America in 2020 Feels Like France in 1788
Financial turmoil, social unrest, an out-of-touch ruling class. Today’s America has a lot in common with pre-revolution France.
We are in December 2020. Soon, this decade of a year will be behind us, but its human, social, economical, and political consequences will affect us for generations to come. We can safely assume that future historians will regard 2020 as one of the most momentous years in history, a civilisation-defining event.
It is a common game amongst journalists and intellectuals to compare years between themselves to draw parallels and “learn from history.” We see it every time something major happens. The past twelve months have seen their fair share of comparisons for America: to 1828, 1840, 1876, 1918, the 1930s, the 1960s, 1980, and I may be missing a few.
The one year I haven’t seen 2020 in the U.S. compared to is the one it is most alike: 1788 in France, the year before the French Revolution.
Understanding the chain of events that led to the toppling of a thousand-year-old monarchy and the beheading of its king is beyond the scope of an article like this one. Millions of words have been written on the subject and, 231 years later, scholars still argue about it, and it is not my role, as a…
