I’m beginning to see the French Revolution as a template to understand these crazy times.
Trump, Musk, Bannon and Vance: bizarre, damaged characters; who in more enlightened times would have been consigned to prison, or the madhouse. Now finding themselves cast as Danton, Saint-Just, Desmoulins and Robespierre.
The sans-culottes: not impoverished peasants, but as the disciples of MAGA: vengeance on their minds. Ah, ça ira!
The Áncien Régime? The technocrats. The educated. All those who benefited from the world order post WW2, where physical might was replaced by intellectual might, allowing masses of outsiders to become insiders, and to thrive under a progressive dispensation.
Louis XVI? The democratic leaders of the older world. Biden, Trudeau, Starmer. Macron.
Winners and losers: were there any winners from the French Revolution? Any at all?
This is still a very unformed thought, but it has prompted me to look at the French Revolution anew. As Simon Schama has written “The French Revolution was, after all, a great demolition”. How are these times much different? Maybe only in scale, and in frightening possibilities offered by modern technology
Passive Impressions 
(Inspired by the famous Monty Python sketch)Reg: There were NO winners from the French Revolution – it was a DISASTER!
Er, Reg, French citizens benefited – fuedal priviliges were abolished, there was legal equity, and individual rights were promoted, there was fairer taxation, civil laws and centralized governance.
Reg: Yes, well apart from the citizens seeing an improvement in their lives, there were NO WINNERS!
And Reg, the middle classes gained as aristocratic priviliges were dismantled.
Also, Reg, peasants benefitted from the abolition of feudal dues and land redistribution which improved their social and economic conditions.
And another thing, Reg, other countries like Italy and Switzerland adopted many of the principles of the Revolution. Many French territories saw the abolition of slavery.
One final thing, Reg: the Revolution inspired liberalism, democracy and human rights movements worldwide.
Reg: OK, apart from French citizens and peasants benefiting, and other countries being inspired to improve the lot of their people and introduce fairer laws and abolish slavery and so forth – I state again: there were NO winners from the French Revolution!
Very funny John – I had a good laugh at that.
I was thinking of the period between 1789 and 1793 when things really went off the rails, or so it seems to me. So much of what you write seems to have been legacies of revolution?
Anyway, like most things I write here, they are just half-thoughts and ramblings. I’m off reading Simon Schama’s book Citizen to have a somewhat better clue of what I am writing about.