When asked if he was afraid of dying, the American economist Tyler Cowen demurred. But what he said next unsettled me for days. “The worst thing about death is not knowing how the human story turns out.”
It is only natural to yearn to know what happens in the future. Even in the streaming era, television shows use cliffhangers to persuade us to click “next episode”. If it was good enough for Charles Dickens, it’s surely fine for the producers of the Real Housewives of Atlanta. But what if we don’t like what’s coming next?
We can’t help but take an interest in what happens in the US, the Manchester Utd of nations. Sure, both have experienced relative decline, accelerated by strategic incoherence, and are saddled with debt. Yet they retain vast influence. And as a US citizen by dint of birth, I take a particular interest in the country that levies on me taxation without representation.
Fresh off from returning the legalisation of abortion to the states — while denying them the right to restrict guns — the US Supreme Court yesterday made an historic judgement. By a vote of 6-3, it ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency did not have the authority to regulate carbon emissions. This will massively restrict the Biden administration, and any subsequent president interested in averting catastrophic climate change, from doing so. But the consequences extend far wider.
American institutions are failing. Five of the six conservative justices were nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote and confirmed by a Senate so unequal that in its current 50-50 split, Democrats represent 42 million more people than Republicans. And 18 months ago, there was an attempt by supporters of Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election. We have seen democratic backsliding before, in Hungary, Turkey and Venezuela. But watching from afar as it happens in the US hits in a different way.
In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt set out an eerily familiar playbook. Politicians use elections to subvert the will of the people. They rely on judicial rulings to govern. Indeed, in its next term, the Court is set to determine whether state legislatures — already heavily gerrymandered in favour of Republicans in many swing states — might eventually be able to allocate electoral votes regardless of what the people decided.
It is not alarmist to ask whether 2020 was America’s last free and fair presidential election. Nor to debate what the rest of the West does without a democratic superpower by our side.
When considering his mortality, Cowen suggested a compromise. If, right before he died, he could read a Wikipedia page called “the rest of human history”, he would feel much better about the whole thing. I don’t think I want to know how America’s story ends. I can’t bear to watch what’s happening.
In other news...
She’s 40 years old, hasn’t played in a year or won a major title since 2017. But Serena Williams was back on Centre Court this week, doing what she was born to do: hit tennis balls.
She doesn’t need to be there. She’s the greatest female tennis player of all time, perhaps the finest athlete ever. And don’t let anyone tell you she’s chasing Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slams. That’s a pretend number, padded by 11 Australian Opens at a time when even Queenslanders barely bothered to journey down to Melbourne.
Some players retire too soon: think Bjorn Borg or Ash Barty. It isn’t for us to tell Williams or any other player to go before they are ready. Going out on top is overrated.
In recent years, a new generation has seen her perform, people who will one day spend their sunset years telling their grandchildren of the time they saw the great Serena Williams play.
