Carrying On From Last Night

[poliphilo]

It feels as though all the energy has drained from the left while the right is buzzing.

After she interviewed the sparking young alt-right guy- Milo Yiannopoulos- on Channel 4 News last night, Cathy Newman turned to a young lefty activist. Where Milo was all ideas, ideas, ideas the lefty woman began her statement, "Um, I mean..." and the rest was similarly flaccid. One side has the wit and daring and the other has the jargon. It's no contest.

The left has occupied the intellectual and cultural high ground for a long time now and has grown lazy. Its wisdom is the received wisdom- a set of unexamined doctrines- passed as a package from brain to brain. It despises the opposition and no longer expects to be attacked by smart people- and when that happens it is totally unprepared.

Comments

[michael john grist (from livejournal.com)]

I think what you're talking about is confrontation and entertainment. The left has plenty of witty, charismatic people who confront and entertain, but they rarely try and call what they are doing news. They call it comedy and entertainment. I'm thinking of Stephen Colbert, Sam Bee, Bill Maher, John Stewart, John Oliver. When they do a bit designed to have humor in, as MY claims many of his statements are intended to have, they flag it clearly as humor. People laugh.

Just insulting people in a news forum then saying when you're called out on it- haha, it's a joke, has got a name. Bullying would be a kind interpretation. MY leads a jeering mob. If you don't think a jeering mob can lead to real world consequences, check out 'So You've Been Publicly Shamed' by Jon Ronson. That's not even political, but shows the impact words alone can have.

Also is nonsense that he touts facts as higher than feelings, then says facts alone are not enough, then denies the gender wage gap exists. Whaaat? He's like an aggressive Russell Brand for the bad guys.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The fact remains that in spite of all those leftish funny men Donald Trump is going to be the next President of the USA.

I'm reminded of something Peter Cook said when he was Britain's satirist in chief. I don't have the exact words but they were to the effect that he was proud to follow in the footsteps of all those wonderful satirists of the Weimar era who had managed to prevent the rise of Hitler.

I think the left has- temporarily- lost the plot. The long ascendancy of liberal ideas has bred a certain complacency- an avoidance of self-criticism, a blindness to the grievances of those who weren't benefiting from the status quo- and now the energy is with the right. If Trump's election were an isolated event one could say it was a fluke- or they put the wrong candidate up against him. But it's not just Trump it's Brexit too- and the rise of nationalism across Europe...

Mind you, I'm no longer happy with the terms "left" and "right". I don't think they fit the facts any longer.

[michael john grist (from livejournal.com)]

Yes, Trump certainly is the Trump card. In my view there's two things happening there.

On the one side, you've got MY and his ilk (obviously Trump also), who delight in just wreaking havoc, flaming SJWs, trolling the political correctness police. Trump wreaked plenty of havoc- with training right out of WWE. It tends to excite people who a- want entertainment in politics, and b- lean toward one of the bad -isms, like racism, sexism, etc..

And on the other side, often tied up inextricably, there's the economic message. Globalisation has hurt us middle-country whites! Look at us! Make TV shows about us! Help us! I tease, but yes, absolutely. It seems they need looking at. They need help. Bernie was promising them far more than Trump ever has, and perhaps he would have won if Clinton hadn't already had it sewn up.

Two separate sides. The first gets energy from the -ism -ists. The second is pure economy, and brings home the fat white middle. The first doesn't have to be tied to the second, and it shouldn't be in my view. That it is tied now, and Trump will be in the White House, doesn't mean he should be. Bernie would be so much healthier: all the economy stuff with none of the -isms.

So maybe globalisation ought to be slowed down a tad, and those who fell behind helped to catch up. Maybe Bernie had it right. If liberals just started thinking of poor whites as another minority group in need of protecting, then maybe those whites wouldn't be so angry anymore, and we can all go back to shutting out the -ists and MYs of the new world as we should, who've somehow managed to catch ahold of this wave.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's a good way of thinking about it.

I keep hearing that Sanders would have beaten Trump. I don't know if that's true, but I've little doubt that Hillary was the wrong candidate. I was reading an article by Dave Eggers yesterday where he was talking about going round the country before the election and talking to people who had happily supported Obama but had no enthusiasm for Hillary. I guess, in the event, a lot of those people didn't vote at all. Hillary- rightly or wrongly- was seen as an avatar for all that is wrong and hateful about the establishment. Eggers says he went through Pennsylvania and there were Trump posters everywhere and not a single one for Hillary. It was the same here for Brexit. Our part of the country was plastered in Leave posters and you never saw a Remain one. It's what I was trying to say about energy- sometimes all the enthusiasm is one way- and it's palpable. One side is all fired up and the other- though it may have similar numbers- is only lukewarm.