I remember when elections were won by leaders selling visions of the future: Mr Harold Wilson's white heat of technology, Mr Ronald Reagan's morning in America or Mr Tony Blair's New Britain.
In the new democratic disorder, nostalgia has replaced optimism as a ruling emotion. Populists recognise the power of adjusted memory. America's Mr Donald Trump, British Brexiters, Europe's new nationalists - they all inhabit a rose-tinted past.
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