Paidionocracy

 Paidionocracy is a word I just made up, compiled of the words paidion and kratos.

It incrementally started in the late 2000s or early 2010s, when there was a collective backlash against everything from the election of President Obama to the Green Hornet movie, starting from the fringe and making its way into leadership itself. It seems to be a societal pattern. It has empowered people to hate everything that isn't white, male and cisgender on "social" media posts they have no business commenting on; on Facebook, comments only beat the algorithm. Now it has manifested in book bans, abortion bans and drag show bans across the US, Republicans in America heckling President Biden while dressed like Batman antagonists, outrage over people having to learn the truth about the British Empire, repression of both migrants and environmental protestors in Britain, and far-right Austrian lawmakers walking out of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy's speech to the country's parliament.

Here I was thinking we were in the 21st Century, not the 15th. How am I living in a world where people feel entitled to screech about everything that isn't malicious to them, just unfamiliar?

Sometimes it seems the meek have inherited the Earth, other times it has been inherited by people throwing their proverbial toys out of the stroller.