It's a chaotic moment for the countries that have long underpinned the global order, a time of instability for the balance of power that has reigned for decades.

Across the world, people are questioning truths they had long held to be self-evident, and they are dismissing some of them as fake news. They are replacing traditions they had long seen as immutable with haphazard reinvention.

In France, people who feel left behind by a globalizing world have spent the last few weeks marching and rioting to protest a government they call elitist and out of touch. The government, whose initial dismissiveness seemed to confirm their suspicions, was finally forced to change tack.

Britain is still shuddering from a referendum that its government called to muzzle naysayers, only to see those naysayers win the day. Now, as politicians go through awkward contortions to deliver on that vote, the government is on the verge of collapse.