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"All in all, 2024 is not shaping up to be the year liberal democracy gets its groove back," Jonah Shepp wrote at New York. The good news is that American voters still have the "power to stop or significantly slow this runaway train" unleashed by Trump's election in 2016. It's no time to give into despair. That said: "Turning back the tide of authoritarian-friendly right-wing populism won't be easy."

It's easy to focus on American elections because the results will have ramifications around the world. Don't forget about what's going on in those countries, though. "Democracy will get a reckoning in Asia this year," Karishma Vaswani wrote at Bloomberg. Elections in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia and Taiwan could have significant consequences. In Asia, as in the United States, there is reason for concern. "Many voters have become disenchanted with Western democracies in a post-Brexit, post-Trump world, and are actively looking for something else."

Stability is also at stake in the African elections, Deutsche Welle reported. Protests have already broken out ahead of Senegal's February elections, Ghana's government could shift to its opposition parties, and parliamentary majorities are expected to shrink in Madagascar, Algeria and Tunisia, "making it more difficult to govern and fomenting unrest."

But if democracy's prospects seem to be shaky at the moment, Kat Duffy and Katie Harbath write at Foreign Affairs, 2024 also presents an opportunity. Advocates for democracy have their work out for them, it's true. But "if they get to work now, then 2024 may be remembered as the year when democracy rallied."

MEGATRENDS then asks the question: what if Trump and Brexit had not occurred? Would the world have simply been better off? Or would a slower creep of world fascism and authoritarianism have metastasized more opaquely in the absence of the current crisis? Is the current crisis the one the world needs in order to wake up? To chose the world we want to live in as the 21st century unfolds? Would world citizens have delayed the inevitable, missed an opportunity to confront and challenge world leaders in the US, Israel, Russia and other authoritarian regimes who maintain power through propaganda and disinformation domestically, confrontation and conflict rather than diplomacy and cooperation internationally? This crisis makes clear: a worldwide citizen activism by this younger generation--with support rather than resistance of their elders, to "flip the script" on the world order and gain a foothold into responsible citizen-led decision-making. 2024 will prove pivotal. History is in our hands. Let's all pay attention, make our votes count, our voices heard, voting with our feet. The future is now--as never before. We may not get another chance to reverse the trend toward war. Trump, Netanyahu and Putin must spend the rest of their lives in prison. "As Kat Duffy and Katie Harbath wrote in Foreign Affairs: "2024 presents an opportunity. Advocates for democracy have their work cut out for them, it's true. ut if they get to work NOW, then 2024 may be remembered as the year when democracy rallied." Let's turn the tide.