Evil Empire 11bodies that secure its dominance around the world leaves us wondering:
Where could history possibly go from here? And where would the forces
that move history even come from?
f uk u ya m a’s ta k e on the “end of history,” to be fair, has been questioned
for decades. And for a number of reasons: from its Eurocentrism to its
unshakeable faith in the world-historical stability of a neoliberal ap-
paratus securing and enforcing the global marriage of “free trade” and
Western liberal democracy. The past decade alone would seem to pose
as great a challenge as we have seen to the Fukuyaman conceit. From
the 2008 global financial crash to the rise of authoritarian-minded, far-
right, Trump-style “populism,” the neoliberal order has shown quite a
lack of, well, stability.
The very same empire that is supposed to lord over this end of his-
tory, forever and ever amen, can no longer seem to keep its story straight.
Even as Donald Trump lauds himself as the very best president ever—an
end-of-history sentiment if ever there was one—his presidency is none-
theless anchored to the message that the United States must be made
great again. Something has slipped; the end of history has gone too far,
and we must try to go back, it seems—to Reaganism, to the cradle of the
Greatest Generation, to the Confederacy, to Jacksonianism, and on and on.
It is no coincidence that, in response to the historical recidivism
of the Trump-led right, all that the amassed forces of the Resistance™
have been able to muster is a Fukuyaman defense that, in many ways,
mirrors that of their opponents. From Hillary Clinton’s proclamation
that “America never stopped being great” to the milquetoast Democratic
obsession with being on the “right side of history,” the essence of the
great political slap-fight of our day seems to amount to a debate between