British Politics Guide

[Lērisama]

the "non-aggression pact" that Lērisama mentioned, since what's the point if all you're voting for is the colour of the rosette on the guy telling you to go fuck yourself?)

I'm pretty sure the Green/Lib Dem thing in my city is just a local thing. They are very careful to always stand a candidate in all the wards, so the national party doesn't suspect anything is ‘wrong’, but you can e.g. find a green campaign leaflet on their website only for the wards where the Lib Dems aren't traditionally strong, but I wouldn't be surprised if that kind of thing was common nationally¹ – they are the two left wing protest parties².

For context, this is partly out of frustration that I want to join one of them, but I tend to agree with the Lib Dems more in the few cases they disagree, but I'm on the Green side of the invisible line, so it feels a bit pointless.

¹ I think I remember the Greens fell out with their local branch in Godalming and Ash, because the local greens wanted to support the Lib Dems there in order to give Jeremy Hunt his own personal Portillo Moment, and forcibly parachuted a candidate in. Hunt won by less than the Green vote, because of course
² That's an oversimplification, but it's true that currently both are attacking labour from the left with a focus on local issues, social care (Lib Dem main focus) and the environment (both, but the Greens put more emphasis on it), and the Lib Dems have learnt their lesson from 2015 about now not to alienate ~¾ of your voters

[Raphael]

the "non-aggression pact" that Lērisama mentioned, since what's the point if all you're voting for is the colour of the rosette on the guy telling you to go fuck yourself?)

I'm pretty sure the Green/Lib Dem thing in my city is just a local thing.

I kind of suspect that Ketsuban might have misinterpreted your remark as being about a general non-aggression pact between the mainstream parties about matters of policy.

[Ares Land]

Spoken like a true neolib!

I suspect you're using 'neolib' as shorthand for 'people who disagreee with you.'

I'm pessimistic about more education, because more education alone can't fix the fact that increasingly getting an education doesn't pay off, either because the job market is so saturated with graduates that having a degree devalues the job, making it pay no better than a job that doesn't require a degree, or that it no longer guarantees that you'll even get a job in your field, because you no longer stick out, or that the cost of getting a degree (in both time and money) is so high that it negates whatever increase in pay that the job provides.
I realize that this probably won't convince you, because neolibs see ~*~ Education ~*~ as not just a way to learn how to do X, but as a way to ~*~ Become a Better Person ~*~, but this is a classist notion that must be defeated.

The cost of education is way too high and I won't disagree with that. That has been taken to an extreme in the US but it's not like other countries don't have a problem. (Particularly so in the UK, though I think it's less severe than the US.)
That's an argument for adressing the problem of education costs, not an argument against education itself.
You don't need insane tuition fees. Plenty of countries do without.

Ideally, yes, education should be about more than getting a job. The current focus on STEM and business degrees as the only acceptable form of higher education is worrying. STEM is important (not sure about business degrees ) but an education in STEM alone isn't a good defence against fascist ideas.

If your theory of education is correct, then why is society on the precipice of fascism when more people are more educated then ever before?

There is a correlation between a lower education level and the far-right vote. For Britain, it's visible in this poll: https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/ ... l-election. 23% Reform vote among people with a GCSE or lower; 8% among voters with a university degree.

On the other question, there are of course other factors, one of which the Overton window. The stupidity and racism were always there -- probably worse than now. But there used to be a general agreement that a certain degree of stupid and racist was allowed in politics, but that it had to stop short of actual fascism.
Why that agreement doesn't hold anymore is complex but a key factor might be that WWII is no longer within living memory.

There are about two options: option A is to let fascism run its course, option B is to have the voters figure out fascism isn't an acceptable answer.
Option B is difficult because there's a significant amount of stupid and racist people. How do you get people to be less stupid and racist if not through education (in a wider sense and in whatever form?)

[Raphael]

Spoken like a true neolib!

I suspect you're using 'neolib' as shorthand for 'people who disagreee with you.'

