synonyms for show in an essay

10 Other Words for “This Shows” in an Essay

Showing how one thing affects another is great in academic writing. It shows that you’ve connected two points with each other, making sure the reader follows along.

Keep reading to learn more words to replace “this shows” in an essay. You can also review the examples we provide under each heading.

2. Demonstrating

Following a similar idea to using “showing,” you can also use “demonstrating.” This comes from the idea that “this demonstrates” is a bit redundant. So, you can remove “this.”

3. Leading To

There are plenty of ways to talk about different causes and effects in your writing. A good choice to include in the middle of a sentence is “leading to.”

When something “leads to” something else, it is a direct cause . Therefore, it’s worth including “leading to” in an essay when making relevant connections in your text.

4. Creating

Often, you can create cause-and-effect relationships in your writing by including two similar ideas. Therefore, it’s worth including “creating” to demonstrate a connection to the reader.

Perhaps these essay samples will also help you:

5. This Implies

For a more formal way to say “this shows,” try “this implies.” Of course, it doesn’t change much from the original phrase, but that doesn’t mean it’s ineffective.

You will often start a sentence with “this implies.” It shows you have relevant and useful information to discuss with the reader.

Proof is often the most important in scientific studies and arguments. Therefore, it’s very common to use “proving” instead of “this shows” in scientific essays and writing.

We recommend using this when discussing your experiments and explaining how it might cause something specific to happen. It helps the reader follow your ideas on the page.

7. This Allows

Also, using “this allows” directly after expressing your views explains the purpose of your writing. This could show a reader why you’ve even decided to write the essay in the first place.

You can also review these examples:

8. This Displays

You can refer to these examples if you’re still unsure:

9. Indicating

Often, this allows you to talk about specific effects. It’s a great way to explain the purpose of a paragraph (or the essay as a whole, depending on the context).

10. Suggesting

Also, it’s not particularly common in essays. Therefore, it’s a great choice to mix things up and keep things a little more interesting.

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What Does “To Show” Mean and Which Words Can I Use Instead?

If you’re looking for synonyms for “to show,” we can help! We have five synonyms you can use in its place (plus example sentences that’ll show you how to use them).

What Are Some Synonyms for “To Show”?

• To demonstrate
• To disclose

What Does “To Show” Mean?

Show has numerous definitions and can function as a verb or noun.

As a verb, to show means “to display or allow something to be seen.” In this sense, to show proves helpful when writing an expository essay or any other type of text that requires a lot of explanation or clarification.

To show how the conclusion was reached, we have to first review two key pieces of data.

A pillar of good writing, however, is the use of varied vocabulary. Even if your writing requires a lot of explanation, don’t just rely on the verb to show —there are plenty of words you can use in its place.

Below, you’ll find five synonyms for to show.

“To Show” Synonyms

1. to demonstrate.

To demonstrate how this happened, a mini replica of the experiment was constructed.

Allow us to demonstrate the purpose of each strategically placed apparatus.

2. To present

To present the results as thoroughly as possible, two different programs were required.

We used a chart to present the results.

3. To reveal

To reveal why this happened, thousands and thousands of entries had to be analyzed.

The team used surveillance equipment to reveal where the pack of wolves was going at night.

4. To disclose

To disclose how the experiment concluded, we first had to provide our audience with general knowledge of artificial intelligence.

We needed to disclose several incidents that occurred.

5. To display

To display it accurately, a team of six designers worked on the exhibition.

The participants wanted to display their interpretations of the art.

Allow Us To Show You A Little Trick

Forgetting a word or not being able to think of more accurate synonyms are things that happen to all writers, regardless of how skilled. Luckily, we can always count on a quick online search to help us through these hindrances.

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10 Other Ways to Say “This Shows” in an Essay

When writing essays, using the phrase “this shows” can get repetitive. It’s important to mix up your language to keep your reader engaged.

This article lists ten different ways to express the same idea, making your writing more interesting and varied. Each alternative is followed by explanations and examples to help you understand when and how to use them effectively.

Is “This Shows” a Good Phrase to Use in an Essay?

Using “this shows” in an essay can be beneficial, but it depends on the context. It’s a straightforward way to indicate that the information you are presenting supports your argument or helps explain your point. However, using this phrase repeatedly might make your writing seem less polished.

Here’s an example of how to use it:

Let’s weigh the pros and cons of using “this shows” in your writing.

• Clear and directly points out the significance of the evidence.
• Helps connect the evidence to your argument or thesis statement.
• Easy to understand and use.
• Can become repetitive if overused.
• Might seem too simple or lack sophistication in formal essays.
• Doesn’t offer variety in sentence structures.

While “this shows” is handy, you might want to consider alternatives, especially if you’re aiming for a more polished and varied writing style. Using synonyms or different phrases can add depth to your essay and keep your readers engaged.

Finding the right words to connect your ideas can make your essay shine. Here are ten alternatives to “this shows” that can help:

• This demonstrates
• This indicates
• This suggests
• This reveals
• This proves
• This establishes
• This confirms
• This supports
• This underscores
• This exemplifies

1. This demonstrates

This alternative is somewhat more formal than “This shows”, making it a good fit for academic essays. It implies a stronger link between evidence and assertion, suggesting a more thoughtful analysis. When comparing, “this demonstrates” carries an air of scientific precision or academic rigor, emphasizing the process of showing.

We recommend using “this demonstrates” when your evidence strongly supports your argument. It’s especially useful in contexts where you want to highlight thorough research or definitive proof. Think of situations where the connection between your examples and your main point needs to be unmistakable and grounded in professional analysis.

Here are a couple of examples:

2. This indicates

“This indicates” is a neutral phrase that fits well in both formal and informal essays. It’s less forceful than “this proves” but still shows a clear connection between evidence and conclusion. It’s like pointing something out rather than making an outright declaration.

Use “this indicates” when you want to suggest a conclusion rather than assert it definitively. It works well when you’re drawing inferences from data or observations, particularly in situations where there might be multiple interpretations.

3. This suggests

“This suggests” is an ideal choice for making gentle or speculative connections in your writing. It’s even less forceful than “this indicates”, perfect for when you’re presenting hypotheses or possibilities. It’s a polite way to introduce an idea that’s inferred rather than directly supported by the evidence.

This phrase is better suited for essays where you’re exploring potential outcomes or reasons, especially when direct evidence is not available. It’s also appropriate in informal contexts where maintaining a conversational tone is important.

4. This reveals

“This reveals” is powerful because it suggests uncovering or discovering something previously hidden. It’s perfect for when you want to highlight insights or findings that are unexpected or particularly enlightening. The phrase holds a bit of drama, making it great for engaging readers.

When your evidence uncovers new information or contradicts common assumptions, “this reveals” is an excellent choice. It’s well-suited for research papers or analytical essays where the goal is to bring new truths to light.

5. This proves

Among our list of synonyms, “this proves” is among the most assertive. It’s used to claim that the evidence conclusively supports your argument. Because of its strong implication, it’s best reserved for formal contexts where you have robust data or clear examples to back up your point.

This phrase is particularly effective in argumentative essays or research papers where establishing factual correctness is essential. It’s about as close as you can get to saying “this is irrefutable.”

6. This establishes

“This establishes” is similar in weight to “this proves” but with a slightly less aggressive tone. It suggests setting up a firm foundation for your argument or theory. This wording is especially useful in formal essays and academic writing where clarity and precision are paramount.

We recommend “this establishes” when you’re building up an argument step by step, and your evidence serves as a crucial piece of the puzzle. It shines in contexts where demonstrating the credibility or reliability of your claim is key.

7. This confirms

“This confirms” signals that your evidence directly supports or validates an existing theory or hypothesis. It’s less about revelation and more about verification, making it a professional choice for reinforcing your points in a formal essay.

It’s best suited for situations where you’re addressing anticipated outcomes or established theories. This alternative brings an air of finality and affirmation, particularly in scientific or analytical papers.

8. This supports

“This supports” is flexible, fitting nicely into both formal and informal contexts. It indicates that your evidence upholds your argument but does so in a way that’s less definitive than “this proves.” It’s akin to providing backup rather than claiming outright victory.

Use “this supports” when your evidence adds weight to your claim but might not be conclusive on its own. It’s particularly useful in essays where you’re piecing together support from various sources to form a cohesive argument.

See these examples:

9. This underscores

“This underscores” emphasizes the importance of a particular piece of evidence or point in your argument. It’s a way to highlight significance without asserting direct causation. This term is ideal for formal writing when you want to stress the weight of your findings.

This alternative is better suited when you need to draw attention to how crucial your evidence is to understanding your overall point. It’s like saying, “pay attention here, this is important.”

10. This exemplifies

“This exemplifies” is a sophisticated way to demonstrate how your evidence serves as a perfect example of your claim. It brings a touch of elegance to your writing, suitable for formal essays where showcasing examples is key to illustrating broader points.

Opt for “this exemplifies” when you have a clear, representative example that neatly encapsulates your argument or theory. It effectively tells your reader, “If you understand this example, you’ll grasp my larger point.”

Final Thoughts

Switching up the way you say “this shows” in your essays can make your writing stronger and more engaging. By using the ten alternatives we’ve discussed, you can clearly express your ideas and keep your reader’s attention. These phrases help you communicate more precisely and make your arguments more compelling.

Slava Velikiy, CEO of Rontar and GainRep, has over 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship, project management, and software development. Passionate about innovation and solving real-world problems, he shares his insights on entrepreneurship, leadership, and technology.

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9 Formal Synonyms for “This Shows”

Do you want to discuss how one sentence confirms a thought or idea in another sentence?

Perhaps you’re worried that “this shows” doesn’t work too well in an essay because it’s informal or rude.

