Whatever happens in next week’s presidential election in the US, one thing is certain: millions upon millions of American voters are dissatisfied with the status quo. They do not trust the ruling elite, they do not trust the corporations, they do not trust the mainstream media (even though they continue to be influenced by them) and they are disillusioned by the overall political system. Just as the Brexit vote was a one-fingered salute to the powers that be (symbolised by an unpopular Prime Minister and the inefficiency of Brussels), so too, is a vote for Donald Trump.
Arguably, for the first time in history, working-age adults in Europe and North America are poorer than their parents, are laden with more debt, have poorer access to healthcare, worse pension provisions, worse public services and must work longer hours and for more years. The job security their parents knew has been stripped away and communities have been ripped apart by the decline of industry. On their TV screens and in glossy magazines they see the rise of the super-rich and feel acutely the decrease in equity and equality.
For many, and most likely the majority, a vote for Brexit or Trump is more a vote of dissatisfaction than of positive affirmation. People see their standard of living declining rather than improving and they want to have a say. Most don’t believe that democracy is working for them but their vote is the only chance to be heard. Politicians are not to be trusted; they say one thing and mean another and only have their own interests at heart. So when one of them says it like it is and complains about the corrupt political system, when he blames immigrants and those who are different, and when he claims he’ll give us ‘our country back’, this speaks to unfulfilled nationalist sentiments. Conversely, we all want to belong; we’re just not sure what to.
Leaving the EU will not result in more power to the British people, but in more power to the ruling elite (although this could be different in a subsequently independent Scotland). The rightwing Tory government has effectively been handed a free rein to strip rights away, such as those enshrined within the European Convention on Human Rights, accelerate privatization of essential services, such as health and education, and further deregulate all-pervading multinational corporations. None of this will improve the living conditions or economic status of the disaffected. None of this will give anything back to those who so desperately want to be heard.
Similarly, a vote for Trump will do nothing for disaffected Americans; yet many of them rejoice in his unrelenting polemic against political correctness. Whether attacking Muslims or Mexicans, global warming or gun control, the media or Capitol Hill, he echoes the rhetoric of the bars and truck stops. His tax avoidance and unethical business deals are seen as assets rather than weaknesses. Even his appalling treatment of women is somehow deemed acceptable and marks him out as ‘one of the boys’. His outsider status in terms of the political establishment grants him kudos with the unheard majority. His proclamations on tax cuts will benefit corporate America far more than heartland America, and such policies will inevitably result in greater inequalities, but somehow that doesn’t really matter because he will sock it to ‘them’.
The fact that Trump and Brexit can succeed is because the viable alternatives are denigrated and discredited. Self-proclaimed socialists, such as Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, are described as unelectable and yet they offer solutions that will directly benefit the disaffected of Michigan or Sunderland. Their appeal is significant, especially to many younger voters, and yet the multinational-controlled media dismisses them for exactly the same reason as we should be voting for them: they threaten the status quo.
Dissatisfaction with the status quo is, in fact, dissatisfaction with unfettered capitalism, free market politics, ever-larger multinational corporations, relentless greed and the false tenet of economic growth based on fiat currencies. As the naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, put it so nicely: “Anyone who believes in indefinite growth on a physically finite planet is either mad, or an economist.” The bailing out of bankers and squeezing of social services via ‘austerity’ measures have nothing to do with the fears promulgated by the likes of Trump and Farage, but everything to do with a system that is unsustainable and which will simply continue to fuel inequalities unless it is seriously tampered with or until the day it finally bursts.
But it’s far easier to continue to see the enemy as those who are different; whether the faceless victim in a far-off land ravaged by war or the one who dares to come closer to home: the immigrant. Last year the world was shocked by the image of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy, whose lifeless body was swept onto a quiet Turkish beach by the unforgiving sea. As I looked at the photo of the tiny boy lying belly down on the sand, my son of almost the same age peered over my shoulder: “Juji!” he said. “No, that’s not you,” I replied. “But he does look like you.” And indeed he did. I did not go on to tell my son that the Syrian boy was not asleep. I did not tell him that he died because his parents just wanted him to be safe. I did not tell him about the pain in my heart at the thought of a child so young being left to die alone at the mercy of the elements. I did not tell him how lucky we are. But I felt it.
Until we see all people as we see our nearest and dearest and treat all people as we would like to be treated; until we see the human face of humanity; the true powers that be will continue to play us. They will continue to divert our attention from the real threat to our wellbeing: the political-economic system itself, which threatens not just our living conditions but also those of future generations and the wellbeing of the planet itself. They will continue to fuel fears of immigration and terrorism. They will continue to propagate the language of ‘us and them’.
Trump and Brexit do not represent the will of the people. They simply represent our failure to see beyond the ‘we’.
The Nodding Lizard 