I'm pessimistic about more education, because more education alone can't fix the fact that increasingly getting an education doesn't pay off, either because the job market is so saturated with graduates that having a degree devalues the job, making it pay no better than a job that doesn't require a degree, or that it no longer guarantees that you'll even get a job in your field, because you no longer stick out, or that the cost of getting a degree (in both time and money) is so high that it negates whatever increase in pay that the job provides.
I realize that this probably won't convince you, because neolibs see ~*~ Education ~*~ as not just a way to learn how to do X, but as a way to ~*~ Become a Better Person ~*~, but this is a classist notion that must be defeated.

The cost of education is way too high and I won't disagree with that. That has been taken to an extreme in the US but it's not like other countries don't have a problem. (Particularly so in the UK, though I think it's less severe than the US.)
That's an argument for adressing the problem of education costs, not an argument against education itself.
You don't need insane tuition fees. Plenty of countries do without.

That doesn't answer the part where jcb says "because more education alone can't fix the fact that increasingly getting an education doesn't pay off, either because the job market is so saturated with graduates that having a degree devalues the job, making it pay no better than a job that doesn't require a degree, or that it no longer guarantees that you'll even get a job in your field, because you no longer stick out,"

[Ares Land]

That doesn't answer the part where jcb says "because more education alone can't fix the fact that increasingly getting an education doesn't pay off, either because the job market is so saturated with graduates that having a degree devalues the job, making it pay no better than a job that doesn't require a degree, or that it no longer guarantees that you'll even get a job in your field, because you no longer stick out,"

The job market sucks, no disagreement here, but I don't think that's because of a more educated workforce.
There is an issue with access to higher education, which is inegalitarian even in social-democratic European countries, prohibitive in the issue. The US are shooting themselves in the foot with their tuition fees.

People not getting a college education when they could have is a rational choice in the short run; it's a net loss for everyone in the long run.

I'm really not sure about well-paid jobs that don't require a degree. I'm not sure those really exist. I do know construction workers and craftsmen that make more money than I do; but I think it's worth keeping in mind the hours are just terrible, and they won't make it to retirement without some sort of work-related injury.

[hwhatting]

On the education thing, this guy raises some issues that I think are worth considering. If you don't want to read his entire analysis of Trump's election, scroll down to "🙧 3", where he talks about education.
My main takeaways:
- There are lots of people, especially in the lower income groups, coming out of the school system disdaining it, seeing a big discrepancy between the things they've been taught and how it actually plays out in real life.
- Educators are generally more on the progressive side than the average public with their views (zompist mentioned 55% having progessive views somewhere in the US politics thread?, but it also fits with my memories from school), and as school is one of the earliest and for many people also the main conscious point of contact with government institutions (from my consumption of American pop culture, I guess the next important ones are the DMV and the IRS, which probably doesn't help make government institutions more popular), this contributes to the lack of trust in government and to the impression that government is dominated by progressive elites.

I don't have any good solutions for that, but I think most here on the board are people who were interested enough in learning that they stayed on and continued to college or university. But there are lots of people who aren't and would like to get out as soon as possible, and telling them "no, you have to stay on if you want to achieve anything" comes over as coercion and condescension.

[Ares Land]

On the education thing, this guy raises some issues that I think are worth considering. If you don't want to read his entire analysis of Trump's election, scroll down to "🙧 3", where he talks about education.
My main takeaways:

The article had a nice turn of phrase, talking about the uninformed and disinformed. I'd add that the level of anti-intellectualism described is pretty scary!

I don't have any good solutions for that, but I think most here on the board are people who were interested enough in learning that they stayed on and continued to college or university. But there are lots of people who aren't and would like to get out as soon as possible, and telling them "no, you have to stay on if you want to achieve anything" comes over as coercion and condescension.

Honestly, a college education shouldn't be necessary. With a high school level, you should have the critical thinking skills required to see through Trump, Meloni, Le Pen or Farage. (Most of the time primary school should be enough.)
So I guess part of the answer is that schools are doing a terrible job (worldwide: it's not just Trump.)