Well, you’re in luck!

This article will teach you other ways to say “this shows” to keep your writing interesting.

Is It Formal to Say “This Shows”?

It is formal to say “this shows.” You can use it in academic writing because it helps you to confirm how one sentence relates to another.

It’s also professional . Therefore, it’s always a good choice in essays.

However, you should be careful using it too much. Oversaturating your essays with “this shows” can take away from their impact and cause your essay to sound repetitive and boring.

Feel free to review this example to learn a bit more about it:

It’s clear that this is the best way forward. This shows that no other solution was reasonable to consider.

• It’s formal and direct.
• Readers will understand that you’re relating your sentence back to a previous one.
• It can very quickly become repetitive and boring.
• It’s not the most imaginative phrase to use to link sentences.

So, it’s clear that “this shows” works well in your writing. But that doesn’t mean you should limit yourself to using it as your only option.

Keep reading to learn other words for “this shows” in an essay. We’ve touched on some of the best synonyms to give you a better idea of what will work.

What to Say Instead of “This Shows”

• This demonstrates
• This illustrates
• This signifies
• This indicates
• This confirms
• This conveys

1. This Demonstrates

We recommend starting with “this demonstrates” to show you’re talking about something from the previous sentence.

It’s a great way to keep things formal and informative . Therefore, you can use it when filling out an essay or completing a passage of text that might benefit from linked sentences.

For the most part, if you can demonstrate how one thing leads to another, it’s good writing. After all, it’ll help readers to understand what you’re saying and how to make connections in your work.

You can refer to these essay samples to learn a bit more about it:

It’s clear what needs to be done. This demonstrates the resolve required to complete a task like this one.

We only had one option. This demonstrates that every other possible outcome has been expended and made impossible to continue.

2. This Illustrates

Next, we recommend writing “this illustrates.” It’s another way to say “this shows” that helps you to mix things up and sound less repetitive when you want to.

Generally, it’s a good formal synonym that shows why your previous sentence links to a new one.

It’s an effective way to engage a reader . It’s also professional and direct , so it’ll keep readers involved when they’re going through your essay.

Also, it’s worth reviewing these examples to learn more:

I’ve included all the findings to show you what I mean. This illustrates that there are still a few ways for me to continue with this.

This illustrates how simple it is to make it work. However, it’s going to take a few extra pairs of hands before we can start doing anything more.

Next, we want to mix things up a little bit. Rather than only focusing on academic writing, we also recommend using some of these synonyms in an email.

For instance, “showing” can work really well to link your email to itself.

But how does that work?

Well, you can use “showing” in the middle of a sentence to professionally explain why you’re writing about something.

It’s good to use when contacting a coworker . After all, you can explain your thought process and let them know more about what you’re thinking and what it “shows.”

Also, “this shows” and “showing” are nearly identical in usage. However, you must never forget you can’t start a sentence with “showing.” It must be placed in the middle of a sentence.

If you’re still unsure, perhaps this email sample will help you:

Dear Michael, I’m going to do it like this, showing that it’s still possible to complete the tasks without them. Please advise me on what you think is the best way to move forward. Yours, Brian Renshaw

4. This Signifies

Back to essays, we recommend writing “this signifies” as well. It teaches you how to say “this shows” in an essay when you’re trying to mix things up.

For the most part, this keeps things professional and clear . Therefore, it’s a great way to explain how things work or connect with each other.

Readers and reviewers will certainly appreciate including phrases like this.

That’s why we recommend using it in academic writing, as it’s bound to impress your professor if you want to.

After all, if they’re grading your work, it’s good to show that you know what you’re talking about.

As always, try not to repeat it too much! It can very easily make your essay sound repetitive if you’re not careful, which is never a good idea.

Also, you can check out these examples to learn a bit more:

As you can see, there are a few errors to discuss. This signifies that things still need to change before we can keep moving forward.

This signifies what could happen if things are left unattended. That’s why it’s important for us to break through quickly.

5. This Indicates

If you’re still unsure how to say “this shows” in an essay, try using “this indicates.”

It’s a great synonym that teaches you more about the things that work well in your writing.

After all, the more you explore your alternatives, the better your work will look. The last thing you want to do with your essays is make them repetitive and samey.

Readers will engage more when using phrases like this.

Here are some examples to also help you with it:

This indicates everything I’m trying to discuss with you. I think it’s important for you to pay attention to what’s to come.

It’s clear what I have to do. This indicates that only one option is going to work in our favor, so we must be prepared.

6. Implying

Next, we recommend writing “implying” instead of “this shows.” Again, this is a good one to use in the middle of a sentence .

So, we recommend writing it when explaining how one situation leads to another in the same string of text.

It’s good in academic writing as it’s quite professional and clear .

You can review these examples to see more about how to use it:

The statistics have made the situation more clear, implying that we need to make drastic changes quickly.

This is how it will work, implying that someone is going to need to step up to ensure things go that way.

7. Suggesting

Another good choice in academic essays is “suggesting.” This works in the middle of a sentence by showing how one idea suggests that another can happen.

You can use it to keep the reader informed as you go through an essay.

The more links you make within your sentences, the more your essay will make sense to the people reading or grading it.

That’s why we like this as an option in most graded essays. However, you should still try to limit how often you use something like this.

Check out these examples to find out more about how it works:

I have looked into it and found nothing important, suggesting that this isn’t the right place to go.

It’s clear what we need to do next, suggesting that there are some options we have yet to explore.

8. This Confirms

Going back to an email alternative, we recommend trying “this confirms.”

It’s a great way to confirm or suggest information to the recipient. It also creates a clear and direct link between the two things you’ve mentioned in an email.

So, you can use it when writing to coworkers . It shows you’ve looked into a collaborative effort and noticed that one thing confirms another.

Here’s a helpful sample email to show you more about how to use it:

Dear Steven, I looked into the project we’ve got so far, but we need to make some changes. This confirms that Alice did not look at the notes properly. Best regards, Sean Bryce

9. This Conveys

Finally, you can use “this conveys” in your formal essays . It’s a good way to entice the reader and let them know you’re in control of your own narrative.

It’s a good way to convey or confirm information quickly.

It gets to the point and shows you’re happy to explain yourself further if someone still isn’t getting what you’re saying.

Here are some helpful samples to show you a bit more about it:

As you can see, the results are a bit skewed. This conveys that we have to work harder to narrow the gap.

This conveys exactly what we thought would happen. Therefore, more works needs to be done to improve.

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Emphasize Synonyms & Antonyms: List of 30+

The ProWritingAid Team

Are you looking to drive home a point?

Do you need to stress how important something is?

Will your writing highlight certain ideas and statements?

Then you're probably looking to emphasize something.

In this article, we'll explore how you can emphasize ideas in your writing, and give you 30+ emphasize synonym & antonym options. Let's get started.

What Are Some Synonyms for Emphasize?

The a–z list of emphasize synonyms, how do i emphasize points in my writing, what are some antonyms of emphasize.

We've already seen some alternatives for emphasize in the examples above. We'll look at their specific definitions, and then list some more alternatives.

What Does it Mean to Drive Something Home?

This doesn't mean putting something in your car and driving it to your house.

Instead, the phrase "drive home" uses the verb to drive in the sense of moving something forward by force. Home here means the final place something will land or arrive—its intended position.

When you drive a point home, you are putting effort into making people understand something clearly by describing it in detail, using lots of examples, or repeating it many times.

"Drive home" is usually used when talking about emphasizing ideas.

Can also mean: Instill; Establish

How Do You Stress the Importance of Something?

This one is similar to drive home, and is also mostly used when referring to ideas.

You've probably heard of stress as a feeling. When you feel stressed, all of your thoughts turn to the thing you are stressed about.

Similarly, when you stress something, you make sure people understand how important it is

Can also mean: Repeat; Underline; Play up; Dwell on

What Does Accentuate Mean?

Accentuate is a visual word, but it can also be used for ideas.

To accentuate something is to indicate its importance by centering attention on it. You place an accent on the thing you want to focus attention on.

While you might use "stress" to describe emphasizing something urgent or worrying, "accentuate" can be more neutral or positive.

You wouldn't "wear a corsage to stress the color of your date's dress," but you could "wear a corsage to accentuate the color of your date's dress."

In this scenario, accentuate can also mean "complement"—to positively emphasize a desirable feature of something.

Normally, something accentuates something else. For example:

She used the data in the table to accentuate her point about decomposition rates.

In this example, to accentuate means to add an extra layer of meaning to something.

Can also mean: Highlight; Complement; Accent

Is Prioritize the Same as Emphasize?

When used to mean "put something first", prioritize is a synonym of emphasize.

The graphic designer prioritized the title on the page.

This means the designer made the title larger, gave it more space—or otherwise emphasized it.

Can also mean: Give precedence to

Why Would You Reiterate Something?

To reiterate means to repeat a point you've made before, maybe in a different way to make sure people have understood it.

I must reiterate that it is of the utmost importance that you don't open the box.

Can also mean: Repeat; Restate; Recapitulate

The examples above describe just some of the ways you might want to emphasize something. The most important thing to remember when looking for a different word to use is to make sure the word you choose matches your meaning.

The words on this list can all be used to mean "to emphasize something", but they can also be used in other ways. Check the specific definition before using a word in your writing.

• Add weight to
• Impress (as in, to make an impression on)
• Labor the point
• Make a point of
• Recapitulate
• Stress/Lay stress on

Looking for a way to only find relevant synonyms? Try ProWritingAid's Thesaurus Report .

The report will highlight every verb, adjective, adverb, and noun in your text and offer contextually relevant alternatives for them.

That means our AI "reads" your writing to work out what you're trying to say, and then only shows synonyms related to your meaning.

