JOHNSON – Populist politics feeds on the neglected and politically forgotten

THE RECENT UK shucking of its right-wing extremist Tory government shows how their voters clearly had enough after 14 years of disastrous economic performance and social degeneration.

This including the series of deep cutback wounds against the National Health Service and education across the country, and the disaster that was the Brexit debacle on the UK economy, and a raft of other problems created by the last five Conservative prime ministers.

The UK has always tended to be at least a decade ahead of the curve with social and political change in many ways.  The clear example being how as long as 14 years ago, their populist politics retracted towards isolationist conservative, when most other countries were still operating within their own versions of ‘New World Order’ liberalist globalism, resulting in the spiral into Brexit and their subsequent inability to make it work.

During more recent times, we began to see the rest of western governments now turn towards right wing political order; France, Hungary, Italy, Germany, the U.S., even Canada is headed that way.

With this last UK election, we see voters reject not just 14 years of Tory government, but firmly reject conservative ideologies altogether.  It was not just the Sunak Tories who lost 182 seats, but Nigel Farage severe right-wing new Reform party only winning five seats from a projected 12 and the left leaning Lib-Dem and Green parties all gaining seats.

This is easily described as a sea change.

One wonders if this is the harbinger of future global leanings.

Once other countries see how their own populist right governments are unable to govern for all, and people see how the more severe angles of right-wing policies break apart democratic social cultures, voters may begin to realize that politics is more about the balance of centralism, as that’s what makes health care and education and the other stuff that matters … work.

We have seen in the last decade here, and for longer in other countries like the UK, that populism is the soapbox of political right-wing’ism; stir the masses with rhetoric, sift in hate, bitterness and isolationist tenancies, and blend it with outright blame that it was the leftist global elite that is responsible for everything wrong with the world and only right leaning isolationism can save the day.

Then we watch as along come the bobbleheads.  In America they wear red baseball caps, and some outsiders and pundits in Europe have begun to align American red hats with Germany’s brown shirts.  Those who recognise that reference … shudder.

Extreme populism is extreme populism, regardless of what side of the spectrum it glues itself to.

In the UK, according to international economists, this hurricane of populism set England’s economic strength back many decades by far right parties and individuals jamming Brexit down the throats of voters, carefully curating the message to rotate around isolationist extreme conservative ideas … using immigration and societal and cultural self control as the attracting magnet, glossing over the real issue of actual trade.

And now … boy, those same pro Brexit voters are wishing they voted differently. The products available on store shelves are not what they were, and businesses across the UK are screaming, moving or just closing up altogether.  We have now heard many stories of employees saying they actually lost their jobs because their company closed or moved to Europe so they could continue operating … they are left wondering why they voted the way they did.

That’s how populism works. It promises the moon, and instead it hands you a DVD copy of ‘Apollo 13’ in a dubbed language you don’t understand.  It’s only later after the speeches, rallies and online banter dies down and reality sets in, that you realize what you have done … not just to your country, but to your own life.

Fourteen years of Tory populism and austerity, and where are they now? Successive Conservative UK governments and the revolving door of leaders have cut services by billions of £ because that’s the only game plan extreme right conservative governments have:

… short on cash? Don’t worry, just pay doctors less.

But don’t increase taxes on their rich friends or their mega business.

And now what do they have to show for it? The British economy has flatlined. Real wages are lower than they were a decade ago. A third of British children live in relative poverty and to feed them there are more food banks than there are McDonald’s. Their health care and social care system is in tatters and rapists are being spared jail because the prisons are full.

But this was Austerity with a capital A.  And UK voters said enough.

As we watch all this happen, around Europe and the world we see the same kind of decision-making capabilities, and this predilection towards manipulating voters with hidden agendas and soundbites of magnetic attracting ‘it’s their fault’ … and we see more of this type arrive in or close to power, these countries now twisting towards populist severe right-wing governments.  They have learned how to turn a vote into an emotional gesture rather than the decision of calm second thought in a country’s best interest.

In France, the Holocaust-denying Marine Le Pen has moved from extremist nightmare to an actual potential leader of the country.  Even though the recent election left her once again in the far-right field due to a last-minute left coalition, her party did slightly increase its seat count.

Is it a stretch to eventually watch how, after all these other countries experiencing these kinds of extreme populous policies, again swing in the direction of center-left liberalism because they can’t afford to live?

Now to be clear, I don’t have any problem with your average rightish of center conservatism as an adjunct choice, as we have enjoyed and watched for many, many decades in Canada and the U.S. and UK … but populist extreme right conservatism is not that.

It’s a disease that feeds on the neglected and politically forgotten.  It’s a plague that rejects political structure and only needs red hats, one-liner soundbites and the magnet of hate to succeed, and speaks to those lacking a critical eye on reality.

This is an ideology that resides in the imagination that they can make your life better, and your country great again, even if there is no reference or consensus as to when ‘again’ was the first time around.

We will have to wait and see how it all works out.

We have a potential Trump second helping around the corner, even if the recent Democratic change towards Kamala Harris might stop him in his tracks.

As well in Canada here, we have a likely conservative government to experience first, as Mr. Poilievre himself has clearly hung his election style on populous one-liner message curation as well, no different that Trump or Tory Brexiters.  He is counting on a base of emotional votes.

At the end of the day, populous ideology in governments is not a good thing, regardless on what end of the spectrum they fall.

One person’s red hat is another’s brown shirt.

David Johnson is a Kamloops resident, community volunteer and self described maven of all things Canadian.