For near­ly half a decade, you could be for­giv­en for think­ing just about every­thing in West­ern democ­ra­cy seemed a bit bro­ken. The social-media yelling in 140 char­ac­ters. The wild pop­ulism, and dog-whis­tle racism. The clum­sy coro­n­avirus lock­downs and their atten­dant con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries. The tol­er­ance of absolute, con­stant false­hoods. The ques­tion­ing and belea­guer­ing of the elec­toral process.