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This is the editorial from the eighteenth print issue of The White Review, available to buy here    In 1991 the poet and novelist Eileen Myles, interviewed in this eighteenth print issue of The White Review, ran for office as president of the United States It seems unlikely that any editor of this magazine will ever run for high office, though given the current chaos on both sides of the Atlantic it would be foolish to make any firm predictions In the presumably permanent absence of direct legislative influence, we are faced with the pressing question of how a magazine can contribute to a democratic process which seems everywhere under threat The temptation is to throw the meagre weight of this small institution behind policies and strategies that reflect our own convictions, and to transform it into a mouthpiece for the dissemination of ideas that collectively communicate a coherent and actionable political position   Yet, as this country recovers from the most divisive political event in a generation, we might pause to consider the responsibilities of the magazine as a space for open dialogue The campaign to remain in the European Union failed in large part because it presumed the self-evidence of its case and shied away from antagonistic discussion in favour of a browbeating insistence that the political establishment (and such institutions as the IMF) knew what was right for our communities In Brexit’s wake it became routine to hear expressed (and rare to hear challenged) the conviction that an outright majority of the population were incapable of making a decision in their own interests, when even the most cursory glance at that dysfunctional, autocratic union revealed good (which isn’t necessarily to say sufficient) reasons for leaving The implication that a large part of the citizenry does not deserve the franchise is deeply troubling   In retrospect, it might be that the overwhelming consensus of the literary and art establishments in opposition to Brexit was a symptom of weakness rather than strength Our magazines and art spaces have always operated as arenas for the exchange of disruptive ideas, forums for what the