Try it out with a free ProWritingAid account.

If you want to emphasize (or drive home) a point in an essay or other piece of writing, you'll need to create a strong argument.

In an essay, you need to show how each point you make backs up that argument. One way to do this is by using transition words to link the points in your essay and show how they build on one another.

Words like "consequently", "therefore", and "as a result" emphasize the cause-and-effect relationship between two points.

Using words like "furthermore", "secondly", and "since" emphasize how two points are linked together.

And if you just want to signpost that a point is particularly important, you can start your paragraph with emphasis transition words like "notably", "chiefly", and "in particular". These words tell your reader to pay special attention to these points in relation to your argument.

But what if you want to do the opposite of emphasizing something? An antonym is a word that has the opposite meaning to another word.

These words all mean to de-emphasize something:

How to Use Synonyms of Emphasize

Synonyms can help you avoid repetition and provide more specific descriptions.

But remember: words are different for a reason. All of the synonyms listed above have slightly different meanings and purposes. Before you use a word, make sure to check its exact meaning to make sure it matches what you're trying to say.

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Synonyms of essay

• as in article
• as in attempt
• as in to attempt
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Thesaurus Definition of essay

 (Entry 1 of 2)

Synonyms & Similar Words

• dissertation
• composition
• prolegomenon
• undertaking
• trial and error
• experimentation

Thesaurus Definition of essay  (Entry 2 of 2)

• have a go at
• try one's hand (at)

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Synonym Chooser

How does the verb essay differ from other similar words?

Some common synonyms of essay are attempt , endeavor , strive , and try . While all these words mean "to make an effort to accomplish an end," essay implies difficulty but also suggests tentative trying or experimenting.

When might attempt be a better fit than essay ?

While the synonyms attempt and essay are close in meaning, attempt stresses the initiation or beginning of an effort.

Where would endeavor be a reasonable alternative to essay ?

Although the words endeavor and essay have much in common, endeavor heightens the implications of exertion and difficulty.

When is strive a more appropriate choice than essay ?

While in some cases nearly identical to essay , strive implies great exertion against great difficulty and specifically suggests persistent effort.

How do try and attempt relate to one another, in the sense of essay ?

Try is often close to attempt but may stress effort or experiment made in the hope of testing or proving something.

Articles Related to essay

To 'Essay' or 'Assay'?

You'll know the difference if you give it the old college essay

Thesaurus Entries Near essay

Cite this entry.

“Essay.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/essay. Accessed 30 Jun. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on essay

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noun as in written discourse

Strongest matches

• dissertation

Strong matches

• composition
• disquisition
• explication

noun as in try, attempt

• undertaking

Weak matches

• one's all
• one's level best

verb as in try, attempt

• have a crack
• have a shot
• make a run at
• put to the test
• take a stab at
• take a whack at

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Example sentences.

As several of my colleagues commented, the result is good enough that it could pass for an essay written by a first-year undergraduate, and even get a pretty decent grade.

GPT-3 also raises concerns about the future of essay writing in the education system.

This little essay helps focus on self-knowledge in what you’re best at, and how you should prioritize your time.

As Steven Feldstein argues in the opening essay, technonationalism plays a part in the strengthening of other autocracies too.

He’s written a collection of essays on civil engineering life titled Bridginess, and to this day he and Lauren go on “bridge dates,” where they enjoy a meal and admire the view of a nearby span.

I think a certain kind of compelling essay has a piece of that.

The current attack on the Jews,” he wrote in a 1937 essay, “targets not just this people of 15 million but mankind as such.

The impulse to interpret seems to me what makes personal essay writing compelling.

To be honest, I think a lot of good essay writing comes out of that.

Someone recently sent me an old Joan Didion essay on self-respect that appeared in Vogue.

There is more of the uplifted forefinger and the reiterated point than I should have allowed myself in an essay.

Consequently he was able to turn in a clear essay upon the subject, which, upon examination, the king found to be free from error.

It is no part of the present essay to attempt to detail the particulars of a code of social legislation.

But angels and ministers of grace defend us from ministers of religion who essay art criticism!

It is fit that the imagination, which is free to go through all things, should essay such excursions.

Related Words

Words related to essay are not direct synonyms, but are associated with the word essay . Browse related words to learn more about word associations.

verb as in point or direct at a goal

• concentrate
• contemplate
• set one's sights on

noun as in piece of writing

• think piece

verb as in try, make effort

• do level best
• exert oneself
• give a fling
• give a whirl
• give best shot
• give it a go
• give it a try
• give old college try
• go the limit
• have a go at
• shoot the works
• take best shot
• try one's hand at

Viewing 5 / 74 related words

On this page you'll find 154 synonyms, antonyms, and words related to essay, such as: article, discussion, dissertation, manuscript, paper, and piece.

From Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.

Synonyms for "showing"/"presenting"? English Lit GCSE

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Swiftie dads show the power of positive masculinity

The glittery dads at the eras tour are there for their kids, and there's a reason fathers love miss americana, by mary elizabeth williams.

It was still early in the day when the men with glitter in their copper beards started appearing on the streets. They had rhinestone cowboy hats on their heads. And they wore t-shirts that read “It’s me. Hi. I’m the dad. It’s me,” and “Spending a lot of money at the moment.” My family and I were in Cardiff for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour , and the Celtic dads were out in force and  ready for it . We’d just come to see Taylor. We left with a newfound appreciation of the power of positive masculinity .

I had long been aware of the existence of Swiftie dads — I live with one, after all — but had regarded them as more of the “singing along to ‘Shake It Off’ in the car” variety than the boa-clad men I witnessed strolling up and down the high street that bright June Tuesday. Yet there they were, enthusiastically bonding not just with their families but with each other, sharing a brotherhood in friendship bracelet-clad arms. And we experienced it firsthand when we bumped into an old friend of my spouse, his wife and young daughters in tow, wearing a shirt that read, “Dad (Taylor’s Version).”

Our modern epidemic of loneliness is significantly more dire in men, who today have roughly only half as many friends as they did a generation ago . That isolation can have a significant impact on their mental and physical health and lifespan . They also spend about half as much time with their children as mothers do — and, according to one Pew Research Center poll, the majority of them say that it’s not enough. But as Prince William himself could tell you — Taylor might be able to help you out there on a couple of fronts.

It’s not about spending money or going to concerts, although that stuff can be fun. Instead, it’s about the emotional power of fandom, within families and between friends — even if that fandom happens to skew bejeweled.

"The t-shirt is to signal to other dads, 'Hey bro, I see you.'"

Ben Valenta , coauthor (with David Sikorjak) of 2022’s   "Fans Have More Friends,"  has some advice for the haters. He tells me that “We dismiss Taylor Swift or our daughters’ interest in Taylor Swift as girly or a waste of time to our detriment. It’s an opportunity to connect and deepen our engagement with each other.” And when I describe the scene last week in Cardiff to him, he says, “What you were seeing is fandom in action. There are various layers of interaction happening. The dad is there with his daughters; that's the primary purpose. But the reason to wear the t-shirt is to signal to other dads, ‘Hey bro, I see you,’ and create opportunity for additional social interaction.” 

And also, to enjoy some really good music. Joseph Romm, a Senior Research Fellow at the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media (PCSSM) — and a man who has some solid suggestions for Taylor about what she can do about climate change — acknowledges that he first got into Taylor thanks to now teenaged daughter. But they’re going to see the tour in Toronto because they both appreciate her artistry, and the conversations her songs spark. 

“The first real introduction I had to Taylor in a big way was ‘Shake It Off,’” he recalls. “My daughter was seven. I've always been interested in the best storytellers, so there was a lot of bonding over music and storytelling. We saw the [“Eras Tour”] movie together, and we have endless debates about exactly what the songs mean, because, Taylor, as you know, likes to be cryptic. We have fun getting into arguments about ‘But Daddy I Love Him. ’ Is the final chorus really about Travis?’ he asks, adding, “I have very firm beliefs on that song.”

"There's a reason why your daughter is connecting with Taylor, and it's worth figuring out why."

For Romm, Swift provides a unique window into the experience of girlhood. “Taylor obviously has connected with these girls,” he says. “What she is saying clearly is resonating with girls like my daughter. That is important to understand.” He also authentically appreciates Swift’s work. “I always tell people to go to watch her NPR Tiny Desk concert , and you will see her musicianship,” he says. “You will see how she thinks about her music. And you'll get some very beautiful songs. I would say to dads, there's a reason why your daughter is connecting with Taylor, and it's worth figuring out why.”

Steve Knopper , an editor at large at Billboard, shares the sentiment. He’s been following Swift since his now 22-year-old daughter Rose was a 9-year-old fan. “When she was that age,” he recalls, “I was like, OK, my daughter is the center of the pop music universe. I'm just going to pay really close attention to what she listens to. I didn’t like all of it. But when she hit Taylor Swift — and she went through a massive Taylor Swift phase — I was like, I'm going to listen here with her. And we just listened to everything.” 

The two also saw Swift on her 2011 and 2013 tours. “I loved hanging out with Rose and experiencing that with her,” he says. “Connecting with Rose on a deeper level through music was incredibly rewarding. I remember talking about it with my ex-wife, ‘I think that Rose is lucky to have such a worthy pop star of her generation.’ Not every generation gets one of those.” He continues, “When I see stuff on social media where people around my age — men and women, but mostly men — are just determined to say she is lesser, I don't really understand that. She's not. She obviously isn't. She's great.”

A decade later, their tastes have diverged, but Knopper and his daughter’s foundation of bonding over music remains solid. “We're respectful of each other,” he says. “And it’s funny because we communicate about music in a way that's really easy. It's natural to us.” 

