Annotated Edition

The Informer: Not What You Think

Where the world stands in 2026, and where it has stood before

Brian Demsey | Annotated edition | September 26, 2026

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Annotated edition, September 26, 2026. Every figure is footnoted to its source. Figures that move, such as oil prices and mortgage rates, are as of the dates given in the notes.

I am an informer. Not what you think. I don't rat on people, and I don't belong to The Information's club, although that would be a dream job. I inform. I have deeply ingrained values, opinions and, yes, prejudices. As an informer, I try my best to keep them out of what follows. You can judge whether I succeeded.

Someone asked me recently how today's world compares with the past: the politics of nations, the economies, the unrest, and the plight of the average person. It is a fair question, and the answer depends on which part of the picture you look at.

Key Points

Politics: back to 1978

The Varieties of Democracy Institute in Sweden, which maintains the largest dataset on democracy in the world, reports that global democracy has fallen back to its 1978 level. Autocracies now outnumber democracies, 92 to 87.1 Nearly three quarters of the world's people live under autocratic rule, and only about 7 percent live in liberal democracies.2 The institute says the world has never before seen so many countries sliding toward autocracy at the same time, and the slide now reaches established democracies: six of the ten countries newly identified as autocratizing are in Europe and North America.3

The historical echo is the 1930s, when mature democracies also backslid. The difference is method. Then it was marches and coups. Now it is gradual and legal: pressure on the press, the courts and civil society, one step at a time.

War: a norm is breaking

For most of the years since 1945, wars between nations were rare. Most fighting was civil war. That norm is eroding. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program, the standard reference on armed conflict, counted eight conflicts between states in 2025, up from two in 2023 and the most since record keeping began in 1946. It recorded 65 conflicts involving governments, also a record, and 13 that reached the level of war, with at least 1,000 battle deaths, the most since 1992. Roughly 244,600 people died in organized violence in 2025, the second-deadliest year since the Rwandan genocide.4

The economy: 1973 with less room to respond

The war with Iran that began on February 285 closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world's oil normally passes. Analysts have called it the largest energy disruption in recorded history.6 Brent crude peaked near $120 a barrel in March, and it was back above $100 in September after renewed attacks on shipping, at $104.67 on September 24.7

Anyone who remembers the 1973 embargo knows the pattern: an oil shock, rising prices, slowing growth. The International Monetary Fund now projects world growth of 3.0 percent for 2026, below the 3.7 percent average of 2000 to 2019, with inflation turning up again.8

What is different from 1973 is the balance sheet. Global public debt is now close to 100 percent of world output, the highest since World War II.9 In the United States, interest on the federal debt passed $1 trillion in the first eleven months of this fiscal year, more than any category of federal spending except Social Security.10 Governments are meeting this shock with far less room to cushion it.

Unrest: 1968 again

The Carnegie Endowment counts more than 113 significant antigovernment protests in over 60 countries in the past twelve months.11 Many are led by the young, from Nepal and Madagascar to Indonesia, Peru and India, and many are organized across borders. The complaints are familiar: corruption, jobs, the cost of living.12

The echo is 1968, when a large young generation took to the streets on several continents at once. The cautionary note from that era applies too. In Madagascar, youth protests toppled a government, and the military officer who then seized power appears to be consolidating it and sidelining the movement that made it possible.13

The average person: where the gloom breaks down

Here the historical comparisons stop working in the pessimist's favor. The World Bank estimates that about one person in ten lives in extreme poverty, under $3 a day.14 Two centuries ago, most of humanity did, and the share was far higher within living memory.15

The catch is that progress has stalled. The extreme poverty rate is only three percentage points lower than in 2015,16 and in the region stretching from the Middle East and North Africa to Afghanistan and Pakistan it is rising.17 In wealthy countries the strain is a squeeze rather than destitution: fuel, food, and a 30-year mortgage rate of 7.03 percent in the United States.18

Where religion fits

Religion runs through all of this, more as a marker of political identity than as a calming force.

