There's a strange fairy tale quality to life in the 2020s. In fairy tales, there’s often a child character who is desperately lost and trying to make sense of the world. The adults have failed, and the child must risk their life, alone in the dark woods. It’s the Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood trope.

The foundational psychological reason for all the rage, hate and fear we see across the West today – from street protests to social media psychosis – is the sense of complete abandonment most ordinary people feel today. No matter where we sit on the political spectrum, from far left to far right, we feel like children lost in the forest.

We know we’re alone, that our governments have failed and the economic system no longer works, yet nobody can face admitting it – because the truth is just too appalling. Deep in our minds, locked behind a door, in a place we don’t want to go to, the thought lurks that something dreadful is coming: war, AI, climate collapse, disease. We’ve never felt so vulnerable.

Nestled like a spider at the heart of these existential panics is America. Every well-informed Brit – just like every well-informed westerner – knows that America has changed from being an overbearing yet dependable ally into something quite different. America isn’t just drifting away from the West and turning inward. America is against us. America doesn’t like us. America seeks to actively hurt us.

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