‘And then every now and then, the possibilities explode. In these moments of rupture, people find themselves members of a ‘we’ that did not until then exist, at least not as an entity with agency and identity and potency; new possibilities suddenly emerge, or that old dream of a just society re-emerges and – at least for a little while – shines.’ (Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark, 3rd ed 2016)

We’ve had a week of protest in American cities following the murder of George Floyd. It’s at another level compared to anything I can remember – even compared to Chicago in 1968. Protests continue against police brutality and the wider issues connected with the Black Lives Matter movement. Coronavirus, fear on the one hand, jobs under threat, or already disappeared, on the other, is also a very real, and divisive, issue. And there’s Donald Trump, stoking the fires.

America has again that sense that change might be possible. In 2008, Obama just elected, we’d a sense of a vision which might be actualised. (And maybe it would rub off a little in the UK and Europe. ) Now it’s simply that the need for change must be more than recognised, it must be acted on. I don’t want to look at possible agendas for change. Americans can do that better than Brits. But what we as Brits, and Europeans, want to see is the USA coming together again. Politicians of different persuasions speaking to each other, devising common agendas.

And that is hard, just because the American hard right has pushed a defensive, free-market at all costs, and fundamentally anti-intellectual agenda. A white American agenda. Racism engrained, inherited wealth a sign of blessing, poverty the result of indolence. The courting of the ‘theo-cons’, the religious right, and their supposedly divinely-blessed socially-conservative agenda, with Trump picking up and bearing their standard in the most naked display of self-interest in American history.

What has suffered are ideas and argument and debate. As with all populist regimes, in Europe and the UK. Working in book publishing for the last few decades I saw it coming with the emergence of a new strand of avowedly right-wing publishing in the USA, a reaction to what was seen as a liberal consensus. The ‘problem’ with a liberal consensus is that it is about inclusion, about opportunity for all, and about safety nets, in the best Beveridge tradition, and indeed it seeks consensus. Trickle-down economics as a story gave Reaganite economics credibility for a while. Rising inequality has given the lie to that. In the UK as the USA. No more Peter Mandelson: ‘We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich.’ (Though, to be fair, he did add, ‘as long as they pay their taxes.’ And that’s another big big issue.)

Argument and debate can in the current climate only get us so far. We now have a desire for change. Not just in the USA. But a wider desire, across countries and issues, as we come out of coronavirus much more aware of who really matters, and what really matters, in society. (We’ve a government which wants to get us back on to the same old rails, as soon as possible, though it’s looking possible, given their incompetence that they might go completely off the rails in the process.)

Status and pay for nurses and social care workers – and, for example, supermarket shelf-stackers, who are also taking risks, as key workers. This requires a new and radical activism. But street demos aren’t an option. Here at least. Only – not so. Thousands demonstrated yesterday in support of US demonstrators, and with their own ‘Black Lives Matter’, here in the UK as well, agenda. It may be that causes can combine, and a wider activism generate real hope and expectation for change. And renewed hope can in turn generate activism.

In this country we’ve also seen the despair, so under-reported, that’s resulted from austerity measures in recent years. However grand the current government’s spending plans are, restoring some of the more brutal austerity cuts hasn’t been been considered.

Now has to be the time to break out. To get active. Rebecca Solnit’s ‘Hope in the Dark’ was first published in 2004, and a primary focus was the anti-Iraq War movement of 2003. The war happened, with terrible consequences, but there have been many other instances where pressure from below, from outsiders, has seeded change. Solnit writes, ‘Activism can itself generate hope because it already constitutes an alternative and turns always from corruption at the centre to face the wild possibilities and the heroes at the edges on your side.’

Climate change already has its heroes. A wider activism will generate a few more. Who they will be in this country only time will tell. And we should include, not exclude. Hard practical agendas as well as wild possibilities. I’ve hopes Labour under Keir Starmer might take a lead. But let’s not exclude renegade Tories. At a street level, there will be new leaders and new movements. As the anti-war movement demonstrated they may get nowhere. But there is now an opportunity, of a kind we haven’t seen for quite a while.

The USA has at least an election coming up, focusing minds as almost never before. We are lumbered with our least-liberated government for a generation or two. But given evidence of an almost unprecedented level of incompetence, and a Brexit agenda radically unsuited to the times, who can tell where our politics might lead.

All we know is we have uncertain times, massively uncertain. And we should not them slip by without turning them to our advantage.