declinist

plural declinists

1. A subscriber to declinism.

   1 more example

   Rather than accept this, declinists often explained things that did not happen, with explanations that did not work, based on bad history. Thus declinists insist that British R&D has always been low, the City always over-mighty, the country always in the grip of empire, the state under the imaginative control of classicists and historians rather than technocrats, that industry never stood a chance.

   2022 June 12, David Edgerton, “Yes, we’re in a bad way. But to wallow in myths of British ‘declinism’ won’t help us thrive”, in The Guardian

comparative more declinist · superlative most declinist

1. Believing in or tending towards declinism.

   But Fukuyama reminds us that the American zeitgeist of the late 1980s was declinist not triumphalist.

   2026 September 5, Ivan Krastev, “When the future ended”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10

   2 more examples

   Against a background of almost paralytic gloom and declinist talk, Vienna tried to take on Napoleon, breifly bhecked him at Aspern-Essling and then went down to absolute defeat at Wagram […].

   2013, Simon Winder, Danubia, Picador, published 2014, page 301

   As our first declinist candidate for president, Donald J Trump did at least express something new and true about the nature of our country.

   2016 November 14, Tom Engelhardt, “Through the gates of hell: Trump as America's first declinist president”, in The Guardian