Trump’s Return: Polanyian Perspectives

The return of Donald Trump, re-elected by a comfortable majority, has shocked many liberal and progressive observers around the world. It is perhaps the most decisive event yet to show that we have entered a new era in world affairs. As Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik puts it,

The truth is that, all over the world, the old order is gone and the new one is bewildering. People feel trapped and want a sense of release, a promise of a dramatically different future, or just a future. … And they want to feel as if they are part of something bigger and stronger as they get lonelier and weaker and their worlds fracture and atomise by the day