That’s the kind of future that tech executive Kevin Brown — the friend we ran into in Wales — hopes for. “I read once that if you want to have a good relationship with your kids, do the things that they're interested in,” he says, “and be a part of that.” He tells me, “I could have reverted to the classic, ‘I’m a dad, I'm not getting involved. This is for my wife and daughters.’ Or I could just go with it and have a blast. So I was like, great, where are the tattoos? Let's get them on. And I'm still actually trying to wash them off.”

Looking back on the trip, Brown says, “I felt incredibly lucky to be in a place in time where I could be fully present with my kids and participate. My daughters are six and nine; they'll soon be seven and 10. It was one of those moments where hopefully for them, but certainly for my wife and me, was going to be a lifetime memory.”

And when Eras ends, Ben Valenta hopes that dads continue to expand their opportunities for creating more of those special experiences. “One of the things we’ve focused on in our work in the last six months or so has been where fandom starts,” he says. “Fandom starts typically in the family. As we were going around the country spending time with families, it was very clear how gendered sports fandom was at the family level. Everyone sort of assumes that’s what the boys do.”

Now, though, he notes, “With the Swift phenomenon, you see dads thirsting for ways to connect with their daughters. I think if more people recognized that sports could be the same thing, they could utilize it in the same way. I’m all for connecting via Taylor Swift; I think that’s really positive. But I would suggest that Taylor Swift might have another tour, she might have two more tours. But the New York Yankees? They’re coming back next year and the year after that, forever. That’s the beauty of sports. If we can create that connection, we can have it forever, and it can be the tie that bonds forever.”

Those ties we form and keep forming with our kids — mine are university students, and the Taylor experience has been lifelong — happen when we meet them where they are, when we care more about what they care about than any limited gender norms. Real men can rock a boa just as well as a baseball cap. It's all a lot more enjoyable that way. And Dad might just discover some really cool stuff while making memories.

“When Rose was getting into Taylor Swift,” says Knopper, “I was trying to understand my daughter and her friends and bond with her. She’s listening to and exposing me to songs like ’15’ and ‘You Belong with Me.’ Suddenly, I'm getting these broadcasts, in the form of Taylor Swift, straight from the hearts of girls. It was a delightful phase with Rose. It lasted, I don't know, four or five years. I enjoyed every second of it. I’m sad it's over. And,” he says, “I still love Taylor Swift.”

about Taylor Swift

• Taylor Swift, grief therapist? How my late husband's Swiftie legacy brings our family comfort
• The problem with Taylor Swift's "I Hate It Here" is that it's regressive, not reflective
• Taylor Swift in the tortured poet’s workshop

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a senior writer for Salon and author of " A Series of Catastrophes & Miracles ."

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QuillBot AI Review: Everything You Need to Know (2024)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving quickly, and new AI tools and platforms are constantly appearing. In an era where clear, concise writing is highly coveted, AI writing tools are becoming increasingly crucial. One such impressive technology is QuillBot AI . Starting as a simple paraphrasing tool, QuillBot has become a robust AI writing assistant that symbolizes a significant stride in AI content optimization. This review thoroughly explores QuillBot AI, focusing on its key features, pricing structure, and strengths and weaknesses.

• 1 What is QuillBot AI?
• 2 How Quillbot AI Works
• 3.1 1. The Paraphraser
• 3.2 2. The Grammar Checker
• 3.3 3. Summarizer
• 3.4 4. Citation Generator
• 3.5 5. QuillBot Plagiarism Checker
• 3.6 6. The Translator
• 3.7 7. Quillbot Extensions
• 4 QuillBot AI Pricing and Plans Review
• 5.1 Pros of Using QuillBot AI
• 5.2 Cons of Using QuillBot AI
• 6 How QuillBot Compares to Other Similar Tools
• 7 Should You Use QuillBot? (The Verdict)
• 8 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is QuillBot AI?

QuillBot AI is a leading AI writing companion and paraphrasing software designed to help anyone elevate the quality of their writing. At its core, it functions as one of the best AI rewriter tools to edit, rephrase, and enhance content like a professional.

It presents various features, including grammar checking, plagiarism detection, and content summarization. As such, QuillBot AI delivers substantial benefits for academics, essayists, and writers. Creating high-quality professional content can be time-consuming, and Quillbot streamlines the process using AI to improve your writing quickly, offering real-time suggestions and one-click solutions. Plus, it is an all-in-one solution that replaces the need to invest in multiple tools, making it cost-effective.

The versatility of the software caters to a diverse audience. While students can utilize its various writing tools, professional writers can efficiently collaborate and summarize lengthy text. If you want to improve your writing process, whether writing an email, an essay, or a long-form blog article, you will find Quillbot AI to be a valuable addition to your writing toolkit. It can revolutionize your writing process to produce surprising results.

How Quillbot AI Works

You can access QuillBot by visiting their online platform on their website . You don’t need to create an account; you can use a free version of QuillBot with limitations. Once you are there, you will see the available tools in the left sidebar. Click any of the tools to launch the user interface for each.

Each tool will have a consistent layout with different features that you can use to start refining your content. For example, when using the Grammar Checker, you can copy and paste your content into the user interface. QuillBot will readily analyze your text, pinpointing broken sentences and grammatical errors you can fix with a single click.

And the other other tools share the same easy-to-use interface and functionality. For instance, the Summarizer makes condensing long-form content or essays easy. Paste your text to generate a summary of key points. Additionally, it features a plagiarism checker, which helps identify and fix plagiarized content to ensure the originality of your content.

QuillBot’s AI functions by learning from datasets. Comprehending grammar, spelling, punctuation, tone, sentence structure, and readability, these datasets serve as knowledge accumulations. So, when users regularly disregard a specific suggestion, the AI adjusts to present more contextually relevant alternatives.

Breaking Down QuillBot AI Features

QuillBot AI offers several features for easy and effective content organization. We’ll delve into these features now.

1. The Paraphraser

QuillBot AI includes a paraphrasing tool. It empowers writers to rephrase text while preserving its central message. It’s an ideal tool for students and aspiring authors, requiring no account signup. Options for ‘Fewer Changes’ or ‘More Changes’ are available, with premium users getting maximum adjustments.

Paraphrase Modes

QuillBot AI assists users in paraphrasing and refining text. It employs seven unique modes, each tailored to specific objectives, to enhance the quality and readability of written content. Whether striving for clarity, professionalism, creativity, or conciseness, QuillBot AI offers a mode to suit your needs.

Here is an example sentence I added to the paraphraser text input area:

“It was a tough match. After three hours of immense struggle, I was able to get the job done.”

1. Standard Mode

Standard Mode serves as the default setting. It balances modifying the text for clarity and fluency while preserving the original meaning. The result is a refined text that maintains its natural flow and readability.

After clicking the Rephrase button, QuillBot swiftly provided a paraphrased output in Standard Mode. It merits noting that the level of paraphrasing hinges on the level of synonyms you set in the Synonyms bar at the right of the Modes bar above the content. The higher the level, the more liberty you give QuillBot to change the words of the original content.

The ensuing result was generated with a low Synonyms bar:

“It was a challenging game. I had to struggle for three hours before I was able to finish the task.”

The following result was generated with a maximum level of Synonyms:

“It was a challenging game. I had to battle for three hours before I was able to finish the task.”

With just one sentence, you can see that only one word changed, but with larger blocks of content, you will see that QuillBot will make more word changes with a higher level of synonyms.

2. Fluency Mode

In Fluency Mode, QuillBot AI ensures that the text is grammatically sound and genuinely readable. It makes minimal changes, primarily correcting grammar and providing the text sounds natural. Synonym substitutions are kept to a minimum, preserving the original meaning.

We paraphrased the same content in Fluency mode . It generated the following output:

“It was a difficult match. I completed the task after three hours of intense effort.”

3. Formal Mode

Formal Mode is the ideal choice for those working in academic or professional contexts. It transforms the text to sound more polished and professional, making it suitable for business reports, academic papers, and formal documents.

We paraphrased the same content in Formal Mode . It generated the following output:

“ It was a difficult match. After three hours of arduous effort, I was able to complete the task. ”

4. Academic Mode

Then, we paraphrased the same content in Academic Mode . Unlike the other modes, it doesn’t have any Synonyms bar. Instead, it seemed to give the content more details and wording suitable for academia. It generated the following output:

“ The contest was challenging. Following a prolonged period of three hours, characterized by significant exertion and effort, I successfully completed the task at hand. ”

5. Simple Mode

Simple Mode simplifies the text, making it easier to understand and more accessible to a broader audience. It is an excellent choice when clarity and straightforward communication are essential.

We paraphrased the same content in Simple Mode . It generated the following output:

“ It was a hard game. I was able to finish the job after three hours of hard work. ”

6. Creative Mode

Creative Mode is the way to go if you’re looking to unleash your creativity and generate entirely unique content. This Mode substantially changes the text, potentially altering the original meaning. It’s a valuable tool for content creators seeking a fresh spin on their writing.

We paraphrased the same content in Creative Mode . It generated the following output:

“ That was one intense contest. It took me three hours of relentless effort, but I finally completed the task at hand. ”

7. Expand Mode

Expand Mode is perfect for those aiming to increase the length of their text. It adds words and details while retaining the original meaning, making it valuable for projects requiring a higher word count.

We paraphrased the same content in Expand Mode . It generated the following output:

“ It was a difficult match to watch. I had to put in a lot of effort for three hours before I was finally successful in completing the task. ”

Then, we produced an output with a high level of Synonyms as follows:

“The contest was a challenging one. I was able to finish the work, despite the fact that it took me three hours of intense effort.”

