Donald Trump, Brexit, A New Left?

I’ve been wanting to start a political blog for a while now, but with lack of motivation and overwhelming sense of hopelessness surrounding my political outlook, I’ve put it off until now. Being British and not really sure what I wanted to happen with Brexit, I was pretty distraught when we left, it seemed that xenophobia and racism had prevailed over the common sense approach to Europe and the single market. At the time the only thing that seemed to matter was that people would be worse off if we left, and the reasons we did leave were constructed in racism, false promises and flat out lies. But like many people at the time, I was preoccupied with the symptoms and consequences of Brexit, but not the underlying cause. I guess this is the reason that I’ve eventually decided to do this blog, as it has become perfectly clear that the current paradigm of contemporary capitalism cannot solve the problems in society that we are currently facing. People are starting to become disillusioned with the current political establishment, they know people like Hillary are corrupt and that she represents the class of people who are benefiting at the expense of everyone else.

I know I am not alone in the way I see the world, and as the liberal narrative has clearly failed, I think there is a conceptual space open for this kind of thought.  I think we really need to value what Marx was saying over 150 years ago, as he pretty much called / predicted / explained everything that is happening with capitalism today. Marx has taken a beating in the mainstream over the past few decades, because even though most neutral academics tend towards the left, Business and Economics are dominated by the current hegemonic ideology, which has been Neoliberalism for the past 40 years. This creates and reproduces the elite class of whom need to follow the accepted political norms if they wish to succeed.

 I won’t go into this here, but one of my main problems with liberalism is that it tries to be this all-encompassing ideology that appeals to everyone. This takes the form of positive and negative freedom. The idea is that negative freedom means you won’t have anything blocking you from achieving your goals, whereas positive freedom would supply you with the means needed to achieve your goals. This takes the form of the welfare state vs the free market. Classic / Neoliberals believe that we should have a meritocracy (which doesn’t exist by the way) in which the strong and intelligent flourish, and that it would be an infringement on their freedom to have their well-deserved money taxed for the less able in society. Then the social liberals argue that money and capital give you a huge advantage in a capitalist society, and the playing field needs to be even to give everyone a chance to succeed. As you can see, these two propositions are in direct contradiction, you can’t have both. This leads to some sort of shitty compromise in which the political class enables the rich to get away with paying as little as possible, and then exploits and divides the population as much as remaining electable allows. 

Politics is such a mess, none of them know what they are doing, they are all just actors defending money interests. As Bill Clinton said over 20 years ago “my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of fucking bond traders?” Anyone who tells you “Capitalism is the only way” or “capitalism is the best of bad systems” are living in some sort of utopian fantasy in which Capitalism can overcome its own contradictions. As Zizek often says “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of Capitalism”. I mean if you think about the connotations of that statement, you will not only discover that it is true, but when searching for the driving factors as to why it is true, it comes down to pure greed of the few, at the expense of the many. If we want something better, It’s time to start fighting for it.

Ok now getting to the main point of which this article was supposed to address, which is the Trump / Brexit phenomena. The next step for the left is very important, we need to identify the current antagonisms in society, and we need to form a movement addressing them directly. We need to overlook our cultural differences, and focus our energy on electing people like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie sanders, and not continue to stifle and discredit the movements and the progressive values they represent. As the activist and reporter John Pilger said “the media created Trump,” which I think if you look at the discourse since the beginning of the GOP nomination, is true. The Clinton emails even admit that they pushed for candidates like Trump to lead the republican establishment more to the right. Obviously this is due to the extreme right wing nature of Hillary Clinton and the Neoliberals politics. Hillary needed the GOP candidate to be as far to the right as possible if she had any chance whatsoever to appear as the progressive candidate. To be honest the DNC played a dangerous game and overestimated the strength of the ruling class in a time of mass hardship.  The DNC started the ball rolling, and Donald Trump grabbed it and ran. By the time he was starting to get mass support it was already too late (unless they let Sanders run obviously). The political elites assumed that people would be persuaded by celebrities and all the other rich people in society, acting as if people who have a shit life and no future give a toss what the high flying “winners” of society think. Trump tapped into something, something of which he is going to spend the rest of his presidency trying to supress.

Although Brexit and Corbyn aren’t the same as Trump and Sanders, I think it’s extremely important for the left to understand the similarities on an abstract level, and recognise the underlying antagonisms of which are creating the environment for Trump and Brexit to succeed. These antagonisms stem from the decaying Neoliberal economic order of the past 40 years. This is giving rise to both fascist and socialist movements across Europe, with the current political class unable to offer any form of resolution, as they are an inherent part of the problem.

Seeing the whole political narrative in America collapse overnight may be one of the most satisfying things to ever happen in my lifetime. Not only did it show the lack of control and direction that the current political elites have, but it showed just how easy a media narrative can come crashing down. I genuinely believe that if we can get rid of the people trying to hinder the social movements, we will be able to progress to something beyond Capitalism, and if not, we can definitely achieve some sort of meaningful change.  Although people highlight the differences between Corbyn and Sanders, they are very much the same, they offer the same sort of socialist package, and have mass support among people disillusioned with contemporary politics. People are starting to realise that the politicians don’t represent them, they represent the forces that are directly responsible for their economic oppressions. The right of the labour party need to stop stifling Corbyns movement, because it isn’t going to go away. Neoliberalism will not bring better living standards, these people aren’t going to suddenly forget they are being oppressed and have a shit life.

Although I said the left need to recognise the problems of contemporary politics, the centralists also need to realise the dire situation that we find ourselves in. The ideology of the past 40 years is no longer working, and the liberals need to choose a side, either a progressive form of socialism like Corbyn, or end up with a fascist UKIP Conservative coalition. I very much question the extent to which left wing neoliberals even exist, but for the ones that claim to want to help people, if you continue to stifle Corbyn’s movement, we will end up retreating into fascism.

Alain Badiou hit’s the note on this whole situation extremely well. He argues that the contradiction between Clinton and Trump was a fake one, and that they both represent a future within the current paradigm. Whereas Bernie sanders vs Trump, or even Bernie Sanders vs Clinton was the true contradiction. It was the movement that was addressing the economic antagonisms of which created the conditions for Trump to get elected. But it already appears Trump is going back on everything he said, and is filling his cabinet up with business interests. I don’t like making predictions, but I think that Trump will cut out all the bullshit comments now, he will still be a little different, and break the fourth wall now and again, but ultimately I think we will just see an America drift to the right, and nothing much really change. – However I do foresee a small percentage of Trumps supporters making minorities lives hell, and although I don’t think Trump will support it, I think he will silently let it happen. Hopefully this inspires enough people, of both Republic and Democratic origins to come together and support Bernie Sanders and a brighter future.