[Raphael]

On the education thing, this guy raises some issues that I think are worth considering. If you don't want to read his entire analysis of Trump's election, scroll down to "🙧 3", where he talks about education.
My main takeaways:

That is an excellent, excellent post. I read all of it, despite the length. Mostly it taught me things I already knew, but it's nice to see them summed up in one place like that. One thing it didn't mention, but might have, is that, except for the elder Bush and Biden, every single US President since at least Jimmy Carter initially got elected on a platform of shaking things up. But this is getting specifically into US politics, which is off topic for this thread.

Honestly, a college education shouldn't be necessary. With a high school level, you should have the critical thinking skills required to see through Trump, Meloni, Le Pen or Farage. (Most of the time primary school should be enough.)
So I guess part of the answer is that schools are doing a terrible job (worldwide: it's not just Trump.)

Well, as zompist put it in his old page on learning languages (https://zompist.com/whylang.html),

The basic fallacy here is to take learning as an irreversible process. Because someone learned something in school, whether it's Latin or trigonometry or the exports of Venezuela, it doesn't mean that they still know it.

Honestly, how many bits of knowledge can you think of where all of the following are true:

1) You learned them in elementary or secondary school;

2) You still know them; and

3) You didn't learn them again later, during college/university, or as a part of job or additional training, or on your own, because you find the topic in question interesting?

Basically, I can think of the three Rs and the English language, and that's pretty much it.

[Lērisama]

the "non-aggression pact" that Lērisama mentioned, since what's the point if all you're voting for is the colour of the rosette on the guy telling you to go fuck yourself?)

I'm pretty sure the Green/Lib Dem thing in my city is just a local thing.

I kind of suspect that Ketsuban might have misinterpreted your remark as being about a general non-aggression pact between the mainstream parties about matters of policy.

That's why I brought it up. I probably sgould have been clearer

[Ketsuban]

I kind of suspect that Ketsuban might have misinterpreted your remark as being about a general non-aggression pact between the mainstream parties about matters of policy.

Yes, I did. I'm thinking in particular of things like how no UK politicians to my knowledge* have responded to the Supreme Court ruling on gender recognition certificates with "that's clearly hurtful nonsense, what the fuck, how many ways are there that can we go about fixing this miscarriage of justice because I want to press all the buttons at once", whereas I have heard of both Conservative and Labour politicians going "glad we've got that sorted out, carry on".

*Looking it up, there was a statement condemning the ruling from… the Scottish Greens. Sure to send ripples around the globe, that one.

[alice]

Yes, I did. I'm thinking in particular of things like how no UK politicians to my knowledge* have responded to the Supreme Court ruling on gender recognition certificates with "that's clearly hurtful nonsense, what the fuck, how many ways are there that can we go about fixing this miscarriage of justice because I want to press all the buttons at once", whereas I have heard of both Conservative and Labour politicians going "glad we've got that sorted out, carry on".

Don't underestimate the power of the right-wing media. Any political of even minor national prominence who said that would be crucified.

[jcb]

I realize that this probably won't convince you, because neolibs see ~*~ Education ~*~ as not just a way to learn how to do X, but as a way to ~*~ Become a Better Person ~*~, but this is a classist notion that must be defeated.

This isn't classist or neoliberal, it's reality. Of course, it also depends on the "education", but opposing this notion is anti-intellectualism, which fascism feeds upon.

If your theory of education is correct, then why is society on the precipice of fascism when more people are more educated then ever before?

Because anti-intellectualism is on the rise and the less educated resent and distrust the more educated. Anti-vax, flat earth, raw milk, these don't just come out of nowhere.

1. Yes, it is classist. Maybe the uneducated resent the educated because the educated are the officer corps of life that are literally bossing them around and treating them as second-class citizens who shouldn't be allowed to have an opinion. It's telling that the "left" nowdays identifies with the educated and well-off instead of the uneducated and struggling.
   