8. Shorten Mode

Shorten Mode comes to the rescue when you need to reduce the overall word count while maintaining the essence of your text. It trims unnecessary words and phrases, delivering a concise version of your content.

Lastly, we paraphrased the same content in Shorten Mode.  It generated the following output:

“ The match was hard. I finished after three hours of intense struggle. ”

Paraphraser Statistics

The ‘Statistics’ feature offers insights into text complexity and readability. It aids writers in adjusting their style to the desired tone and audience. Premium subscribers unlock tonality analysis, which assesses reader perceptions to enhance persuasive writing.

I have used the same content as the previous one in the “Fluency” mode. It has generated the following statistics.

The Statistics of the generated content are based on the following aspects:

• Average words in a sentence
• Average Syllables in a word
• Readability
• Sentence Count
• Character Count
• Percent Change
• Longest Unchanged Words

Paraphraser Settings

The “Settings” feature in the Paraphraser tool provides options to control how you want your content to be paraphrased and how you want the results to be displayed on the interface. In terms of paraphrasing the content, you choose the following:

• Paraphrase quotations
• Use contractions
• Prefer active voice

Under the Interface options, you can select the following:

• Use yellow highlight
• Show tooltips
• Show legend
• Show changed words
• Show structural changes
• Show the longest unchanged words

Overall, these settings do seem to give users more control and help them identify changes to their content much easier.

Paraphraser Compare Modes

Compare Modes is a valuable feature exclusively available to premium users, offering a comprehensive view of how a sentence is transformed across different modes within the platform. This feature enables users to evaluate and choose the most suitable rendition for their content by comparing various paraphrased versions. To access Compare Modes, locate and click on the dedicated icon in the settings bar on the right side of the page.

Once activated, Compare Modes opens a sidebar on the right-hand side of the screen, displaying the original sentence before paraphrasing and the results generated by all available modes simultaneously. The system defaults to the effect produced by the Mode in which the sentence was paraphrased. You can easily click the “Select” button next to the desired text to select your preferred sentence, seamlessly replacing the paraphrased sentence in your results. Additionally, you can further modify individual sentence results by clicking on circular arrow icons or making copies of them with a simple click on the copy icon. This powerful feature empowers users to fine-tune their content according to their specific needs and preferences, streamlining the content creation process.

Paraphraser History

By accessing the history feature, you can go through all the previous content you have modified. In my case, I checked my history, and it showed the last text paraphrased. It also shares the date and time when the content was modified.

The “Tone” feature in QuillBot AI paraphraser allows users to control and tailor the emotional and stylistic tone of their paraphrased content. With this feature, users can choose from various preset tones, such as casual , unfriendly , wordy , complex , and unclear . It ensures that the paraphrased text aligns perfectly with the desired style and intent. Whether you need your content to sound professional and academic or friendly and conversational, the Tone feature empowers you to achieve the right mood for your writing.

Paraphrasing for Different Languages

Quillbot AI supports 23 different languages for paraphrasing purposes. Not only does this make the tool more accessible, but it also comes in handy for making tweaks to the content generator by Quillbot’s translator tool.

2. The Grammar Checker

Quillbot AI offers a user-friendly and free Grammar-checking feature that doesn’t require signing up. When you paste your text into Quillbot’s editor, it identifies and highlights grammatical errors, including punctuation and spelling. With a convenient Fix All Errors option, you can swiftly correct multiple issues simultaneously. This Grammar Checker enhances writing precision and consistency. It quickly pinpoints potential errors in red, simplifying the editing process. This real-time underlining and instant correction feature saves writers time and improves productivity.

For instance, here is an example sentence I added to the grammar checker text input area:

“ Manchester United signed Sofyan Amrabat on a season-long loan move from Fiorentina. The Morocco midfielder has been desperate to join Erik ten Hag’s team since getting linked to the Red Devils in June. However, Manchester United’s plans differed on Deadline Day as they wanted to sign Fulham’s Joao Palhinha instead. ”

After copy-pasting the text into the Grammar Check, it will detect all the potential errors within the content. By putting your cursor on the underlined words, it will show you the errors individually.

Once you remove all the errors, it will provide you with the correct grammatical content. It will generate the following content.

“ Manchester United signed Sofyan Amrabat on a season-long loan deal from Fiorentina. The Morocco midfielder has been desperate to join Erik ten Hag’s team since getting linked to the Red Devils in June. However, Manchester United’s plans were different on Deadline Day, as they wanted to sign Fulham’s Joao Palhinha instead. ”

Furthermore, it seamlessly integrates with Quillbot’s Paraphrase tool, offering a comprehensive writing experience without needing an account. Its grammar-checking feature is valuable for writers seeking error-free, professional content.

3. Summarizer

Quillbot AI provides a Summarizer tool that condenses lengthy texts or articles into concise summaries, making it invaluable for students, researchers, and professionals.

Users can choose between Short and Long summarization options to control the level of detail. The Short summarization offers a brief overview, ideal for quickly grasping the central ideas or skimming through multiple articles. In contrast, the Long outline provides a more comprehensive summary, suitable for in-depth analysis or a deeper understanding of the text.

Quillbot AI’s Summarizer utilizes natural language processing to extract critical information while preserving the original context. It offers two summarization types: Key Sentences and Paragraph modes.

For instance, I added a block of content to the summarizer text input area. Using the Key Sentences feature, the tool has created five articulate points that summarize the content.

Changing the Summary Length can increase or decrease the depth of those points.

Selecting the Paragraph mode will provide a summary of the content in paragraph form.

Like the Key Sentences mode, the length of the summary can be changed by adjusting the Summary Length .

This feature streamlines research, study, and content review processes, enhancing productivity and comprehension for users across various fields.

4. Citation Generator

QuillBot’s Citation Generator is a valuable tool that simplifies the often complex process of citing sources in academic and professional writing. It allows users to choose from various citation styles and formats, ensuring compliance with specific guidelines and educational requirements. This feature dramatically reduces the potential headache associated with accurate source attribution.

It supports common APA, MLA, and Chicago styles, covering reference types like books and websites. With an intuitive interface, it swiftly generates in-text and complete citations, labeled and exportable to Microsoft Word. By automating this process, QuillBot’s Citation Generator saves users time and ensures proper crediting of sources, benefiting those involved in research and academic writing projects.

5. QuillBot Plagiarism Checker

Quillbot AI provides a plagiarism checker, which is a premium feature. It eliminates the need for external tools to verify content originality. Premium users can paste their content into the checker, receiving results within minutes, indicating if the content is unique or plagiarized. Premium members can scan up to 20 pages per month with this tool, making it suitable for various types of content, including research papers.

Its plagiarism checker stands out by accommodating research paper plagiarism checks, scanning up to 20 pages (approximately 5000 words) monthly. Consequently, it proves to be a valuable resource for essayists and academic writers, ensuring the integrity of their work.

Plagiarism detection is based on identical words , minor changes , paraphrased words , and omitted words .

6. The Translator

QuillBot AI provides its users with a Translation feature, allowing them to translate text into over 30 languages, making research and writing accessible across language barriers. It offers ad-free translation of up to 5,000 characters at once, includes integrated writing tools, and provides quick and accurate translations. The best part is that it’s free, enhancing convenience and accessibility for writers and researchers.

As a test, I added a block of content in the German language. The translator automatically detected it as German.

Then all you need to do is select the language you want it translated to on the right and click the Translate button.

7. Quillbot Extensions

The tool offers three convenient extensions and applications to enhance your writing experience across different platforms.

QuillBot Chrome Extension

The QuillBot Google Chrome extension is a valuable tool for online writing. It seamlessly integrates with your web browsing, allowing you to check grammar, paraphrase, and summarize online documents (Google Docs), emails, and social media posts. Moreover, it ensures your writing is polished and error-free across the internet.

QuillBot for Word

If you’re working offline in Microsoft Word, this extension empowers you to access the full capabilities of QuillBot. It assists you in crafting high-quality documents, reports, and essays, ensuring your writing is clear and concise, even when you’re not connected to the internet.

QuillBot for macOS

For Mac users, QuillBot offers a browser-free desktop application. This standalone tool simplifies the writing process, providing a smooth and efficient writing experience on your macOS device. Moreover, it’s perfect for those who prefer a dedicated desktop application for their writing needs.

QuillBot AI Pricing and Plans Review

QuillBot AI provides three different pricing options to suit different needs and budgets.

The Basic (Free) Plan allows you to experiment with the tool before attaining its subscription. With it, you can paraphrase 125 words. It provides Standard and Fluency modes with limited use of the Synonym Slider. Moreover, you can summarize up to 1,200 words through the Summarizer mode.

The premium version of QuillBot AI allows unlimited words for the Parphraser, more writing style modes, and up to 6,000 words in the Summarizer. It also provides access to Plagiarism Checker, Paraphraser History, and Compare Modes.

You have the choice of three different payment plans for premium. The Annual Plan costs $8.33 monthly, with $99.95 billed every 12 months. The Semi-Annual Plan costs $13.33 monthly, with $79.95 billed every six months. The Monthly Plan costs $19.95 per month. By subscribing to either of these premium subscriptions, you can paraphrase unlimited words in Paraphraser. The Summarizer will allow you to summarize up to 6,000 words, and you can fully use the Synonym Slider.

Pros and Cons of QuillBot AI

As we delve deeper into our comprehensive review of QuillBot AI, it becomes imperative to assess the advantages and disadvantages of this sophisticated language processing tool. While this tool boasts various features and capabilities, no technology is without its strengths and weaknesses.

