The 2016 report into 'The rise of anti-politics in Britain' evidences the claim that there has been a rise of antipolitical sentiment over the last six decades.
Growing numbers of British citizens disapprove of Governments & PM's, threatening democracy.
More and more citizens judge politicians to be out for themselves and their party.
Since the 1940s and 50s, the average level of government disapproval has risen by about 20% to just over 60%, and prime ministerial dissatisfaction has increased by almost 20% to around 55%.
Citizens hold more and more grievances with
formal politics.
Citizens increasingly judge politicians to be self-serving and not straight-talking, but also to be out of touch, all the same, a joke, and part of a broken, dysfunctional and unfair system.
Prototypical categories include ‘the toff’ (who went from public school to Oxbridge to Parliament) and ‘the career politician’ (with little experience of life beyond politics).
They are also thought to be ‘all the same’ and focused mainly on swing voters in marginal seats.
Citizens think of politicians as beneficiaries of a system that is broken and unfair, with too many safe seats and wasted votes.
Significantly, anti-political sentiment is associated with support for #populism: populist nationalism is VERY easy to mobilise, & is on the rise.
Populists position themselves as being different from politicians and parties in general; as representing ‘the people’ against ‘the out of touch and corrupt elites’; as representing ‘common sense’ in a field otherwise characterised by ‘vested interests’ and ‘grubby compromises’.
In doing so, they make a series of misrepresentations: that there is just one people; that they are of that people (and other politicians are not); that there is no mutual interdependence between that people and other peoples (whether external populations or internal minorities);
..that there's no need for negotiation & compromise between many competing interests & opinions; & that there's no need for procedures & institutions oriented towards negotiation, compromise, the making of collective decisions, & the imposing of binding decisions ("bureaucracy").
Negative feeling towards the institutions of formal politics strongly predicts support for populist nationalist parties: it's why our institutions are ALWAYS under attack from right-wing politicians & news platforms: they're pushing the buttons - it's WHAT THE CULTURE WAR IS FOR.
This report was written in 2016. Since then, everything has got MUCH worse: we're dangerously polarised, & democracy is under threat.
Educating people to have critical thinking skills is important, but first & foremost, politicians must behave more ethically. I fear the worst.
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'The Left' can be defined on the basis of its 'egalitarian drive': its credo is to remove—also through state intervention—barriers that make people unequal, advocating equal rights & opportunities for all.
The following 🧵quotes extensively from the 2022 article 'Far right: The significance of an umbrella concept', by Andrea Pirro, published in Nations and Nationalism, a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers research on nationalism and related issues.
The Right is described as non-egalitarian, precisely because its models of political and social order are rooted in the necessity and legitimacy of institutionalised inequality.
Broadly, the right seeks to maintain a status quo whereby differences between people are entrenched.
I missed this story about Kevin Roberts - President of the Heritage Foundation & the man behind #Project2025, who has close ties to Truss, Patel, Oliver Dowden & Jenrick (who have all given speeches at the Heritage Foundation) - KILLING HIS NEIGHBOUR'S DOG WITH A SHOVEL!
“He was discussing in the hallway with various members of the faculty, including me, that a neighbor’s dog had been barking pretty relentlessly... he kind of lost it & took a shovel and killed the dog. End of problem,” said Kenneth Hammond, chair of the History Dept at the time.
Farage may become Britain's Trump, & Reform UK, Britain's Republicans: same divisive 1930s-style propaganda; same support from the same handful of billionaires; same climate change denial; same policies, from the same opaquely funded global network of free-market think-tanks.🤑
Tommy Robinson CHECKS HIS SOURCES, so he knows Evie is a right-wing online magazine which has spread COVID-19 & vaccine misinformation, & has a traditionalist/antifeminist worldview.
In 2022, Evie launched an app which collects menstruation data, funded by Peter Thiel.
Evie’s anti-vax blogs provide a window into how COVID denialism & misinformation are being marketed in right-wing women’s media. Evie’s founder and editor-in-chief is a former model turned would-be Catholic lifestyle influencer named Brittany Martinez.
In 2023, Rolling Stone described as the "Gen Z ‘Cosmo’ for the far-right" (so Tiny Tommy obviously gravitates towards it), the Peter Thiel-linked Evie Magazine is "harnessing the culture war to grow its audience."
Nazi propaganda dehumanized Jews in order to facilitate the Holocaust.
In the book 'Unhumans', right-wing conspiracy theorists Jack Posobiec &Joshua Lisec claim that Progressive-minded Americans are bloodthirsty Communist "unhumans" hellbent on destrying civilization.
This 🧵quotes this article by Gil Duran of @GeorgeLakoff's #FrameLab. George is a cognitive linguist & philosopher, best known for his thesis that our lives are significantly influenced by the conceptual metaphors used use to explain complex phenomena.
Here's the context debunking the abhorrent lies about Springfield Haitians 'eating geese & pets' currently being pushed by Trump, Vance, endless gullible MAGAs, & much of the US right-wing media, which have so far resulted in two bomb threats.