The Tories have been in the grip of anti-intellectual hysteria since the days of Thatcher.
John Major, who in comparison to all other Tory Prime Ministers in the last 40 years was a paragon of decency and intellectualism, was utterly vilified by his own party for being pro-European.
No it isn’t.
You actually made quite a good case yourself as to why it is.
It’s more of a tragic comedy. It’s ridiculous how many in Britain, including in power, are so clueless as to how weak their bargaining position is. If it was a sit com the writers wouldn’t have tried to keep the joke going that long.
I don’t think that’s entirely the case. They’re dancing to the tunes of delusional reactionaries, and throughout history that has always led to disaster and collapse.
The ‘lower half of the electorate’ are rightly furious. Their economic prospects have gone from bad to worse with no hope of improvement. They are happy to knock over the apple cart in the hope that a few apples might roll in their direction. They think that elections are a joke and that it makes no difference who they vote for, which isn’t entirely true but you can see why people believe it.
And it is the reactionaries who are throwing them the red meat. They are the ones who call for the tearing down of institutions and the overhaul of government, and crucially they have the platform to call for it (Daily Mail, Fox News etc).
The electorate is fed up of the old centre’s bullshit, and rightly so. The spin, the corruption, the empty slogans, the outright lies amidst ever increasing personal debt and worsening public services has been more than enough to provoke them. It’s a question of who is offering them alternatives. The one thing people want to be sure of, it seems, is that they’re not voting for another lying politician.
Lower half in an intellectual sense maybe.
Especially Trump.
What you are describing really swung it for him. Hilary was just a revolting prospect in the rust belt areas. Any other democratic politician would have walked it. Sanders. Warren.
In the UK, it was completely the vote of a politically and economically unaware segment of the population. Welsh farming districts voted for it ffs. Places that would have nothing were it not for EU transfers.
Germany is the one country the UK could model itself socially on in many ways. The lower half in Germany are in a far better situation that their equivalent in the UK.
And they voted to side with right wing Tories.
The press in the UK is a horror show as well.
The electorate are fed up because their living standards are dropping , nothing to do with lies etc. The electorates in Europe , Ireland , US lived with lies when thing were better.
All the recent political shocks can be attributed to the global financial crash in 2007/2008.
What lies though?
In the states they voted in a loon who removed healthcare for the people with the lowest resources in society the first chance he had.
In the UK, they voted to leave an EU with some sense of social awareness in France and Germany. And get into bed with far right loons who question things like work time directives and labour laws.
There are legitimate grievances out there. Particularly the changing social contract that has existed since the war.
Like chickens letting in the fox into the hen house.
If you look at Trump and Le Pen for example, both of them could be described as tearing up the neoliberal consensus. The massive infrastructure projects, trade restrictions etc are a rejection of what has gone on for the last 3 decades. Melanchon who was only 2-3% behind Macron and Le Pen in Rd.1 also represents a complete rejection of that economic consensus.
The centre is not going to hold for much longer if there isn’t major economic reform in the West. For now it is crumbling but voters are holding onto hope that one of the less radical options isn’t a lying sack of shit. In France I think Macron is a last roll of the dice kind of guy. Not a politician but not a radical either. Personally I don’t see much reason for optimism in him but I hope he succeeds. Clinton was 100% a status quo candidate, but the fact that she still nearly won shows that the US electorate isn’t quite ready to flip over the apple cart either.
What will happen when the electorate discovers what a bullshitter Trump is? Even if he was an ingenuous legislator he couldn’t possibly deliver the miracles he promised, reversing decades of international trade agreements, bringing back extinct factories, transforming the health system etc. But not only is he not a genius, he seems massively ignorant of the basics and relatively ineffective when it comes to manipulating the legislature.
The electorate won’t go back to the centre. They’ll either demand more executive power to sweep away the political faction fighting, swing massively to the left, or vote for an even more hardline ultra-conservative. Unless things genuinely improve these earthquake elections are going to continue I think.
Lies !!! . Since the start of the Millenium to the crash, the US , British and Irish governments lied repeatedly . They won elections on borrowed money , they bowed to big finance and let it run a parallel economy , they entered wars on lies .
The alternative is probably worse but can you not see why this is happening .
The loss of the " social contract" is really a generation war where those born before the seventies are cutting off what was available to them .
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Written in a post WWI World. The more things change etc.
I’d agree with a lot of that.
You are looking at it through an Anglo-US lens though.
France and Germany in particular have an awful lot right.
I’m not sure people in the states are as anti the democratic party as has been made out.
Somebody like Warren would have made an excellent democratic candidate. With excellent credentials economic credentials and an understanding of what it is that has brought the UK and US to this point. I think Clinton was the preferred choice all the way along, with next to nothing to show for herself. She was completely toxic to a huge number part of the electorate.
The UK is fucked in my view. The Sunday Times trumpeted about the 150 billionaires living there. The 1000 people who have more than £100m.
In the UK and USA, I can see it completely.
Not France and Germany though.
I think it is more of an Anglo US issue.
Any other Democratic candidate other than HRC wins.
France is living on borrowed money and that has to stop TBH . Germany is thriving and helped by a rigged currency . Said rigged currency is still the elephant in the room.
The divide doesn’t seem as pronounced in Germany as it does in the UK.
Rigged currency maybe, but is it any more rigged than the dollar in alabama versus california?
Interesting times
But you’re forgetting that Trump has a catchy put down of a nickname for her. This stuff actually matters.
Theresa May’s haircut is bona fide major factor in her popularity and one that hasn’t yet been picked up upon by the media.
It’s a much smarter cut than she had when she became PM last July.
In today’s world, that kind of thing makes a big difference, as does getting snapped while holding a sandwich in an awkward pose.
Which makes you “unelectable”.
It’s the appeal to simpletons.
Bertie did it for years as well.
This is the sort of living conditions millions lived in in the 1950s in the UK
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/10/01/1412187966684_wps_1_These_images_are_supplied.jpg
There are no glorious days to hark back to in the UK unless you are upper crust.
A foreign owned media play these simpletons for fools.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/3401220/thumbs/o-ED-MILIBAND-SANDWICH-570.jpg
Sanders or Warren, or indeed any democrat other than Clinton, would have beaten Trump. If the Democrats weren’t such a shambles in the US, they should win every election. The simple reason is how the economic landscape has changed in the US over the past few decades. Roughly 50% of the population is now receiving government assistance of some form or another, so whatever percentage of them that vote should always vote Democratic, as they are the party who are most likely to continue or expand government assistance programs. Never mind the fact that a significant portion of the cost of these programs is being passed on to future generations.
Although socialism is still a toxic concept among much of the US electorate, and it would be used against Sanders or Warren, there are enough among the working population who don’t receive government assistance who would vote for any Democratic nominee other than Clinton. It’s remarkable that six months after the election, so many people still don’t get that the Democrats lost because of their appalling arrogance in running such a toxic candidate.
