I'm generally not one for annual retrospectives and Panglossian prospectuses, but Tom Nichols' Atlantic post — "There Is a Case for Optimism in 2023" — inspired me to amend my habitual humbuggery and alight on the positive, for a change. His opening line caught my eye in agreement:
"Throughout 2022, I’ve worried a lot. I’ve had plenty of smaller gripes ... but mostly, I’ve been concerned about world war, the rule of law, and the collapse of democracy," writes Nichols. "But here at the end of the year, I am optimistic, which is a surprise even to me."
Same here. And for the same reasons as the Atlantic writer's optimism: "The single most important story of the year is the resilience of democracy. Two great events (or, more accurately, non-events) reassured me as part of that heartening narrative: The Russians failed to win a war in Europe, and antidemocratic candidates failed to rebound in America."
Taking the re-ascendence of a democratic America first — excuse the Trumpian pun — election prognosticators had every empirical reason to predict a massive Red Wave in November. Before that, political pundits foresaw a nomination cakewalk for the Donald — again, with good cause. Both predictions collapsed in spectacular ways.
Trump's candidacy has been met with a "collective national shrug," as Nichols puts it. The former president promoted a phalanx of Crackpots for Congress in 2022, but he had exhausted the base — and himself — well before that with his jackhammer whining about 2020. Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis was eating his proverbial lunch by proferring the reddest of raw meats to the GOP faithful. And yet DeSantis' presidential odds in 2024 are no better than Trump's, for the U.S. electorate has chosen to reject authoritarian goons.
In Congress, Republicans' slim control of the House will in no way subdue their colossal proclivity for boneheadedness, bless their hearts. Countless committee "investigations" and impeachment hearings will thrill the GOP hardcore, but disgust the populace at large. Assuming the Fed hasn't crashed the economy, by the end of 2024 the electorate will have had more than enough from the Republican House.
In Ukraine, the Russians have not only "failed to win," as Nichols observes. They have succeeded in losing. Nichols also notes a characteristically brilliant piece by his Atlantic colleague Anne Applebaum, who pondered the alternative, had the U.S. abandoned Ukraine:
Zelensky, his wife, and his children would have been murdered by one of the hit squads that roamed the capital city. The Ukrainian state would have been taken over by the collaborators who had already chosen their Kyiv apartments. Then, city by city, region by region, the Russian army would have fought the remnants of the Ukrainian army until it finally conquered the entire country....
Ukraine would now be pockmarked with the concentration camps, torture chambers, and makeshift prisons that have been discovered in Bucha, Izyum, Kherson, and all the other territories temporarily occupied by Russia and liberated by the Ukrainian army. A generation of Ukrainian writers, artists, politicians, journalists, and civic leaders would already be buried in mass graves. Ukrainian books would have been removed from schools and libraries. The Ukrainian language would have been suppressed in all public spaces. Hundreds of thousands more Ukrainian children would have been kidnapped and transported to Russia or trafficked farther around the world.
Of all this, there is no doubt. Yet Western, and especially American, aid hijacked Putin's dream of a Greater Russia, beginning with a devastated Ukraine. Almost miraculously, the latter is now poised to win the war militarily next year.
One immense danger still exists, however. Notes Nichols: "I have worried about unpredictable nuclear dangers in 2022, and I will continue to worry about them in 2023 and for as long as Putin pursues this mad war." Here I am in full accord. I cannot see Putin walking away from Ukraine without having deployed every last resort to conquer it. On this my opinion is in the minority, though — and for good reason, I hope.
Many a harum-scarum scenario has been omitted from these thoughts about, and predictions for, 2023. But at least from these two angles — the recrudescence of American democracy and a Ukrainian triumph — the year is looking better than we might have imagined just a couple months ago.