So when events go the other way, liberals should bang their own drum. The year has spoilt them for examples.
Emmanuel Macron became the first president of France to win re-election since 2002. He retired Marine Le Pen in the process. The most successful electoral politician in the west is a Molière-quoting centrist and former banker. Imagine being told that amid the populist pomp of 2016.
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