You know when you properly encounter a new idea and then you “see” its applications everywhere (and you overuse it/misuse it). To riff on a good saying – “when you’ve got a new shiny hammer that feels good, every problem looks like a nail” (1).
Well, that’s me and Wilfred Bion’s idea of the work-group mentality and the basic assumptions mentality (see original blog post here and follow up here).
And just reading this in The Absurder about the Tories’ death spiral (the party, not the underlying ideology – that’s alive and well and perfectly at home in Labour and to a lesser extent the other parties).
Over recent days, the Tories’ already dark mood has worsened perceptibly, adding to a sense at Westminster that they are now locked into an irreversible doom spiral in which discipline is abandoned as fast as hope.
Now the task of winning the election is clearly impossible, then, well, everyone’s looking for the exits/lifeboats/the rats are looking for planks of wood big enough for both Jack and Rose. People are settling scores and positioning for what comes next…
It reminds me of what happens when those who have thrown in their lot with some social movement organisation with millenarian goals and expectations begin to realise that the Great Breakthrough is not actually at hand…
Meanwhile the carbon dioxide climb and the atmospheric concentrations are going beserk, and the oceans may no longer be providing heat storage for very much longer at all. Fun times in the anthro-pee-yourself-with-fear-cene…
Footnotes
(1) This also pops up in Italo Calvino’s short story The General in the Library.
marchudson.net 
Marc, you paint a bleak picture, but not as bleak as reality in my view. A look around the world suggest Democracy is dying, in some countries it appears already dead.
Authoritarianism backed by the gun is taking Democracies place and I am not surprised. Growth has made the need for control in many parts of the world a necessity. Millions of people milling around with no work, food, dwelling or future is a breeding ground for revolt.
Sadly, politicians world wide have become the face and voice of multinationals who support anything that turns a dollar.
Can Democracy make a comeback? Sad to say, I doubt it.