by John Ward
It occurred to me last night that the most one can ever decently do is defend Donald Trump the President. I could never support his approach to civics, his personality, his appallingly gauche nouveau crudity, or his idiotic texting as if life was one long playground scrap.
I can support some of his policy ideas – less pc and more ‘Happy Christmas’ – and yet deride others: he doesn’t understand, for instance, the true landscape of American business in the 21st century, and his Mexican Wall is just irrelevant – because quietly, Uncle Tombama did all the remedial work for him on the border during 2015. As for the locker-room stuff, very little irks me more than men pretending they’ve never said similar things, or women insisting that somebody touched their elbow 11 years ago and it ruined their life.
Defending Trump comes easily to me because first, he is I think genuinely anti-Establishment….by which I mean the crypto-fascist LibLeft catechism of unnatural idiocy; and second, that same socio-media set have ganged up on the guy in the most awful, mobbist Stürm Abteilung way ever since he proved them wrong in November 2016. Having an infantile shit in the White House doth not unbalanced media fakery and Antifa excuse.
I don’t like bullying, and bullying the bully isn’t the answer: all that does is confirm bullying as a cultural norm. For the same reason, I despise Antifa and have little time for Momentum or Jeremy Corbyn. When Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party, I applauded it because the previous Opposition had been so metro-correct and inept, I genuinely feared for liberal democracy. With Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott, however, we would have a régime as controlling in its unconscious Stalinism as it would be naive in its economic collectivism.
But from time to time, I defend Corbyn as well: at least he’s not Tony Blair, but more positively, he remains the best defence we have against Boris Johnson-style corporate fascism as Made in Singapore, and the man who would undoubtedly be at his side, Rupert ‘666’ Murdoch. Were Jeremy Hunt to become Leader (and make no mistake, in the long run he is the Man Most Likely) then the threat would be worse, in that he is capable of hiding his sociopathy, whereas Boris is a thoroughly reprehensible gadfly who drinks too much and is useless on the detail.
So we do need some defence against these gargoyles. But a heady suspension of fluffy socialists and violent hardline Bolsheviks means we’d need a defence against them.
This was the way Private Eye used to think until Ian Fizzpop went all right-on and nicey-nicey. Now that he invites the worst kind of Bot-comic anti-Brexit Lefties onto HIGNFY, it simply isn’t worth watching.
What it all boils down to is that I’m fed up of watching, reading and hearing Herd Ideology day in, day out. This is a sort of shorter reprise of last Saturday’s post here about beefing up our resistance to power. A complete-lack-of-bias media form isn’t the most pressing need, but that’s where my skills lie, and at least it could set the agenda of no-agenda.
There is perhaps one reason above all why I’d like to be a part of this, albeit not the driver: 70 is, I suspect, a little late to launch a second career. The reason is this: the political system of what I call “Methuselah Parties” is a complete confection that derives not from socio-technological change, but rather from the needs of illiberal interest groups.
Currently, these groups are globalist business (Conservatives) Momentum (Labour) and the European Union (Liberal Democrats). It’s not really as clearcut as that – many Tories also like the neoliberal potential of the EU, many in Labour like the imagined social democracy in Brussels, and the TUC still has its moments on the Left. But broadly speaking, the point holds good: globalism, hard Leftism, and a United States of Europe are élite confections that do not meet with anything like majority approval anywhere….and yet they seem to be the only thing on offer.
However, no medium or Party or Movement of any kind ever succeeded based on what it isn’t. The important thing here is to give a name to what it is that the “real” majority would like to see as a better offer.
If you were to ask a spectrum of voters in Britain today – ranging from upper poor, struggling clerical, genuine social workers, liberal middle class, soft Left, One-Nation Tory, 35-50 family rearers and 50+ traditionalists, there is a remarkably long list of things which (in private) they would have in common:
- A degree of pride in the NHS, and distrust of insurance-based replacements
- The sense that education has been dumbed-down
- Concern laced with uncertainty about the ecology of the planet
- The need for Britain to find a role for itself that is realistic and creative
- Respect for the Brexit referendum result
- A feeling that most politicians are greedy reptiles helping themselves, not us
- An ‘economic competence gap’ in relation to the Corbynistas
- A ‘compassion gap’ in relation to the current Tory élite
- Boredom with narcissistic ID politics on the LGBT etc spectrum
- A tendency to ignore the Liberal Democrats as a sellout
- An increasing belief that UKIP is imploding
- A loss of faith in “respected” news sources.
As we oldies used to say, that’s an even dozen. But what does it add up to?
I would suggest as follows:
There are higher-order considerations way beyond Party ideology
The health, education and survival in a planetary context of the citizens is way more important than any other factor – be it the satisfaction of the shareholders, the gdp, the export numbers, the National Debt, the average wage or the rate of economic growth.
In the light of the challenges that face us, social unity, improved civic attitudes and a consequent drop in anti-social behaviour outstrip every disproved theory about how things are supposed to work.
The preeminent need is for grounded new ideas to try and maximise the greatest fulfilment of the greatest number. This means no tiny minorities demanding our attention at the expense of the majority. Whether they are bankers, politicians, spooks, military top brass, farmers, ISPs, media owners, senior civil servants, LGBT, Islamic, senior business gurus, or powerful Union organisers, everyone’s contribution should be valued on the basis of how well they individually contribute to the social weal.
I am not advocating a dictatorship of the majority – on the contrary, I am for pack unity to ensure that the real “natural order of things” among higher primates is reflected: that the Devil does not take the hindmost, and the Alphas do not help themselves at the expense of the Gammas. Rather, the single most important goal is the wellbeing of the whole.
The territory that goes with this outlook means open minds, zero ideological rigidity, rigorous empirical analysis of success or failure, but perhaps above all a sense of personal responsibility for that state of the back yard….as opposed to “not in my back yard”. That means empowering the individual citizen in a way that goes far beyond the usual political posturing: it means, as Nye Bevan said, “giving power back to the People”.
It means real devolution down to community level.
It also means being absolutely scrupulous about giving that individual citizen the same treatment by the police and judiciary as that meted out to legislators and Executive government officials.
It means no exceptions: no Royals, no Arab moneybags, no Rothschilds, no media owners, no billionaires and no special pleaders gaining any advantage beyond provable disablement.
I’m not stupid, and I’m not Utopian: I know that being a pack species, we will always want privileges for the high achievers. I have no problem with that. There will always be inequalities of material lifestyle and privilege. What I suggest is that no such privilege should ever be unearned, that such privilege as there is should be broadened based on non-material contribution to the whole, and that no amount of privilege should ever protect wrongdoers from the due process of the law.
Whatever one calls the Movement that emerges from this, it must not be systemic in its outlook. Its focus has to be Life on Earth for every Being on this – for time being – our only planet.
I shall now retire gracefully to cook my dinner.