In our book End Times Fascism, Astra Taylor and I characterize these as fights between “the leavers v the stayers” – and we make the case that they increasingly define our age.

You can see these fault lines running through a great many of the hot-button issues that animated and energized this election cycle.

There were the many ballot measures to tax the super-rich to pay for basic services, and entirely predictable tantrums from billionaires who threatened to pick and leave rather than pay up.

There was the muscular, national backlash against artificial intelligence and datacenters, which focused on the ways this latest (final?) capitalist stage is devouring art, literature, incomes, lands, energy and wellbeing. (As the Guardian reported, “Voters approved nearly every datacenter moratorium that was on the ballot, dozens in total.”)

The commitment to place, and to one another, was equally evident in the rage at the US war-of-choice in Iran, and at Israel’s genocide in Gaza, with many winning candidates including Abdul El-Sayed consistently stressing that the money being spent to kill children far away should be used to care for children at home, and that all children are equally deserving of life and opportunities.

Naomi Klein is a badass