droodzilla
pfm Member
Any ideas about how to survive four more years of this?
Any ideas about how to survive four more years of this?
Protect right-wing nationalism! Protect the slave trader legacy! Protect the racists! Protect the statues! Airbrush history! Protect the Tory Party which embodies all these values! #WhiteElitesMatter
The serious point is that, unless I've missed it, the Conservatives offer nothing that will improve the lives of anyone who isn't already fabulously wealthy, or at least comfortably off (contrast Thatcher's vision, of a share-holding, home-owning democracy).
This is a point I have made many times and I really wish more people grasped. The modern Conservative Party really has nothing whatsoever to do with the party of the ‘70s and ‘80s. It has been taken back under the total control of the wealthiest public school educated tax-exile oligarchy and every single policy, government department, state service or state asset is for sale to the highest bidder. The class mobility and small business ideology of Thatcher has been replaced entirely with the actions and rhetoric of Trump, Putin, Bannon, Farage and the class warrior Bullingdon Club. The last remnants of the old Conservative Party were purged prior to the last election. That whole mindset is long gone.
Far too many people look at Johnson and just see a bumbling elitist oaf and assume he is pretty harmless. He really isn’t. This is just as extreme a political groundshift as Trump‘s reimagined Republican Party is in the US. It is cut from exactly the same cloth. Hugely dangerous IMHO.
The serious point is that, unless I've missed it, the Conservatives offer nothing that will improve the lives of anyone who isn't already fabulously wealthy, or at least comfortably off (contrast Thatcher's vision, of a share-holding, home-owning democracy).
Based on their current, catastrophic record, they will also continue to rack up policy failures between now and 2024. So all they have left is endless culture war to rile up the base, and distract voters from their cruelty and incompetence.
WIth the far-right press on their side, and a cowed state broadcaster, there's every chance it will work.
It’s the logical endpoint of Thatcherism, not a break from it. Economic Thatcherism was never popular (or actually, really, about the free market and entrepreneurialism). It always needed racism and authoritarianism. Now it’s exhausted economically there’s nothing else left but racism and authoritarianism and they’re going to have to work those things very hard in the coming years.This is a point I have made many times and I really wish more people grasped. The modern Conservative Party really has nothing whatsoever to do with the party of the ‘70s and ‘80s. It has been taken back under the total control of the wealthiest public school educated tax-exile oligarchy and every single policy, government department, state service or state asset is for sale to the highest bidder. It is an oligarchy, a kleptocracy. The class mobility and small business ideology of Thatcher has been replaced entirely with the actions and rhetoric of Trump, Putin, Bannon, Farage and the class warrior Bullingdon Club. The last remnants of the old Conservative Party were purged prior to the last election. That whole mindset is long gone.
Far too many people look at Johnson and just see a bumbling elitist oaf and assume he is pretty harmless. He really isn’t. This is just as extreme a political groundshift as Trump‘s reimagined Republican Party is in the US. It is cut from exactly the same cloth. Hugely dangerous IMHO.
Any ideas about how to survive four more years of this?
Notable leaders of the Conservative party following Major were William Hague and Kenneth Clarke, Hague was/is a fine political Historian, a bit partisan in a few issues but who isn’t? and Ken Clarke was an adult.
It’s the logical endpoint of Thatcherism, not a break from it. Economic Thatcherism was never popular (or actually, really, about the free market and entrepreneurialism). It always needed racism and authoritarianism. Now it’s exhausted economically there’s nothing else left but racism and authoritarianism and they’re going to have to work those things very hard in the coming years.
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