America [6]

We lost.

We didn’t just lose an election in America. We don’t just happen to be living at a time where the current incumbent is a little further to the Right than we would like him to be. The current incumbent is always a little further to the right than we would like him to be. As a matter of fact, as a socialist and a democrat I think the current incumbent ought to be a little further to the right than I would like them to be.

Pete Seeger said that politics was like a see-saw. On one end there was this huge heavy weight, on the other, a big old empty bucket. And every day, a few kids walked past the see-saw, and put a teaspoon full of earth in the bucket. And for months and months it didn’t make any difference. But one day, of course, there was enough earth in the bucket, and the balance shifted, and the light end went down and the heavy end went up. And everyone said “How did the see-saw move so suddenly?”

I am not quite sure I agree with him. I think maybe there are buckets at both ends, and both sides are perpetually spooning earth into them; and the see-saw stays more or less on an even keel. Sometimes more in one direction than the other. But it is always the people at the heavy end who say “But if you like balance; if you think an even keel is the best for everybody, then the best thing you can do is obviously to stop filling your bucket altogether.”

As long as politics is a matter of opinion—even of deeply held and significant opinion—then absolutely we should go for balance. I want a 100% supertax and you want to abolish tax altogether: so we compromise. Tax is lower than I would like it to be and higher than you would like it to be. When my side gets in it goes up a little bit, but when your side gets in it goes down a little bit. A compromise is by definition an arrangement which both sides are equally annoyed with. I want to abolish the armed forces and you want universal conscription, and we end up with a bigger army than I would have liked and a smaller army than you would have liked, with increased defense spending when your lot are in and military cutbacks when my lot are in.

This is even true of some hot-button issues. Not every one who thinks that some criminals ought to be killed is a bloodthirsty psychopath, although most bloodthirsty psychopaths think that some criminals should be killed. People on both ends of the see-saw agree that there should be due process and proportionality and that we definitely shouldn’t kill innocent people. Not every American who agrees with the Second Amendment is a psychotic trigger-happy cowboy. Questions around gender and sexuality are more problematic: there is no room for compromise around a marginalised group’s existence. But I would still be in favour of sitting down and saying “Well, JayKay, what specifically is your issue and how might it be addressed?”

It could even be that both sides were advancing in broadly the same direction by widely divergent routes. It could even be that the distinction was never between the Left and the Right but between the idealists and the pragmatists. We both want wars to come to an end: it’s just that I think we should get rid of nearly all our weapons tomorrow; and you think that unilateral disarmament would probably trigger Armageddon almost straight away. It’s only the psychopath in the corner who thinks that peace is for wusses and the true emancipation of the human spirit comes through conflict. We both want to abolish poverty; it’s just that I think that we could have a wealth tax and some judicious welfare spending and no child would go to bed hungry ever again; and you think that without a certain amount of competition we’d all go bankrupt and there would be nothing to eat for anyone. It’s only the psychopath in the corner who thinks that poverty and starvation are positively good things because they weed out the unproductive work units.

The trouble comes when the psychopath in the corner takes control of an entire continent.

Why did we lose?

The Left is inclined to see every victory as decisive; the Right are inclined to see every defeat as a temporary setback. Britain voted (decisively) to remain in Europe in 1975: the Right spent the next forty years spreading myths about Europe and trying to overturn the decision. Britain voted (narrowly) to leave Europe in 2016, and the Left said “that concludes the argument; we can’t ever possibly talk about rejoining because will-people.” Britain decided (gradually) that some men happened to prefer men and some women happened to prefer women and that’s no-one’s business but theirs. The Left said “Good, we’ve finally won that argument, let’s move on to something else”; the Right said “How can we insidiously and subtly undermine the public’s trust in gay people, so that in ten, twenty, or thirty years we can re-criminalise them?” In 1966 the Left said “Thank God: we have finally consigned the gallows to the dark ages, where it always belonged”. The Right continued to run “string ‘em up” headlines every time some murdering happened. [1] And so on, and so forth. Schools are chaos because of this strange and temporary blip which prevents teachers from hitting children with big sticks. [2] Mosques and curry houses are exotic and temporary incursions into a naturally mono-cultural high street. The BBC have, for some ulterior motive, banned black-face comedy, but one day soon we will get our sense of humour back.

The Left lost because once the bucket was full, they thought they could go home and go to bed, and didn’t notice that the populist authoritarian ethno-nationalists had teaspoons of their own.

Not all Americans are part of the MAGA cult. As we have seen, a bit more than half of them are not. It is alarming that one in ten Brits supported Nigel Farage’s ludicrous Dad’s Army cos-play club at the last election, but reassuring that nine out of ten of us did not. And not everyone who voted for Trump, and not everyone who might vote for Farage, is necessarily a populist authoritarian ethno-nationalist. They may merely be stupid. They may have fallen victim to clever propaganda. They may have decided to vote for the authoritarian ethno-nationalist in order to give the other side a jolly good kick up the pink knickers.

From now on, all Germans will be wise. From now on, all Germans will be good. From now on, all Germans will be Nazis. But only two out of these three will ever be true of a single person.

Anne Frank said that she believed that, despite it all, “people” were really good at heart. What did she mean? Did she charitably believe that the Nazis who wanted to kill her were good people? That there was some excuse for them because they honestly and truthfully believed that killing Jews was a good and noble thing to do? Would she have accepted the defense that the people doing the killing didn’t really mean it and were only obeying orders? Caiaphas was in his own mind a benefactor to mankind. Or did she mean that Nazism was an aberration and a corruption: that these people were not born monsters, but were coerced or misled or manipulated into becoming monstrous?

It makes a difference. I am inclined to think that if you hurt and belittle and abuse a child then that child will very likely grow up to be an adult who hurts and belittles and abuses children. And I believe that adults can be cured and educated and learn to do better. [3] I am inclined to think that all aberrant behaviour can be approached therapeutically. [4]

Frodo wanted to kill Gollum: Gandalf said that the elves were treating him with as much kindness as they could find in the noble hearts, and that an attempt to cure him should be made, even though it probably wouldn’t work. That’s your actual Tolkien, and far more “woke” than contemplating the possibility that some very short people might have dark skin.

But right here, right now, that abused and badly educated child who watched Andrew Tate videos while his granny was being turned out of her council flat is standing outside an asylum hostel with a Molotov cocktail shouting “Who the fuck is Allah?”

And I am not.

The plinth of That Statue still stands in Bristol. “The best and wisest of Bristol’s sons” it says. Either he knew what he was doing, or he didn’t. If he didn’t know, he wasn’t wise; if he did know and did it anyway, he wasn’t good.

Epicurus said the same thing about God.

I think that all Anne Frank meant was that although there are Nazis in the world, most people are not Nazis.

I am no longer completely sure if she was right.

[1]   I have no idea whether or not Lucy Letby dunnit, but if she were to be exonerated I would smile sarcastically at the “surely she of all people ought to be hung” department.

[2]   Schools are not chaos. No more than they have ever been.

[3]  It was truthfully said in my schooldays that the teachers who really did believe in hitting kids with big sticks—the ones who picked children up by their ears and made them kick balls between posts in their underwear—had been in the actual army in an actual war and in some cases in actual Japanese prisoner of war camps.

[4]  What, all?

Yes, all.

What all?

Well, nearly all.

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