We’ve all been bludgeoned and bombarded with columns and opinions on Donald and Brexit. Even within this vortex of various views and voices … it;s sometimes hard to feel like you know what’s going on! It can be dizzying and confusing and in many ways disenchanting. But one thing that seems to be an undercurrent of it all is that radical change by radical means is happening radically. The air of anti-establishment is in the lungs of the people. People, who feel forgotten and ignored by those they are forced to count on.
The tectonic plates are rumbling
Capitalism was a good promise but it only works for the few, works against the many and does all the talking in government. People need to know they can trust their ‘reps’ to represent them and that individuals and communities are rightfully put before the ‘profit-at-all-costs’ corporations who have the means that ordinary people don’t to sway the reps.
It’s no surprise really that we are seeing this rejection of the current system when even the NHS in the UK, the last of the decent things we have left, is auctioned off to bidders … including arms companies.
America has it worse though. A nation can only live in cognitive dissonance for so long before the volcano it’s sitting on erupts. What’s sad is how it’s being tapped into by opportunistic showmen who are spinning this anger into hate towards fellow man rather than channelling the energy towards worthy acts of change.
Like say … standing up to corporations, fixing up decaying communities or doing something positive about climate change (rather than engendering a sense of complacency by denying it).
Can we really be surprised Trump won?
Hillary in the USA, a greyed-out, just-a-bit-too-late front-running emblem for the let-downs of past presidents; a symbol of elite preservation for a country that’s crying out for change.
The only thing she had going for her was indeed Donald Trump — ‘Surely they wont pick him!’ Well they did. And to the rejection of my friends, who seem to be dwindling, I think it could actually be the right-wing-right-thing (in the long-term!).
To echo what Russell Brand said … ‘it’s no longer possible to pretend that politics is alright because now look at it!’ We can’t ignore the issue any longer. The governments who run the UK and the USA listen to money, and only big businesses, completely detached and distanced from social issues, have the kind that talks! They have failed the majority in England and America and now change is inevitable.
As Brand would put it, and I would agree, revolution is inevitable. We’re seeing the beginning of it now, just perhaps not how we may have envisaged it.
Obama did offer this change in 2008. He sold the USA on a new vision of the USA and painted a better future in the people’s minds: a utopia of equality that revived the American Dream. But as with presidents before him, as is the trend with politicians, he over-promised and under-delivered. He spoke left-wing, did right-wing and effectively hollowed out the left-wing parties … allowing Trump to sweep in and represent areas of concern they should have owned. That angst energy was successfully harnessed, enabling a sweet victory — since anything in the minds of the oppressed who have had their hopes deferred over and over again, anything was better than Hillary.
Trump was renegade, simple speaking and firing out buzzwords angry people could latch on to.
If they could would they now pick Bernie?
The overabundance of blatant, laugh-in-your-face and get-away-with-murder corruption in politics and business that is continually being exposed to the very people who are set-up to suffer as a result, has taken its toll and brewed a deadly slosh of anger and resentments. A slosh that is being harnessed through that rancid rhetoric and nasty narrative of anti-immigration and racism. Trump turned the people’s anger against the establishment towards something they could really target.
As a result of capitalism’s failures, its inherent pathological instincts to crush and deprive the majority from which it thrives, a wider desire for an anti-capitalist society is blossoming. Socialism is starting to look like a good option again and someone like Bernie Sanders could have appealed to both sides of the electorate; those who want social change and serious system reforms and those who are angry at the endless corruption from the ruling class, but also those who simply value a sensible, diplomatic and accepting attitude to world politics (i.e., not Trump!).
In many ways, if Sanders had been in the race against Trump we may be looking at a very different scenario today. If they had the choice now, would they choose Sanders?
Who doesn’t want a socialist democracy? A system that gives freedom to excel and exceed and be whoever you are whilst ensuring people and communities come before cash-money and greed. A place where we aren’t just consumers but citizens.
After a long time of corporate tyranny and capitalist corruption, I for one think this feels like a good option. We even have (kind of) our own version of this in the UK, in old Jezza Corbyn — or at least things seem to be shifting that way.
After years of negative press — socialism is making a comeback.
What the research has to say?
YouGov did some research on this and showed that the majority of people asked in the UK didn’t like capitalism (39 per cent to 33 per cent). A further majority of those asked also favoured socialism (36 per cent to 32 per cent). America on the other hand likes capitalism, with 52 per cent in favour of it and just 27 per cent giving it the thumbs down. Naturally, many didn’t like socialism (48 per cent). Probably in part because of the classic propaganda wars with Russia and all the negative press socialism and communism have had over the years. This is perhaps tessellated by Germany with 47 per cent preferring socialism and 26 per cent rejecting it. And like a mirror, 26 per cent liking capitalism and 45 per cent being against it.
Who knows if these views come from shadows of our history or not, but they show a clear inclination away from capitalism — especially among the youth in all countries (the youth were shown to prefer Socialism even in the States). And unsurprisingly, it’s the over 60s in the UK and USA who tended to view socialism unfavourably, which again makes sense seeing as they are closer to the war fought defending a purer kind of democracy.
The Choppy Waters of Change …
With the disenchanted youth in a state of bewilderment at today’s ‘hyper-normalisation’ and streaming, alongside suffocating cases of corruption, it’s clear that the current system is now nearing revolt. And for better or worse a shift in perception is occurring, born from that known discomfort and dissatisfaction we all feel.
People like Bernie Sanders are growing in popularity in America and in European countries. A different future is imaginable on the horizon. A future that doesn’t have to be hard-wing socialism or capitalism but balances them both. Where equality and fairness and true democracy reign. Where values are put before volumes and corrupt corporations, and where politicians can’t exploit the people.
What we don’t want is what we’ve got right now … angry people being told to point their guns in the wrong place, to distract them yet again from where they desperately need to be looking.
Boats have been rocked in the UK and the USA. Hopefully this is an opportunity in disguise: ashes within which the phoenix of change can be born and fly to a new level of politics.
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