How will we look in the eyes of history?
Perhaps future historians will mark this moment in American history as one inflection point on a slope towards fascism. Or they might detect the beginnings of a resurgent Left. Or maybe these narratives will seem quaint, historically provincial—and the only story left to tell about us will be our failure to stop consuming the world's fossil fuels. When commentators bother to ask the question explicitly, they often take an answer for granted: voices across the political spectrum cloak themselves in a chameleonic mantle labeled “the right side of history”—as though the future's concerns are obvious and knowable. It's difficult to avoid this trap: many of the actions we take—from creating art to casting a ballot—ask us to guess how we will be measured by the audience of the future. To act on behalf of the future is also to make claims...