The central war of 2026 is against a theocracy; its opening strikes killed Iran's Supreme Leader.19 Religious nationalism has become part of politics in countries as different as India, Turkey, Israel and the United States.20

Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center reports that government restrictions on religion remain near record highs, with 58 countries rated high or very high, and that religious hostility rose sharply in 2023, the latest year measured, driven by harassment of religious minorities and fallout from the Israel-Hamas war, including hostility toward Jews and Muslims.21

Underneath, the religious map is shifting. From 2010 to 2020, Christians remained the largest group but fell to 28.8 percent of the world's population. Muslims grew twice as fast as the world as a whole, mainly through birthrates. The religiously unaffiliated reached 24.2 percent, largely people raised Christian who left.22

You may have read about a religious revival among the young. The data show something narrower: a real increase in attendance among young men, to about 40 percent attending at least monthly, only modest gains among young women, and no broad national revival.23 The historical echo is 1979, when the Iranian revolution, the rise of the Moral Majority and a Polish pope brought religion back into politics all at once.

So, is it the 1930s or the 1970s?

The record says a bit of both, and neither. Politically and militarily, the world looks worse than at any time since the late 1970s, with real echoes of the 1930s. Economically, it resembles the 1973 oil shock, with governments carrying far more debt. But the material floor under the average person is higher than in any earlier era, which may explain why today's unrest is mostly about fairness and stalled progress rather than hunger.

That is the information. What you make of it is yours.

