European

Talk to a Brit about their preference in social structures, and the first thing they'll likely tell you, as an American, is that you’re wrong. Whether it’s healthcare or guns, public transport or urban walkability, the American way of being is often at odds with our English cousins, and indeed the rest of the Europe. While we mostly resist conforming, the quietly irksome traffic circle – or, yeesh, “roundabout” – is quickly taking root in America’s vast suburban sprawl. And you could soon find yourself in a pile-up before you even know it. Europe’s favorite novelty is still relatively rare in America, but they are springing up fast. The UK has over 25,000 roundabouts, while the entire US has only about 11,000. Yet that figure has doubled over the last ten years.

There is a wind of change blowing through the West. It emanates from Washington DC, where President Donald Trump continues to dash off executive orders; more than fifty by the end of last week, the highest number in a president’s first 100 days in four decades. The liberal mainstream media is rattled. The New York Times magazine ran a piece at the weekend in which it described Trump as "the leading light of a spate of illiberal leaders and parties flourishing in democracies around the world." The paper namechecked some of them: Poland, Holland, India, France, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Hungary and Russia. What unites and motivates these "illiberal" parties is their opposition to what the NYT called "liberal creep," which they regard as a civilizational threat.