[3] Taking the election of Donald Trump as his starting point, Cusset describes it as one of many indicators of a rightward shift in world politics which also include Brexit, the governments of Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the conservative regimes of Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The transition from the 1980s to the 1990s saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, events which prompted thinkers such as Francis Fukuyama (in Cusset's account) to declare the victory of liberal democracy and free market economies over socialist governments.

Although the 1990s saw a nascent wave of Left alter-globalization as demonstrated by the Zapatistas and the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, this leftward shift was cut short by the September 11 attacks, the dividing line between the 1990s and the 2000s.

In Cusset's account, although technology is a neutral category which can be deployed for any end, its development and use in capitalism reinforce the latter, also precluding Left thought and activity: "Incidentally, using our cellphones to measure our heartbeats and the number of steps we take during our morning jog means we are less available to the idea and to the practice of social change.

"[10] Finally, Cusset proposes "countering the Right without seizing power", a concept articulated by the sociologist John Holloway, which is closely related to autonomism.