Here’s something that worries me: Increasingly, friends and family tell me they’ve stopped following the news. Some have unplugged completely. Others have curated their feeds to include only stories that confirm what they already believe. Not that anyone is proud of this. In fact, these disclosures typically come in the form of a confession. It’s just too much, I’m told sotto voce. It’s relentless, it’s exhausting, and I don’t know what to do with it all anymore.
As a journalist, I find this troubling. I’m in the news business, after all. But I also relate.
There are days when the flood of headlines — the dysfunction in Washington, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the rapid-fire collapse of once-stable norms — feels like too much to process. We can all sense we’re living through a moment of enormous, historic change, a pivot point between eras. It’s not just political whiplash or economic anxiety. It’s the vertigo of feeling like the world we inherited is giving way to something new that we can’t quite define.
Which is why this month’s cover story felt so clarifying to me. In his sweeping essay, historian Gary Gerstle offers an explanation for the tectonic shifts of the last decade. He traces the rise — and recent fall — of what he calls the “neoliberal order,” a political and economic philosophy that dominated the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This is the worldview that prized free markets, deregulation and global trade. It shaped not just policy but culture — and now, Gerstle argues, it’s unraveling.
That unraveling, he suggests, is why we’re seeing strange new political coalitions form, old assumptions collapse, and previously fringe ideas move into the mainstream. It’s why both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders — two ideologically opposite figures — could be seen as expressions of the same yearning for a dramatic reordering.
How this all shakes out is anyone’s guess. Argentina may offer some clues, which is why we commissioned Eléonore Hughes to profile President Javier Milei — a libertarian firebrand with a chainsaw and a mission to radically shrink the state. Argentina’s radical overhaul of its government and economy is a year or two ahead of ours, which is why it might offer a glimpse of where the U.S. is headed — and of how societies respond when the old order collapses.
Which brings me back to what I say to friends who don’t want to engage with the news anymore or with ideas that challenge their worldview. The answers are in a timely and thoughtful essay by Maria McNair. If we are feeling overwhelmed and helpless, McNair argues, maybe we’re looking in the wrong places.
Step back from the daily, relentless churn of our news feeds and a different, more complete picture emerges — one in which global poverty is declining, child mortality is plummeting, and entire nations are getting healthier, freer and more resilient. By seeking out stories of real progress, she argues, we not only gain a truer sense of the world — we rediscover our capacity to shape it. And that shift in perspective can make us feel not despairing, but hopeful.
You don’t have to follow every headline. But you don’t have to give up on the world, either. There is power in understanding the deeper forces at work. And there is hope in remembering that the story isn’t over yet.
This story appears in the June 2025 issue of DeseretMagazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.