I have come to the conclusion that in both the USA and Britain, our political situation is deeply irrational and I have pondered this for some time. This irrationality in the US is manifest in the popularity of Donald Trump and in Britain by the campaigns to leave the EU and to blame immigration for every ill in society. In both societies there is a dominant ideology being erected on the scapegoat mentality and a populist call to make the nation great again that is attracting many people. That is, there is a deep seated sense within large sections of the population that the nation, whether it is the US or Britain, is weak, failing and vulnerable. It is in these situations that people, throughout history, have turned to the charismatic leader, the saviour, the messiah. People have a deep sense that something is badly wrong, don't really know what it is, but want it put right as soon as possible, and the saviour appears, tells them what the problem is (which means he/she tells them what they want to hear and gives them something to focus their hatred and anger on), and how he/she will cure it. Unsurprisingly people respond positively to such a scenario. The problem of course is the Mexican, the Muslim, the foreigner, the EU, the immigrant etc. etc. and this appeal to the irrationality of hatred answers all fears and questions and provides obvious solutions without the bothersome problem of having to think any further, or perhaps examine yourself, your own faults, and the faults that lie within your own society.
The problems highlighted by the dominant opinion in both the USA and Britain are of course a barefaced lie, just as the proffered solutions are a lie as well. If you start from a false hypothesis you must inevitably reach a false conclusion. What we have in both societies are predictions of social and economic collapse which of course are none of our own making, followed by pledges to revitalise and rebuild the economic and social world, to make the USA (Britain) great again. This is a message people who are alienated from the dominant order, who feel marginalised and in a sense, to be disenfranchised, are desperate to hear. The Bible tells us that where there is no vision the people perish, and within both the USA and the UK are very many people who have no vision, who see no real solutions. The sociologist Emile Durkheim gave us the concept of anomie to explain this feeling of helplessness, or normlessness.
The political messiah offers dreams of glory and power and in both societies we are witnessing the phenomenon of people emerging whose behaviour and rhetoric demonstrate that they are both quite mad and bad, but nevertheless exert incredible influence by identifying a strong sense of resentment, by exploiting fears about national identity and survival and who encourage the idea that without immediate and drastic remedial action the nation is going to go under. It is fear of the future and the comfort that comes from someone who tells you they will make it all right that is driving the political narrative in both societies. A common denominator with both the Trump and Brexit campaigns is that none of them have as yet told us how they are going to bring about this wonderful transformation they are offering, and both of them are getting away with it. It is simply enough for the moment to pin the blame on the 'others' the outsiders, the skivers and scroungers, the pesky immigrants.
The problem is, however, of our own making and is the result of surrendering to, and failing to challenge, a lie, the lie of the free market, the lie that is individualism, the lie that the problem is an interventionist state and the redistribution of wealth through health, education and social services, with people who poison the mechanisms of market freedom, the unions, people on benefits, economic and social regulation etc. What has caused our problems is not regulation, but deregulation, the deregulation of the financial system, the deregulation of the economic and social structure, which has brought a complete lack of oversight and accountability, allowing a criminal elite to get away with theft, fraud and outright embezzlement, it is the complete failure to manage by the people elected and appointed to manage the affairs of state. It is not trades unions, but deunionisation, which has allowed for the destruction of wages, conditions of service, rights, for the imposition of slave like conditions for millions. Our nations have been poisoned by the very people who offer themselves up as the saviours, the messiahs, a ruling elite that has successfully destroyed the civilised order with the purpose of reshaping it to meet their own anti-social and anti-democratic vision. These are the people who have commodified the whole of society, who have put a price on everything and who have determined that the only thing of any value is that which can make profit, the Donald Trumps of the world, the Nigel Farages, the Iain Duncan Smiths, the Michael Goves, the people who support, maintain and entrench the very economic system that is the fundamental cause of the nation's problems, people who openly spew hatred for unions, working people, the unemployed, the disabled and people on benefits. Just today, the British government announced that it would not be implementing a mass vaccination of British children for meningitis because it was not 'cost effective.' Thus, the British have been reduced to accepting that we can simply put a price on our children's health and expose them to a horrendous disease because we consider the cost isn't worth it, whilst supporting the same government who is going to spend £100billion on renewing Trident nuclear weapons. You genuinely could not make that up.
However, the appeal of the Donald Trumps and Boris the Spiders of this world is in the way they convince all of the unfortunate and disadvantaged that the blame lies with other people for their problems and how the only people who have the answers are those who caused their problems in the first place and who are in the position they are in because of their support for, and exploitation of, free market neoliberalism. I apologise for the length of this post but again remind you that you have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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