The modern world is not a very fun place to be a moderniser. But after a decade of frustration, despair and defeat, those of us on the British centre left should at least have been more emotionally prepared than most for the bonfire of optimism that 2016 has brought to politics. Our buffer zone of cynicism should have been strong enough, our gallows humour honed to perfection. But I cannot be alone in having been hit particularly hard by the victory of Donald Trump last week. Perhaps I have taken this so personally because in the wreckage of Hillary Clinton’s campaign is buried at lot of what I thought I understood about politics and about people.
Because the truth is, if the last few years have been dispiriting for modernisers, they have also been strangely luxurious. We may have lost again and again, but none of these losses have really shaken the core of our faith in our politics. As Stephen Bush puts it in his podcast, we have long argued that while we may have an activist problem we do not have an electorate problem. We have shaken our heads in sorrow at those who do not understand the public as we do. No matter how badly things have gone, it has been an extraordinary comfort to believe that the road to victory runs pretty much through your own politics. Now I am not so sure.
As I snap out of my comfortable certainty, many are moving the other way. For some Jeremy Corbyn supporters it seems that nothing can happen in 2016 that does not confirm that their view of politics is essentially right. The establishment is in retreat. Neoliberalism has failed the workers. The anaemic liberal centre is dead and they, the people that time forgot, are the inheritors of the earth. It must be very exciting. So exciting in fact that some have come dangerously close to welcoming the election of a tyrannical fascist to the position we used to describe as the leader of the free world. They dance in the ruins of ‘the establishment’ oblivious to how many of the crumbling pillars were supporting the things they profess to care about.
There is nothing for any part of the left to welcome in the dawn of this new age of intolerance. Left economic populism is not the answer to assuaging the rampant ethnonationalism stalking our politics, nor is there any evidence that Corbyn is going down particularly well among the legions of the ‘left behind’ that are supposed to be about to sweep him to power. But while it easy to say why the far left are wrong, it is harder than ever to say what the right approach is. If we are the keepers of some kind of modernising flame, we have to be honest about the great swathes of darkness that it no longer illuminates.
So what then for the centre left in the age of the extremes? The complacent dead end politics of the far left is not the answer. And the new movement of so-called post-liberals offer little more than smugness and surrender, encouraging us to nod along when we are told that all this feminism and multiculturalism has just gone a bit too far. For my part I have never been less sure of what needs to be done, but more motivated to do it. One thing I have resolved is that, as I loosen my grip on what I think I know, I will hold my values and beliefs more tightly. I urgently want to understand this new right populism, but I have no desire to compromise with anyone who votes for far right populists or repeats their hateful rhetoric. If anything, I think we need to do the opposite, to make a more full blooded case for the kind of society we want to live in. To defeat those who preach this hatred we must understand its appeal, empathise with the frustration people feel but never waver in the condemnation of the expression of this frustration or give tacit approval to the idea that intolerance is a justifiable response to economic anxiety.
‘Their world is dying, ours is being born’ was the prophecy from one of Le Pen’s advisers last Wednesday morning. Maybe they are wrong and all this will pass. Maybe the scales will fall from people’s eyes as Trump flounders and Brexit runs aground. Maybe this is the last dying scream of the white nationalists in the face demographic change and a new generation of young liberals who treat them with disdain. Maybe. If 2016 has taught us anything it is to assume the worst. We are staring at an existential threat to everything we believe in and have fought for. We must face tomorrow with fresh humility but with renewed determination.
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Tom Railton is a member of Progress. He tweets @TomRailton1
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Trump’s victory shows that Labour’s Tory-lite rebels are wrong: elections are not won from the “centre ground”. Jeremy is right to insist on a socialist programme.
The American Democratic Party has been defeated in the person of the most economically neoliberal and internationally neoconservative nominee imaginable. From the victory of Donald Trump, to the Durham Teaching Assistants’ dispute [which is on course to devastate the largest Labour Group in local government next year, taking the longest-standing Labour council in the country to No Overall Control], the lesson needs to be learned. The workers are not the easily ignored and routinely betrayed base, with the liberal bourgeoisie as the swing voters to whom tribute must be paid. The reality is the other way round. The EU referendum ought already to have placed that beyond doubt.
There is a need to move, as a matter of the utmost urgency, away from the excessive focus on identity issues, and towards the recognition that those existed only within the overarching and undergirding context of the struggle against economic inequality and in favour of international peace, including co-operation with Russia, not a new Cold War.
It is worth noting that working-class white areas that voted for Barack Obama did not vote for Hillary Clinton, that African-American turnout went down while the Republican share of that vote did not, and that Trump took 30 per cent of the Hispanic vote. Black Lives Matter meant remembering Libya, while Latino Lives Matter meant remembering Honduras.
The defeat of the Clintons by a purported opponent of neoliberal economic policy and of neoconservative foreign policy, although time will tell, has secured the position of Jeremy Corbyn, who is undoubtedly such an opponent. It is also a challenge to Theresa May, to make good her rhetoric about One Nation, about a country that works for everyone, and about being a voice for working people.
David Lindsay, 2017 council candidate and 2020 parliamentary candidate, Lanchester, County Durham; @davidaslindsay
George Galloway, former Member of Parliament for Glasgow Hillhead (1987-1997), Glasgow Kelvin (1997-2005), Bethnal Green and Bow (2005-2010), Bradford West (2012-2015); @georgegalloway
Neil Clark, journalist and broadcaster; @NeilClark66
Ronan Dodds, writer, broadcaster and activist, Newcastle upon Tyne; @RonanDodds
James Draper, writer, broadcaster and activist, Lanchester, County Durham
John Mooney, writer, broadcaster and activist, Lurgan, County Armagh; @FitzjamesHorse
Mietek Padowicz, writer, broadcaster and activist, Newcastle upon Tyne; @scurvytoon
Aren Pym, writer, broadcaster and activist, West Cornforth, County Durham; @arenthelefty
Adam Young, writer, broadcaster and activist, Burnopfield, County Durham; @JustALocalSerf
http://davidlindsay2020.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/a-basket-of-deplorables.html
You say it is easy to say why the left is wrong yet nobody on your wing of the debate ever manages to do so. You sneer, you insult, you assert your superiority yet never actually say anything about why you are right about anything. Your analysis of why Corbyn will lose begins and ends with your assertion that he will. In fact the closest to an explanation of your views I ever hear is that those of your opinion won’t vote for him because he won’t win and he won’t win because you won’t vote for him.
The author doesn’t realise that to be “Progressive” is to be anti-democratic and authoritarian; I have come to regard ‘Progressives” as fascist in nature.
They insist on shutting down debate using political correctness, and deny any democratic movement as ‘populism’; even the new kid on the block of terms, ‘post-truth’, is brought out to imply that anybody opposing their worldview is lying.
The author may well immerse himself in the warmth of his superior mindset, but if he comes out onto the street to try and ram his fascism down our throats – he will be met with a just as determined resolve.
I will never give up my love of democracy and free speech, and it seems that he is determined to impose his restrictions upon me – it will all end in tears.