Pros of Using QuillBot AI

• A free plan is available, and there’s no need to sign up.
• There is a refund policy in place.
• Extensions for Microsoft Word, Google Chrome, and macOS are readily available.
• You can access a free Language Translator.
• The option to upgrade makes it very affordable to access additional features.
• An app for content summarization is available for free.
• Additionally, there is a free Grammar Checker app provided.

Cons of Using QuillBot AI

• Only two writing modes are available for free.
• OpenAI GPT AI writing is unavailable.
• There is no AI content detection feature.
• Manual intervention is usually required.
• Both free and paid plans have character limitations in place

How QuillBot Compares to Other Similar Tools

QuillBot AI offers valuable features for text enhancement, including effective paraphrasing and translation. Its free plan is a budget-friendly option, making it accessible to a broad audience. When compared to Grammarly , QuillBot outshines Grammarly’s ability to rephrase content. However, Quillbot’s grammar-checking capabilities fall short of Grammarly’s robust editing features.

Tools like Copy.ai and Rytr AI may offer more comprehensive solutions for advanced AI content generation than QuillBot. These alternatives excel in generating content from scratch, making them suitable for various writing needs.

Regarding accessibility, QuillBot stands out with extensions for Microsoft Word, Google Chrome, and macOS. This enhances its usability and integration into daily writing tasks. It also eliminates the language barrier, whereas Grammarly, Copy.ai, and Rytr AI primarily focus on English.

Ultimately, choosing these tools depends on your specific requirements and budget. QuillBot is a reliable option for text enhancement, while other tools may be better suited for advanced AI content generation and comprehensive grammar checking.

Should You Use QuillBot? (The Verdict)

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Essay: The West Misunderstands Its Own Far Right

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The West Misunderstands Its Own Far Right

The right-wing parties poised to take power aren’t populist. they’re something much worse..

The triumph of populist parties such as the French National Rally (RN), Alternative for Germany, and Brothers of Italy in the recent elections for the European Parliament seems like an inflection point in Western politics. It suggests that the European Union’s most powerful states could soon be led by populist parties. French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for elections to the National Assembly might lead to cohabitation, should the RN win a majority and elect a far-right prime minister. Former U.S. President Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans have a better-than-even chance of winning the U.S. presidency by the end of the year.

To understand the challenge posed by these far-right parties, they need to be properly named. Not labeling them “populist” would be a good place to start.

In contemporary usage, populism is a term deployed by centrist commentators to claim a monopoly on political common sense for the moderate middle—an objective-sounding word for extremism and excess in the same way as centrism is a synonym for sensible moderation. But the currency populism has gained thanks to this rhetorical maneuver has been bought at the expense of coherence and precision.

The term populism derives from a political movement in the southern and western states of the United States in the late 19th century. Agrarian cooperatives and trade unions in this region founded a political party in the early 1890s called the People’s Party. The party demanded the government become more responsive to its rightful owners, the people. This sweeping rhetoric in favor of democratization was central to the eponymous historical movement that birthed populism. It is an integral part of movements that can be properly described as populist, like Peronism in Latin America.

But the way the term is now used in the West suggests instead that populism is a political style, not an ideological position, which can be used to describe the idiom of both right-wing and left-wing movements. Trump and Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage are routinely described as populists.

The argument for this conflation is that both tendencies are defined by their hostility to the institutions, conventions, and expert elites that sustain liberal democracies. Populism, left and right, is said to be an expression of illiberal democracy undomesticated by the rule of law. This left-right dyad is actually a threesome, because the institutions and conventions that populists are allegedly hostile to are embodied by the moderate center. This middle ground is the vantage point from which populists become visible. The problem with this centrist god’s-eye view is that it obscures both the differences between left and right and the nature of the threat posed by the latter.

French far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen gives a speech in Paris, circa 1973. Alain Nogues/Sygma via Getty Images

Populism became part of the European discourse in the 1980s when French political scientists like Pierre-André Taguieff began to use the term “ national-populism ” to describe the far-right National Front led by Jean-Marie Le Pen. Anton Jäger, a historian of populism, argues that populism was initially used in France as a pejorative term, but once journalists got hold of it, its academic lineage gave reportage and analysis an air of neutrality “different from the semantic overkill associated with terms like fascism or the extreme right.” By the 1990s, the leaders of the National Front looking to escape their neo-fascist past had embraced national-populism as a self-description. According to Jäger, this twist in the intellectual history of a term “transformed the [National Front] from a fascist party to a populist one.”

The extension of the term to left-wing political movements suggested that the center was threatened by extremists from both wings of politics. It was an unpersuasive argument because it was untrue. It’s hard to see Sanders and Corbyn as the left equivalents of Trump and Farage if only because their political careers have been lived out in conventional mainstream parties where their left-wing pieties were a traditional part of the ideological spectrum contained by those parties.

Corbyn’s euroskepticism has a long history on the Labour left, dating back to Tony Benn’s opposition to the United Kingdom’s membership in the European common market, the EU’s lineal ancestor. Sanders’s calls to reform Wall Street, audit the Federal Reserve, break up banks classed as “too big to fail,” and tax the “1 percent” are the stock-in-trade of the Democratic left. For these to be classed as populist in the aftermath of the crash of 2008 tells us more about the dogmas of ideological centrism than it does about populism. The self-serving centrist use of the term populism to describe right- and left-wing movements has lent a veneer of respectability to right-wing extremists and eased their entry into the political mainstream.

A supporter of Italy’s right-wing Lega Nord party wears a shirt with the face of former U.S. President Donald Trump in Pontida, Italy, on Sept. 17, 2023. Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images

Trump, Farage, Narendra Modi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Viktor Orban, Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, Marine Le Pen, Giorgia Meloni, Mahendra Rajapaksa, Min Aung Hlaing, and Alice Weidel aren’t populists; they are majoritarian nationalists. Every one of them has the same goal: to take the nominal majorities in their countries (defined by race or religion) and turn them into self-aware, supremacist majorities, determined to remake their nations in their own image and to reduce religious and ethnic minorities to the ranks of second-class citizens or worse.

The historical font of majoritarian nationalism is not populism, but Hitler’s National Socialist party. The Holocaust disqualified majoritarianism from the political mainstream in postwar Europe. The Cold War, in turn, froze the nationalist imagination on both sides of the Iron Curtain. But Nazism’s master concept of a majoritarian nation-state built on the scapegoating of “inferior” minorities remained an inspiration to supremacists elsewhere. M. S. Golwalkar, the chief ideologue of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organization of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), held up Hitler’s treatment of minorities as an example for Indians to follow.

Indians are more sensitive to the significance of majoritarian nationalism than their Western counterparts for historical reasons. Late colonialism and the prospect of self-determination forced anti-colonial intellectuals to actively imagine the post-colonial nation-state. Colonized nationalists tended to mimic European models. They invoked language and religion to legitimize the nations they wanted to build.

The only decolonized states that refused an explicitly majoritarian nationalism and founded formally pluralist nation-states to accommodate their diversity were India and Indonesia . “Formally” is doing a lot of work here, because in several unspoken ways India and Indonesia deferred to the sensibilities of their religious majorities from the early years of their histories as republics. Their constitutions, though, rejected the idea of an established faith. Indonesia is arguably the less interesting of the two because it was for many decades an authoritarian state. India was the only post-colonial state in Asia to combine democratic practice with a rhetorical commitment to a homegrown pluralism that it defined as secularism.

Supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi hold his portraits as they celebrate vote-counting results for India’s general election in Bengaluru on June 4. Idrees Mohammed/AFP via Getty Image

The systematic uprooting of this pluralism by the BJP and Modi made Indians acutely aware of the existential threat that majoritarianism poses to liberal democracy. They had witnessed firsthand the use of institutional and vigilante violence to hack out a harshly Hindu nation. Still, the threat from majoritarianism wasn’t always obvious to Indian commentators; they had to be educated into it by India’s experiences in the 21st century. It wasn’t until well into the first decade of this century that the term majoritarianism achieved currency.

Before that, Indians used a term that, like populism, obscured more than it revealed. The term was “ communalism ,” a peculiarly Indian political coinage that described the weaponization of religious community for political ends. Communalists came in different flavors; there were Muslim communalists whose parties sought to represent only the Muslim interest and there were Hindu communalists whose parties addressed themselves only to Hindus. There were minority communalists and majority communalists.

But it was the triumph of Modi that forced the recognition that a communalized majority had the demographic weight to reimagine and reconstitute India in a way that wasn’t available to a minority. Majority communalism was best understood as majoritarianism, the nationalism of a supremacist majority. If South Asian commentators were relatively quick to understand this, it was because they had the intellectual “advantage” of being adjacent to the savage majoritarian violence that ravaged the recent history of the subcontinent. The Gaza-like destruction of Tamil areas in northern Sri Lanka and the violent ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims from Rakhine State in Myanmar underlined for them the bloody logic of majoritarianism.

From Lucknow, Lahore, Colombo, Kathmandu, Dhaka, or Yangon, it’s obvious that the violence visited on Gaza and the dehumanization of Palestinians in the West Bank grows out of a project of majoritarian supremacy.

Supporters of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni gather in Rome on June 1. Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images

The Western nation-state’s failure to name or confront majoritarianism has helped the far right mainstream itself. The once-fringe but now respectable notion that the West’s white Christian natives are being replaced by foreigners via legal and illegal immigration is the ideological foundation for the hegemony of the right. The popular appeal of majoritarian parties has pulled centrist parties like Sweden’s Social Democratic Party and France’s Renaissance to the right on immigration, to the point where their policy is nearly indistinguishable from the positions of far-right parties. Even Britain, Europe’s most successfully multicultural country, has Labour, a social-democratic party, criticizing the Tories for not doing enough to reduce immigration.

