John Harris is a man of the left. He’s also strongly opposed to Brexit – and I think it safe to say he’s no fan of Donald Trump either.
However, in a brave and brilliant column for the Guardian he doesn’t go after the easy targets, but for the cultural elite he’s theoretically part of:
“Back in 2016, it was briefly fashionable to feign interest in at least some of the places that voted for Brexit and Trump and argue that people with so-called progressive politics ought to think about their problems. But in some quarters, the ‘in’ thing is now a sour, dismissive attitude to millions of people and their supposed complaints. The underlying worldview is simple: whatever the economic context, one part of society is seen as racist, stupid, nostalgic, and brimming with senseless emotion, while another is logical, enlightened and forward-thinking and, despite the fact that the era of alleged rationalism that has now been overturned brought us such disasters as the Iraq war and a huge economic crash, the modern nightmare boils down to the fact that the first group are suddenly in charge.”
Of course, the idea that the cultural outgroup is now running the show is absurd. In Britain, both the governing party and the main opposition party are dominated by members of Parliament who campaigned to stay in the EU. As for the EU itself, the Euro-establishment is firmly in control – both at a federal and a national level.
As for America, the Trump administration is a government of billionaires acting for billionaires.
Beyond politics, every locus of power and influence, whether in business, finance, the arts, academia, the media, and so on, is controlled by exactly the same kind of people as before.
In that respect, nothing has changed.
Which is why the elites have been able to drop their “feigned interest” in the people and places that dared to vote contrary to wishes of the establishment.
As for “senseless emotion”, that’s a rather dangerous thread to be pulling on. Consider the metropolitan liberals who dealt Theresa May a near-fatal blow in the 2017 general election. By depriving her of a majority they greatly increased the vulnerability of a remain-voting Prime minister to Brexit hardliners; and by handing Jeremy Corbyn a moral victory, they greatly weakened the position of moderates in the Labour Party.
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