Notes

  1. V-Dem Institute, Democracy Report 2026: Unraveling the Democratic Era? (University of Gothenburg, March 2026). https://www.v-dem.net/publications/democracy-reports/
    Summary of the 92 to 87 count: Democracy Without Borders, "V-Dem report finds global democracy is back at 1978 levels," April 20, 2026. https://www.democracywithoutborders.org/41651/v-dem-report-finds-global-democracy-is-back-at-1978-levels/ ↩
  2. SweDev, "V-Dem Democracy Report 2026," April 13, 2026. https://swedev.dev/v-dem-democracy-report-2026/ ↩
  3. University of Gothenburg, "Democratic backsliding reaches western democracies, with U.S. decline 'unprecedented'," March 17, 2026. https://www.gu.se/en/news/democratic-backsliding-reaches-western-democracies-with-us-decline-unprecedented ↩
  4. Uppsala University, "UCDP: record number of conflicts between states," June 9, 2026. https://www.uu.se/en/press/press-releases/2026/2026-06-09-ucdp-record-number-of-conflicts-between-states
    Phys.org, "Number of conflicts between states reaches highest level since World War II," June 9, 2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-conflicts-states-highest-world-war.html ↩
  5. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "2026 Iran war," accessed September 26, 2026. https://www.britannica.com/event/2026-Iran-war ↩
  6. Al Jazeera, "Oil prices climb as Iranian demands cloud outlook for Strait of Hormuz," August 10, 2026. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/8/10/oil-prices-climb-as-iranian-demands-cloud-outlook-for-strait-of-hormuz ↩
  7. Wikipedia, "2026 to 2028 world oil market chronology," accessed September 26, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%932028_world_oil_market_chronology
    Fortune, "Current price of oil as of September 24, 2026" (Brent at $104.67 at 10 a.m. Eastern). https://fortune.com/article/price-of-oil-09-24-2026/ ↩
  8. International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Update, July 2026. https://www.imf.org/en/publications/weo
    International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook, April 2026: Global Economy in the Shadow of War (2000 to 2019 average; inflation outlook). https://www.imf.org/en/publications/weo/issues/2026/04/14/world-economic-outlook-april-2026 ↩
  9. IANS, "Global debt nears post-war record: IMF," September 11, 2026, quoting IMF Communications Director Julie Kozack. https://ianslive.in/global-debt-nears-post-war-record-imf--20260911073303 ↩
  10. Peter G. Peterson Foundation, "Interest Costs on the National Debt," updated September 16, 2026 ($1.02 trillion through August of fiscal 2026). https://www.pgpf.org/programs-and-projects/fiscal-policy/monthly-interest-tracker-national-debt/
    Congressional Budget Office, Director's Statement on the Budget and Economic Outlook for 2026 to 2036. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62050 ↩
  11. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Global Protest Tracker, updated September 9, 2026. https://carnegieendowment.org/features/global-protest-tracker ↩
  12. European Democracy Hub, "The 2025 Surge in Global Protests Is Continuing in 2026," July 28, 2026. https://europeandemocracyhub.epd.eu/the-2025-surge-in-global-protests-is-continuing-in-2026/
    Wikipedia, "Gen Z protests" (Nepal, India), accessed September 26, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen_Z_protests
    Columbia Global Freedom of Expression, Protest Monitor, September 3, 2026 (Indonesia). https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/updates/2026/09/cgfoe-protest-monitor-september-3-2026-issue-indonesia/
    Wikipedia, "2025 Peruvian protests." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Peruvian_protests ↩
  13. European Democracy Hub, July 28, 2026 (Madagascar). https://europeandemocracyhub.epd.eu/the-2025-surge-in-global-protests-is-continuing-in-2026/ ↩
  14. World Bank, "September 2026 Global Poverty Update: One in ten worldwide live in extreme poverty" (824 million people in 2024). https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/september-2026-global-poverty-update-from-the-world-bank--one-in ↩
  15. Our World in Data, "Share of population living in extreme poverty." https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-in-extreme-poverty ↩
  16. United Nations, The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026, Goal 1. https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2026/Goal-01/ ↩
  17. World Bank, "September 2026 Global Poverty Update: One in ten worldwide live in extreme poverty" (824 million people in 2024). https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/september-2026-global-poverty-update-from-the-world-bank--one-in ↩
  18. Freddie Mac, Primary Mortgage Market Survey, "Mortgage Rates Average 7.03%," September 24, 2026. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/09/24/3368592/0/en/mortgage-rates-average-7-03.html ↩
  19. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "2026 Iran war" (the February 28 strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei). https://www.britannica.com/event/2026-Iran-war ↩
  20. Pew Research Center, "Comparing Levels of Religious Nationalism Around the World," January 28, 2025 (India, Israel). https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/01/28/comparing-levels-of-religious-nationalism-around-the-world/
    Institute for Global Engagement, "The Rise of Populism: Implications and Complications for International Religious Freedom," January 26, 2026 (United States, India, Turkey). https://globalengage.org/portico/the-rise-of-populism-implications-and-complications-for-international-religious-freedom/ ↩
  21. Pew Research Center, annual study of global restrictions on religion, released June 15, 2026 (data for 2023). Summary: Religion Unplugged, June 15, 2026. https://religionunplugged.com/news/2026/6/15/religious-freedom-faces-growing-pressures-worldwide-pew-study-shows
    St. Louis Review, "Pew report shows more governments cracking down on religion," June 17, 2026. https://www.stlouisreview.com/story/pew-report-shows-more-governments-cracking-down-on-religion/ ↩
  22. Pew Research Center, "How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020," June 9, 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/06/09/how-the-global-religious-landscape-changed-from-2010-to-2020/ ↩
  23. Axios, "Religious resurgence stirs Gen Z," April 16, 2026, reporting a Gallup poll. https://www.axios.com/2026/04/16/gen-z-religion-poll-gallup
    Religion News Service, "The Gen Z revival being debated won't happen in churches that talk but don't listen," March 31, 2026 (Pew: no clear evidence of a revival). https://religionnews.com/2026/03/31/the-gen-z-revival-being-debated-wont-happen-in-churches-that-talk-but-dont-listen/ ↩

Sources

Brian Demsey writes from Capistrano Beach, California, and Spearfish, South Dakota.

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