This new year seems likely to change the status quo

Ryan Coogan, The Independent

Most new years are shrouded in a fog of mystery, like an area on a video game map that you haven’t explored yet. The unknown means possibility, and possibility means opportunity. That comes with its stresses and anxieties, but can also be cause for excitement. This new year will be very different. We already know how much of it is going to play out — and that it has the potential to end with seismic, zeitgeist-altering change. In 2024, the UK and US will have general elections, the first time this has happened since 1992. Both administrations could be thrown out. Will they prove to be known unknowns, or unknown knowns? If that wasn’t potentially destabilising enough, more people than ever in history will go to the polls this year. More than 4 billion people — over half of the global population — will vote across at least 64 countries. Ranging from India (population: 1.4 billion) and Indonesia (280 million), to Pakistan (245 million) and Russia (144 million).

In June, the entire EU will decide the new make-up of its European Parliament in the first ballot since Brexit and the alarming rise of hard-right elements within key member states, from Greece, Italy and Germany to socially liberal torchbearers Sweden and the Netherlands. Populist parties with anti-immigration policies are on course to take a quarter of the 705 seats. Elections in Austria, Belgium and Portugal are also expected to take a right-ward turn. The “fun” kicks off next week, on 7 January, with the Bangladesh general election, already one of the year’s most contentious. Street violence and attacks on candidates prompted an election boycott from the main opposition party. The prospect this year of the unknown — and potential unrest — is immense and unsettling. As well as the mathematical near-certainty of Vladimir Putin’s re-election, there’s also the spectre of the return of Donald Trump. If he wins the Republican nomination and beats Biden in November, Trump will become the first US president since Grover Cleveland to serve two non-consecutive terms. It would likely be a decise blow in the war in Ukraine, as he will likely end US support for Kyiv.

This year has the potential to shake up status quos in ways we haven’t really seen since the horror year of 2016. Every newspaper and news bulletin until Christmas 2024 is going to be election-crazed, and every government change could alter the geopolitical balance. In the UK, our likely winner, Keir Starmer, is a continuity candidate of sorts. So far, he has based his pre-election strategy on not actually differentiating himself that much from the incumbents or objecting to their worst excesses, for fear of creating “wedge” issues, from climate change to small boat migrants, the “war of motorists” and trans rights. From the perspective of pure politics, I don’t blame him. This a deeply small-c conservative country, and talk of “positive social change” may as well be a dark incantation in 17th century Salem. The worry is that he means it, and we really are just in for more of the same thing that has demonstrably failed us for the past decade-and-a-half.

So what do we do? How do we keep ourselves calm when the world is all but guaranteed to be mired in an ideological battle for the souls of two world superpowers – as well as the likes of Iran and Belarus – for the next 12 months? If you’re like me, you’ve spent the past eight-and-counting years in a constant state of anxiety about things that are completely outside your control. 2024 is the year of recognising the limits of that control, and either accepting them, or expanding beyond them. I know it’s a cliche, but here goes: instead of worrying about the fate of the world, try focusing on your own life for a little bit. Make plans to spend time with your family more often. Get a hobby that doesn’t involve doomscrolling through the bot-infested remnants of a dying app for six hours of every day. Binge-watch Lost from the beginning and see if it holds up (it doesn’t). Go see your friends. Apply for some new jobs. Hang out with your kids. Write poetry.

Or, why not, do the opposite. If you’re going to worry, put that worry to good use. Get involved in projects in your community. If you think you have stories worth telling, write to your local newspaper. Did you know that most people can just get involved in local politics if they want to? Join a group of like-minded people and petition for change, instead of staring into the void and mumbling about Nigel Farage. Offer to stuff leaflets through letterboxes during the local, mayoral and general elections. If that sounds insane, it really shouldn’t, because that’s how a healthy democracy is supposed to work.

Maybe it’ll all go to hell. Or maybe it’ll surprise us, and things will improve. In either case, I’m sick of waiting around to find out — and you should be too. In 2024, we aren’t letting it get on top of us anymore. We’ve been doing that for years now, and it hasn’t helped anybody. It’s time for something new.