The Great Wave: The Era of Radical Disruption and the Age of the Outsider

A world threatened by social upheavals, economic decline, and right-wing outsider politics may be saved by left-wing outsider politics, according to this scattershot meditation. Former New York Times book critic Kakutani (The Death of Truth) surveys contemporary causes of discontent, including neoliberal economic policies that breed inequality and financial crises, climate-change denialism, social media platforms that amplify disinformation and hate speech, and the rise of right-wing authoritarianism. In her telling, many of these problems are embodied by Donald Trump, the ultimate right-wing outsider, whom she associates with Hitler and Lenin and calls “a gasoline-wielding arsonist, stoking... racist and xenophobic impulses,” abetted by a Republican Party that has become “a zombie host for the fringiest of right-wingers... QAnoners, neo-Nazis, Putin sympathizers and white nationalists.” Opposing these dark forces on the other, lighter side, are decentralized left-wing groups (“the Resistance”) that Kakutani posits have the potential to renew society, including Black Lives Matter; feminist, environmentalist, and labor protest movements; and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party that supports abortion rights, gun control, and Medicare for all. Kakutani’s musings touch on everything from the Black Death to Breaking Bad, but they seldom cohere into a rigorous argument and often lapse into simplistic partisanship. The result is a sketchy, unconvincing rehash of progressive verities. (Feb.)