One consequence of information overload in a digital age is an epidemic of “presentism”, meaning the assumption that everything is happening for the first time. With so much data to process from today, who has time for something as remote as yesterday?
Thus for many observers, confronted with the return of Donald Trump, a cut-throat leader of the world’s most powerful nation and a man perceived as overtly hostile to the Pope on multiple fronts, the presentist assumption might be that sales of anti-anxiety drugs right now must be flying off the shelves of the Vatican pharmacy.
