How the Left Got Lost.
My Party, my 'tribe', or at least many people in it think they are good, but they are actually damaging the chances of left-wing governments being elected and providing open goals to the right.
Polls across the west consistently show that people want good public services, (healthcare, education, police etc.), paid for out of general taxation, and for the common good. This is a generally held centre-left position and the evidence from the UK over the last 25 years or so is that under Labour, waiting lists go down, schools are better funded and public services are generally better compared to under the Conservatives. So why has Labour kept on losing?
In the USA, a majority want an end to the hugely expensive insurance based healthcare system and would prefer ‘socialised’ healthcare but the Democrats have never been able to properly deliver it. Nor, in all their years in power, did they ever codify womens’ access to safe abortion, another position with majority support.
If we accept that the general public is, on the whole, politically central, and centre-left in terms of public services, why did Johnson, Trump and Meloni here in Italy win? Why do the right keep winning?
I think it’s a problem of the left - a problem with identity politics, the idea that your race, sex, sexuality or any other characteristic is the most important thing about you, over and above your socio-economic class. The public do not wholly support this.
And there’s a problem of too many on the left having authoritarian, self-regarding, holier-than-thou attitudes on a range of subjects. The leftist modus operandi now seems to be one of, “We are right, we are morally good, our opponents are evil, and if you have any questions, you must be an evil far right bigot too. You are with us on everything, or you are against us and must be shunned”.
This has not proved to be successful, either in persuading the public, or in winning elections.
It is of course possible, but by no means certain, that Biden wins a second Presidential term later this year, and that Labour comes to power in the UK, but the underlying problems with the left are still there and, if they are not fixed, the right will come back and win again.
My favourite example of this, is this video of an interview with the then candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in the USA, Elizabeth Warren…
If you don’t want to watch and listen to the clip, it basically goes like this:
The interviewer asks what Warren’s reaction is to a hypothetical religious man who she might meet on the campaign trail who says “My faith teaches me that marriage should be between one man and one woman.”
Her response is.
“Then just marry one woman, I’m cool with that.”
This is a very good answer, neatly encompassing the broad argument about gay marriage; that it is there for people if they want it, it’s not compulsory, and other people doing it has zero effect on your heterosexual marriage if you are in one.
But.
And this may be the biggest ‘but’ in the history of politics.
Elizabeth Warren finished her answer with the line.
“Assuming you can find one.” To great laughs and applause.
This one very short line said so much about her, and the left’s attitude to anyone who even questions any of the revered shibboleths of liberal left policy.
It says, reading between the lines, that you are an awful bigot and I doubt any woman would want to marry you because you are a bad person. You are one of the deplorables. I am laughing at you. I have absolutely no respect for your point of view. It’s not just that I disagree with your view, I don’t respect your right to hold it.
This, though it went largely unnoticed in the media, other than the fawning celebration of it by much of the left, was, i believe, a large part of the reason why Warren lost that selection and also why the left keep losing elections.
She didn’t just lose the support of religious Americans who harbour any doubts about gay marriage. She actually put big doubts in the minds of anyone who has any kind of opinion which is even slightly different from the received wisdom of the left establishment. They may have thought that this is how they would be treated if they were to step even slightly out of line on any subject.
And, aside from that, it was just nasty. Nasty is allowed now though, if it is aimed at the bad people. In fact it is encouraged.
In the UK Labour Party, a similar dynamic is seen with activists and many MPs, Councillors and other elected representatives. I don’t believe it is true of the general membership, but some of those in positions of power, from all factions, do hold similar views and have similar attitudes.
There’s a quote from the American right which I saw, and which exemplifies this. “Socialism: So popular, they have to make it compulsory.”
I disagree, but as always with the best messages the right comes up with, it has a grain of truth.
If you believe that your politics are inherently good and virtuous, then there’s no need to debate ideas and policies with those who may hold different points of view and have different politics. All you have to do is revel in your own virtue, believe that the public will, of course, see the light and the inherent goodness of your cause, and then just wait to see the majority of votes roll in and propel you to power.
This hasn’t worked.
It never will.
To finish, I’m going to quote Tony Blair (knowing the inevitable reaction to even a mention of his name). In the run up to 1997 he said something along the lines of, there’s one Labour tradition I really don’t like: Losing.
I agree, but I would say there are many more than this one tradition that I don’t like.
Labour and the trade union movement has a long and sorry history of misogyny and a disgraceful attitude to women.
Many on the left often take the UK’s non-white vote for granted and hold a special contempt for black and brown people who might have conservative views. This is, in itself, racist.
We know well, and it is showing itself very clearly lately, the appalling anti semitism among much of the left, including some Labour MPs.
And, the Labour Party, The Labour Party! appears to have forgotten how to appeal to white, heterosexual, working class and middle class voters who apparently have all the inherent privilege of those innate characteristics, so much so that they need not be helped in any way.
Imagine you are a struggling straight white couple with children, living in a relatively deprived area of the UK. Then, look at Labour’s messages, and their actions.
Often the public see ethnic minority this, gay rights that, immigrant support here, trans rights there.
None of these things are inherently wrong in themselves. In fact, many are essential and need to be provided to help vulnerable people. But when these are your messages, and seemingly your only messages, and when racism, homophobia and xenophobia are held up as the great evils which, if only they could be solved, would lead us to utopia, and when this is seen to be your raison d’etre as a party, it’s no wonder that many people, people who these messages are not aimed at, slowly begin to say, “but what about us?” What about our children’s school? What about our NHS? What about our low pay and insecure work? What about crime in our neighbourhood?
At first, many will be charitable; yes of course we should tackle racism, of course my gay friends should be able to get married, of course we should shelter asylum seekers fleeing war and persecution in other parts of the world. However, after a time, patience wears thin with some resulting in the right, the far right and the racists who always step up in these situations, giving simplistic and inaccurate messages about the causes of the problems that people face and, predictably, they hoover up the votes and the support.
The left simply goes missing, virtuously signalling their goodness and rightness, and ignoring ordinary working people, unless, of course, they are of an approved oppressed group.
The most oppressed group in the UK is not gay people, it’s not ethnic or religious minorities, it’s not even women and it’s certainly not trans people. It’s the people on low wages, in poor quality and expensive housing, in short-term, casual or insecure work. Of course women and ethnic minorities are overrepresented in this group, but it also includes many straight white men.
Politics, and how we organise society is, or should be, about economics; how we share the wealth, the rights and the responsibilities in our country, how we tax income and wealth, and how we provide good public services for all.
It is not about salami slicing the population into ever smaller special interest groups, promising each of them everything they want, and hoping that this all adds up to winning elections.
It is about trying to appeal to everyone, even people you disagree with.
There are people in the Labour Party, and on the left, who do actually understand this. Unfortunately, there are just not enough of us and too many are afraid to say so for fear of being excommunicated for wrongthink.
I’m not sure how this changes. I’m not completely despairing, but neither am I very optimistic. We may keep losing elections, forcing us to watch the Tories destroy our country further, before we realise that we are getting so much wrong. But by then, for many people, it will be too late.