“I had no doubt Donald Trump would win, just like I had no doubt Brexit would happen, so maybe I’m not as shell-shocked as you,” says Yanis Varoufakis. The former Greek finance minister is speaking to me several days after the Republican candidate’s historic victory. He doesn’t sound smug about being so prescient, more resigned, deflated, defeated. The left has been here before.
Over the course of an hour-long conversation, Varoufakis soothed my caffeine-jangled nerves with the thought that there is an alternative, leftist vision for the world. Whether you agree with the viability of his ideas or not, it is at least encouraging to know that someone, somewhere has a plan. His view is that the left has become too fragmented, too focused on single-issue struggles, be it LGBT rights or Black Lives Matter, and will continue to lose elections until it can band together to form a broad electoral consensus. In the meantime, all we can do is hope that Trump’s divisive campaign rhetoric proves to be just that.
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