Tough talk about immigration is a form of dog whistling, whether it comes from a ruling majoritarian party like the Brothers of Italy or a centrist one like Britain’s Conservative Party. Stephen Bush writing in the Financial Times notes that Meloni’s government hasn’t brought illegal immigration down; she has actually increased quotas for overseas workers. How could she do otherwise? Italy has one of the worst demographic deficits in the world. But to prove her hard-line credentials, she has made it legal to detain an undocumented migrant for 18 months.

Bush points out that an honest plan to restrict immigration would entail a public willingness to raise taxes to fund the services that immigrants provide or a public commitment to curtail them. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer haven’t made that case because they know that the voting public might not want immigrants, but it does want better care homes, a more efficient National Health Service, cheap deliveries, and low taxes. In the absence of candor or a willingness to make the case for immigration, muscular centrist rhetoric about limiting immigration piggybacks on majoritarian prejudice. The massive gains made by majoritarian parties in the recent European Parliament elections suggest that the center’s bid to steal the far right’s lines isn’t working.

Palestinian supporters march in front of Big Ben in central London, on May 28, 2024. Benjamin Cremel/AFP via Getty Images

The now-mainstream concept of “ Fortress Europe ” isn’t only about keeping foreigners out—it’s indistinguishable from surveilling and disciplining resident immigrants within. Dog whistling about Muslims is now respectable in Europe because centrist parties and commentators do it, too. The massive marches in London pressing for a cease-fire in Gaza were criticized across the political spectrum for allegedly intimidating members of Parliament. The speaker of the House of Commons excused his violation of parliamentary convention by citing his anxiety about the safety of MPs. Articles in the New Statesman and the Guardian , organs of the center-left, cited in this connection the factoid that three-fourths of all extremist violence in Britain was the responsibility of Islamists. The willingness of social-democratic governments—Germany is a case in point—to use the Gaza protests to put their Muslim citizens on notice is a warning that the majoritarian right might be knocking on an open door.

It isn’t hard to imagine how these tropes about unreliable minorities might be used by neo-fascist parties within a whisker of office in the major nations in Europe. Europeans who believe that internecine violence on a South Asian scale is unlikely in Europe should think back on the genocidal majoritarian violence in Serbia and Bosnia 30 years ago.

Given the backlash faced by single-issue protests like Black Lives Matter and the Gaza encampments, a Trump presidency will amplify the sense of white grievance that put him center stage in U.S. politics. Given his track record of singling out Muslims for discriminatory treatment, the post-Gaza political landscape will be the perfect setting for a Trumpian reassertion of the Judeo-Christian values of a righteously white republic. “Making America great again” would almost certainly entail putting uppity minorities in their place again.

The West is now circling the same abyss as the non-West. France’s (and Europe’s) allergy to visible religious difference in the name of laicité is not different in principle from China’s determination to Sinicize the Muslim Uyghur. Switzerland’s ban on minarets echoes the zeal of China’s Han commissars for remodeling mosques. To continue to describe Trump and Le Pen as populists is to trivialize their historical significance. They are, like South Asia’s bigoted majoritarians, heirs to the blood-and-soil nationalisms of interwar Europe.

The difference is that this time around Muslims are the designated Other. Marine Le Pen has achieved mainstream respectability by walking the RN away from her father’s trademark antisemitism and toward Islamophobia. The reason she swapped scapegoat minorities so easily is that all majoritarianism needs is a minority to mobilize against; any minority will do. After Sri Lanka’s Buddhist-nationalist state bombed the Tamil minority into submission at the end of the civil war, it segued without missing a beat to demonizing Sri Lanka’s Muslim minority.

If the West is to avoid the violence foretold by recent South Asian history, its commentariat should be terrified that majoritarian parties and politicians are making the running in politics across Europe and the United States. Its progressive and centrist parties should learn from their Asian counterparts that stealing policies from the majoritarian right does not buy them time. Europe’s public intellectuals should be trying to make the cast-iron case for welcoming young migrants into a graying continent. Most urgently, the West’s political elites should stop being complicit in majoritarian fever dreams before they congeal into a rancid common sense.

Mukul Kesavan is a writer and columnist based in Delhi.

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This Clarence Thomas Dissent Reveals His Favorite Tactic for Constitutional Mayhem

This is part of  Opinionpalooza , Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. Alongside  Amicus , we kicked things off this year by explaining  How Originalism Ate the Law . The best way to support our work is by joining  Slate Plus . (If you are already a member, consider a  donation  or  merch !)

Justice Clarence Thomas is a master at the art of bogus history—rewriting the past to give the Constitution a new, dubious meaning that happens to align with the Republican Party platform. Even by his own lofty standards, the justice outdid himself in Moore v. U.S. , last week’s major tax case. Thomas’ dissent is a masterwork of partisan historical revisionism, manipulating reality so seamlessly that an unsuspecting reader might actually think he is telling the truth. He isn’t, not even close: Thomas’ goal in Moore is to eviscerate the 16 th Amendment, which legalized the federal income tax in 1913. And, as is so often the case, the justice marshals his argument by diminishing a progressive constitutional amendment as some illegitimate affront to the Framers’ original, divinely inspired design. At this point, it is unclear whether Thomas even acknowledges the full validity of the amendments that made this nation more equal and egalitarian. He is, at a minimum, committed to reading many hard-fought post–Civil War constitutional reforms out of the law altogether.

Conservative attorneys manufactured Moore as a preemptive challenge to a potential future “wealth tax” on affluent Americans’ net assets, including personal property. They seized upon an obscure 2017 provision of the Trump-era tax cuts that taxed shareholders of U.S.–owned corporations located overseas by collecting money on undistributed income. These lawyers argued that the tax was unconstitutional under the 16 th Amendment, which allows Congress “to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived.” The word income , they argued, has a “realization requirement”—meaning that the money must reach a taxpayer’s pockets before the government takes a cut of it. This theory would forestall a wealth tax, since Elon Musk, for instance, hasn’t yet made money on the tens of billions of dollars in Tesla stock he owns.

The Supreme Court wound up ducking the “realization” issue altogether, holding simply that a company’s undistributed income can be attributed to its shareholders. Thomas wrote an angry dissent chastising the majority for “ignoring” the larger question. He embarked upon a journey through a version of history that had not, in fact, occurred, to shrink the 16 th Amendment down to a “narrow meaning” that only “slightly altered” the original Constitution. In the process, he elevated a muddy accommodation for slavery over a signal triumph of the Progressive Era. That’s business as usual for our amateur historian in chief.

Thomas’ sleight of hand revolves around the direct tax clause of the original Constitution. This provision was part and parcel of the three-fifths compromise, which counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for purposes of representation and certain taxes. There was, at the time, a common form of taxation that imposed a “head tax” on each individual taxpayer. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention called this a “direct tax.” In exchange for counting slaves as three-fifths of a person with regard to representation—boosting its share of seats in Congress—the South agreed to count slaves as three-fifths of a person with regard to any future “direct tax.” The slave states demanded and received another safeguard: Any direct tax had to be “apportioned” among the states according to their population (with each slave counting as three-fifths of a person). This system would impose wildly disparate tax burdens on Americans and has always been seen as basically impossible.

Thus, as professor Bruce Ackerman has definitively shown , the direct tax emerged as a sordid trade-off with the slave states, giving “a fig-leaf for antislavery Northerners opposed to the explicit grant of extra representation for Southern slaves.” Yes, the South got extra representation because of its slaves, but it also had to pay more taxes—except that the delegates all knew that new direct taxes were highly unlikely, in part because of how this compromise was structured. In fact, they weren’t even sure what a direct tax might look like , beyond the head tax imposed on individuals. Famously, by James Madison’s account, when one delegate asked the convention “what was the precise meaning of direct taxation,” nobody answered . In 1796 the Supreme Court clarified that a head tax was “direct,” as would be an express tax on land. But nothing else qualified.

Pause here and turn to Thomas’ account, which elides almost all the above. According to the justice, the direct tax clause was part of a “delicate” constitutional balance carefully hammered out at the Constitutional Convention to protect states from an overbearing federal government. Dismissing the clause’s roots in slavery, Thomas claimed that it embodied “federalism principles” designed to give “state governments a fiscal safe haven against expanding federal authority.” The limitation, by his telling, was meant to temper “the destructive force of the federal taxing power,” preventing “unjust taxes” that intrude on state sovereignty. He totally whitewashes the real basis of the clause—a fierce dispute between North and South over the Constitution’s accommodations for slavery.

Somehow, it gets even worse. Turning back to actual history, the Supreme Court understood the direct tax clause in its accurate historical context until 1895, when it abruptly struck down the federal income tax in a notorious case called Pollock . As professors Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath illustrate in their book The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution , the court of this period was dead set upon enshrining the legal supremacy of wealthy individuals and corporations. To that end, it redefined the phrase direct tax to encompass income for the first time. And because it was functionally impossible to apportion a tax among the states, the decision essentially outlawed any federal income tax.

There was not much law in Pollock : Rather, the five justices in the majority based their decision on overt hostility toward a fairer tax system. Justice Stephen Field wrote that the income tax constituted “class legislation” that discriminated against rich people, indistinguishable from a special tax on Protestants or Jews. Field framed the tax as a violation of the equality principles enshrined in the post–Civil War amendments. This claim was especially perverse because, as Justice John Marshall Harlan pointed out in dissent, the direct tax clause was rooted in slavery, and the postwar amendments were designed to rid the Constitution of the institution’s stain.

