my sense is that most people like Klein—liberals with a big platform who see themselves as pragmatic types—have accidentally become reactive centrists because they don’t have a clear idea how this moment fits into history and what it is exactly that they’re doing.

They don’t look often enough at context, past or present. Instead, they seem to see each moment as an independent crisis—or a recent one—often missing how many times the same dynamics have played out or indicators of how to proceed have already appeared.