So said Issaac Newton and what is true of science is also true - it seems- of politics. While we have been bombarded by the news of 'populism' in a deregulatory sense from the media, it has been a focus soley on what is being called right wing populism. I do not like the way we talk of populism because every politician is a populist as much as an ideologue , but it is the term we are stuck with. What has been overlooked is the smashing of the old centre -left parties in Europe and - wait for it- even in America- and its replacement by 'populist' far left parties (France, Spain, Portugal , Italy, Greece) or far left groups within existing parties (UK, USA) .
I would guess that reporters now in their forties (and forty something women) came of age during the Blair and Clinton years , thus being stuck in the mould of the late nineties or early naughties of Clintonian third way politics and Blairite centralism, the embracement , but regulation of the free markets, combined with social liberalism was the order of the day . This was successful for that period as it summed it up perfectly. But today is a different world and people have reverted in instincts of tribal politics, because in a fearful world people are not interested in compromise, but security and familiarity. Why if you are committed to left or right philosophies would you want something that is like a statue compared to the 'real' thing? The answer is of course most people have a mixture of left and right views, hence centralism, but to the ideologically committed, purity is worth more than power. Compromise is treachery. That the media do not focus on the populist far left is easy. Like Corbyn's takeover of the British Labour party, the centralists hope to be able to hijack and influence policy from within. The hard left see them as useful idiots, providing they don't speak out too much. That is until they have control of nominating candidates and have power or their own where it counts- in Parliaments, Congresses and Assemblies.
What must be painful for centre -left people is to see their side being taken over by their own 'nutters' just as parts of the right have been swept aside for a far more full bloodied right wing stance. America is a good example of that. When Trump came to national attention, the Democrat hiracheary assumed that if they stuck with the centralism of the past and Clinton they'd win. Bernie Sanders was , like Corbyn, the plucky far left outsider. The Democratic party preferred Sanders , like Labour preferred Corbyn. Although in the end the Democrats got Clinton via the Party machine and lost, as Milliband lost in the UK. Trump came to power and the right shifted right. The left didn't stay centre left either. They have also shifted further left. So much so that in the UK we got Corbyn. In America, without a Parliamentary system, there isn't such a figurehead until election years. But we can see already that the Democrats are swinging leftward : In New York a self proclaimed socialist (not a 'liberal') Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez, a 28 year old Hispanic and fierce opponent of Israel, defeated the establishment incumbent and Senior Democrat (who was tipped to take over the party leadership in Congress) in a safe Democratic seat. Here in Britain , we wait for a purge of Labour moderates as the far left 'Momentum' continue their takeover of the Labour Party. We can see where this is leading, in so much as the politics of the future will be beyond the third way and revert back to type of two distinct red/blue choices. It will be then up to voters to decide who is the 'lesser of the two evils'.
I would guess that reporters now in their forties (and forty something women) came of age during the Blair and Clinton years , thus being stuck in the mould of the late nineties or early naughties of Clintonian third way politics and Blairite centralism, the embracement , but regulation of the free markets, combined with social liberalism was the order of the day . This was successful for that period as it summed it up perfectly. But today is a different world and people have reverted in instincts of tribal politics, because in a fearful world people are not interested in compromise, but security and familiarity. Why if you are committed to left or right philosophies would you want something that is like a statue compared to the 'real' thing? The answer is of course most people have a mixture of left and right views, hence centralism, but to the ideologically committed, purity is worth more than power. Compromise is treachery. That the media do not focus on the populist far left is easy. Like Corbyn's takeover of the British Labour party, the centralists hope to be able to hijack and influence policy from within. The hard left see them as useful idiots, providing they don't speak out too much. That is until they have control of nominating candidates and have power or their own where it counts- in Parliaments, Congresses and Assemblies.
What must be painful for centre -left people is to see their side being taken over by their own 'nutters' just as parts of the right have been swept aside for a far more full bloodied right wing stance. America is a good example of that. When Trump came to national attention, the Democrat hiracheary assumed that if they stuck with the centralism of the past and Clinton they'd win. Bernie Sanders was , like Corbyn, the plucky far left outsider. The Democratic party preferred Sanders , like Labour preferred Corbyn. Although in the end the Democrats got Clinton via the Party machine and lost, as Milliband lost in the UK. Trump came to power and the right shifted right. The left didn't stay centre left either. They have also shifted further left. So much so that in the UK we got Corbyn. In America, without a Parliamentary system, there isn't such a figurehead until election years. But we can see already that the Democrats are swinging leftward : In New York a self proclaimed socialist (not a 'liberal') Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez, a 28 year old Hispanic and fierce opponent of Israel, defeated the establishment incumbent and Senior Democrat (who was tipped to take over the party leadership in Congress) in a safe Democratic seat. Here in Britain , we wait for a purge of Labour moderates as the far left 'Momentum' continue their takeover of the Labour Party. We can see where this is leading, in so much as the politics of the future will be beyond the third way and revert back to type of two distinct red/blue choices. It will be then up to voters to decide who is the 'lesser of the two evils'.
No comments:
Post a Comment