Predictably, Thomas embraces Pollock as the correct reading of the original Constitution. But Americans of the era disagreed. Progressive reformers mobilized to ratify the 16 th Amendment, one of their most enduring victories, in 1913. The amendment marked a “ massive political repudiation ” of the court’s oligarchical constitutionalism, overruling Pollock and handing Congress the sweeping power to tax income “from whatever source derived.” To Thomas, however, the 16 th Amendment was barely a footnote, a “narrow” change that “left everything else in place, including the federalism principles bound up” in the direct tax clause. (These are “principles” that Thomas just made up.) In Thomas’ account, this groundswell of nationwide support for the income tax—culminating in a grueling and successful crusade to amend the Constitution—was a mere technical tweak with extremely limited effect.

Which leads to the justice’s final, most antidemocratic attempted move in his Moore dissent: transforming the 16 th Amendment from a populist expansion of Congress’ taxing power into a novel restriction on that power. Recall that the amendment allows taxation of income, “from whatever source derived.” There is a wealth of evidence that lawmakers included this phrase to ensure that courts would not artificially narrow the definition of income —a word that was, at the time , widely understood in broad terms , encompassing both realized and unrealized gains . Yet Thomas spurned the historical record in favor of some characteristic sophistry: The word derived , he wrote (without any evidence or support), is a “near-synonym” for realized . It therefore “points to the concept of realization” as an extratextual limitation on Congress’ taxing power.

Responding to Thomas’ opinion, the legal historian Fishkin derided this word game as “an absolute classic of the genre” in which Thomas excels: “to read language that is quite obviously on its face intended to be as broad as possible as instead narrowing language.” The purpose of that phrase, he told me, “was not the word derived . It was the word whatever . It meant—because this was a point of contention at the time—that even income from land could be taxed. It didn’t matter what source the income was derived from. That’s the straightforward and obvious meaning.” Fishkin added, “The word derived happens to be the one he’s playing games with, but really, the text doesn’t matter here. There’s always a word somewhere you can use. The point is that he wants to put in a realization requirement.” And Thomas, ostensibly a committed textualist and originalist, brazenly manipulated both text and history to do it.

There is a profound irony here. The Supreme Court’s 1895 decision in Pollock was obviously wrong , invalidating more than three decades of the income tax. The American people ratified the 16 th Amendment to overrule Pollock . Yet the court initially refused to accept the amendment: It defied the will of the people in 1920’s Eisner v. Macomber , elevating Pollock ’s repudiating interpretation of the vestigial direct tax clause over the 16 th Amendment to limit income taxes once again. Macomber was a hallmark of the court’s Lochner era , when it regularly rewrote the Constitution to favor moneyed interests. It abandoned that approach several years into the New Deal, in the face of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s court-packing threat. With Thomas’ Moore dissent, history is repeating itself. The justice wants to turbocharge the direct tax clause (like the Supreme Court did in 1895) and mutilate the 16 th Amendment (like the Supreme Court did in 1920) to reduce the tax burdens on the ultrawealthy. Why? Legal realists can debate the impact of his billionaire friends on Thomas’ jurisprudence.

But there’s another, more explicit bias at work: He simply does not grant constitutional amendments the same respect that he gives to the original Constitution. His jurisprudence is inspired by “natural law,” a theory that interprets the Constitution as, essentially, a divine revelation to the founders that codifies rights bestowed by a higher authority . Under this view, the product of the Constitutional Convention was nearly perfect, minus its accommodation for slavery—yet, as his Moore dissent illustrates, the justice is willing to downplay or write off this glaring defect when necessary.

Thomas will embrace the 14 th Amendment’s equal protection clause to outlaw affirmative action , but he otherwise gives remarkably short shrift to the Reconstruction amendments. These amendments fundamentally altered the balance of power between states and the federal government, giving Congress vastly more authority to enforce a panoply of civil rights. But Thomas routinely interprets them as marginalia at best— shooting down , for instance, Congress’ prerogative to stamp out race discrimination in voting. In these opinions, the justice insists on enforcing aspects of the original Constitution that, he claims, allow states to suppress civil rights and civil liberties without federal interference. The Reconstruction amendments, in his preferred narrative, fall away as an irrelevant relic rather than the radical transformation of the Constitution that they were meant to be.

In Moore , the 16 th Amendment gets the Thomas treatment. His (misleading) account of the amendment’s enactment largely erases the progressive reformers who pushed it over the finish line—as if, to his mind, they have no legitimate role to play in the story of our founding charter. They are written off as interlopers who foolishly tinkered with our God-given Constitution, inserting errors that must be corrected by black-robed rulers who just know better. It’s a frighteningly arrogant approach to judging, one that effectively closes off amendments as a way to fix the court’s mistakes. The Constitution begins with the declaration “We the People” and invites future generations to help build a “more perfect union.” But to Thomas, the wealthy white men who wrote those words got almost everything right the first time, and the people must never be trusted to build upon their flawed work.

• The exponential growth of solar power will change the world

An energy-rich future is within reach

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I t is 70 years since AT&T ’s Bell Labs unveiled a new technology for turning sunlight into power. The phone company hoped it could replace the batteries that run equipment in out-of-the-way places. It also realised that powering devices with light alone showed how science could make the future seem wonderful; hence a press event at which sunshine kept a toy Ferris wheel spinning round and round.

Today solar power is long past the toy phase. Panels now occupy an area around half that of Wales, and this year they will provide the world with about 6% of its electricity—which is almost three times as much electrical energy as America consumed back in 1954. Yet this historic growth is only the second-most-remarkable thing about the rise of solar power. The most remarkable is that it is nowhere near over.

To call solar power’s rise exponential is not hyperbole, but a statement of fact. Installed solar capacity doubles roughly every three years, and so grows ten-fold each decade. Such sustained growth is seldom seen in anything that matters. That makes it hard for people to get their heads round what is going on. When it was a tenth of its current size ten years ago, solar power was still seen as marginal even by experts who knew how fast it had grown. The next ten-fold increase will be equivalent to multiplying the world’s entire fleet of nuclear reactors by eight in less than the time it typically takes to build just a single one of them.

Solar cells will in all likelihood be the single biggest source of electrical power on the planet by the mid 2030s. By the 2040s they may be the largest source not just of electricity but of all energy. On current trends, the all-in cost of the electricity they produce promises to be less than half as expensive as the cheapest available today. This will not stop climate change, but could slow it a lot faster. Much of the world—including Africa , where 600m people still cannot light their homes—will begin to feel energy-rich. That feeling will be a new and transformational one for humankind.

To grasp that this is not some environmentalist fever dream, consider solar economics. As the cumulative production of a manufactured good increases, costs go down. As costs go down, demand goes up. As demand goes up, production increases—and costs go down further. This cannot go on for ever; production, demand or both always become constrained. In earlier energy transitions—from wood to coal, coal to oil or oil to gas—the efficiency of extraction grew, but it was eventually offset by the cost of finding ever more fuel.

As our essay this week explains, solar power faces no such constraint. The resources needed to produce solar cells and plant them on solar farms are silicon-rich sand, sunny places and human ingenuity, all three of which are abundant. Making cells also takes energy, but solar power is fast making that abundant, too. As for demand, it is both huge and elastic—if you make electricity cheaper, people will find uses for it. The result is that, in contrast to earlier energy sources, solar power has routinely become cheaper and will continue to do so.

Other constraints do exist. Given people’s proclivity for living outside daylight hours, solar power needs to be complemented with storage and supplemented by other technologies. Heavy industry and aviation and freight have been hard to electrify. Fortunately, these problems may be solved as batteries and fuels created by electrolysis gradually become cheaper.

Another worry is that the vast majority of the world’s solar panels, and almost all the purified silicon from which they are made, come from China. Its solar industry is highly competitive, heavily subsidised and is outstripping current demand—quite an achievement given all the solar capacity China is installing within its own borders. This means that Chinese capacity is big enough to keep the expansion going for years to come, even if some of the companies involved go to the wall and some investment dries up.

In the long run, a world in which more energy is generated without the oil and gas that come from unstable or unfriendly parts of the world will be more dependable. Still, although the Chinese Communist Party cannot rig the price of sunlight as OPEC tries to rig that of oil, the fact that a vital industry resides in a single hostile country is worrying.

It is a concern that America feels keenly, which is why it has put tariffs on Chinese solar equipment. However, because almost all the demand for solar panels still lies in the future, the rest of the world will have plenty of scope to get into the market. America’s adoption of solar energy could be frustrated by a pro-fossil-fuel Trump presidency, but only temporarily and painfully. It could equally be enhanced if America released pent up demand, by making it easier to install panels on homes and to join the grid—the country has a terawatt of new solar capacity waiting to be connected. Carbon prices would help, just as they did in the switch from coal to gas in the European Union.

The aim should be for the virtuous circle of solar-power production to turn as fast as possible. That is because it offers the prize of cheaper energy. The benefits start with a boost to productivity. Anything that people use energy for today will cost less—and that includes pretty much everything. Then come the things cheap energy will make possible. People who could never afford to will start lighting their houses or driving a car. Cheap energy can purify water, and even desalinate it. It can drive the hungry machinery of artificial intelligence. It can make billions of homes and offices more bearable in summers that will, for decades to come, be getting hotter.

But it is the things that nobody has yet thought of that will be most consequential. In its radical abundance, cheaper energy will free the imagination, setting tiny Ferris wheels of the mind spinning with excitement and new possibilities.

This week marks the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere. The Sun rising to its highest point in the sky will in decades to come shine down on a world where nobody need go without the blessings of electricity and where the access to energy invigorates all those it touches. ■

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This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “The solar age”

Leaders June 22nd 2024

• AI will transform the character of warfare
• Emmanuel Macron’s project of reform is at risk
• How to tax billionaires—and how not to
• Javier Milei’s next move could make his presidency—or break it
• India should liberate its cities and create more states

From the June 22nd 2024 edition

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