   (Remember when Trump said "I love the poorly educated!" and the "left" made fun of him saying "Lol, Trump says he loves stupid people!"?) ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9F6EAMPky4 )
   
   (The "left" would do well to reflect on why Hillary Clinton in 2016 was the first Democrat ever to outspend the Republican opponent in a presidential campaign (by 2 to 1: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/ ... als-232400 ), but still lost. What a fat lot of good having the "good" billionaires on the D side did in 2016 and 2024.
   
   Eight years later, I still haven't heard any reflection, and must conclude it's because Democrats like being a party of money. They like getting invited to fancy balls full of sophisticated upper class people instead of union halls full of simple working class people, and part of how they justify their abandonment of the working class is to point out how those people are uneducated, as if that's a sin.)
2. You misunderstand the reasons why people believe anti-intellectual ideas. My ideas about why people believe in them are as follows:
   1. Cultural reasons: They see an idea as a threat to their cultural identity. For example, a Christian that refuses to believe in evolution because they feel that it's incompatible with their religion, and therefore threatens them. No amount of debunking (like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qJyam_1nsU ) will ever change their mind, because they don't lack intelligence or education; There are many creationists who are just as well spoken as they are wrong.
      
      As a corollary, the best way to convince a conservative Christian that doesn't believe in evolution to believe in it is to have another conservative Christian who does believe in it convince them. That way, they will/might learn that evolution doesn't threaten their cultural identity, and can therefore be safely accepted.
      
      If you balk at this because you insist that an idea should be accepted or rejected based on its own merits and faults and not on those of the person advocating for them, you would be correct, but expecting real people in the real world to act that way will just disappoint you. In the real world, real people are lazy and often use heuristics like "Does this threaten my cultural identity?" and "What does my tribe think of this?" to gauge whether to believe something. (Note that one may originally have joined a tribe for one reason/belief, but their other beliefs start changing to align with the other beliefs of the tribe.)
      
      I'm reminded of this video about flat earth theory. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44 ) Have you seen it?:
      Spoiler:
      More: show

      Half way through, the video turns into about how flat-earthers are starting to believe in QAnon, even though flat earth and QAnon have no contested scientific facts in common. That's because neither is about scientific facts or access to education, but about the same fears and grievances around mainly cultural issues.
   2. Monetary reasons: They make their money from a thing, and therefore don't want to believe that it contributes/causes to a bad thing. For example, a CEO of an cigarette company that refuses to believe that smoking tobacco causes cancer. Remember the quote:

      "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

      Looking at the cigarette company CEO example more closely, there are three possible outcomes when they hear that smoking tobacco causes cancer:
      1. Believe that it's true, and stop doing it.
         Upside: Feels good.
         Downside: Hard to change. Loses money. Has to admit that they were wrong in the past.
      2. Believe that it's true, but keep doing it.
         Upside: Easy, no change needed. Doesn't lose money.
         Downside: Feels bad because of cognitive dissonance.
      3. Believe that it's false, and keep doing it.
         Upside: Easy, no change needed. Doesn't lose money. Doesn't have to admit they were wrong.
         Downside: None.
         
         The first outcome is the rarest, because it requires the person to have an amount of self-reflection to admit that they were wrong in the past, and the ability to remove themself from the situation that frankly, most people don't have, and which I doubt can be taught.
   3. Paranoid reasons: They're genetically predisposed to being paranoid/schizophrenic, and therefore prone to believing things that make them feel important and special in an otherwise cold and uncaring world. Note also that financial insecurity can worsen paranoid/schizophrenic symptoms as one's life starts unravelling.
   4. Educational reasons: They didn't get a good education and therefore don't understand the nuances of biology. Correcting these people is actually pretty easy, because one just needs to provide them the proper sources to teach them.
   Of course we should still educate people, but thinking that education alone will solve everything is foolish and doomed to fail. What fascism really feeds upon is people upset that their life sucks, and seeing no party in power doing anything about it or even pretending to care, so they are attracted to other movements (such as conspiracy theories or fascism) in a desperate and misguided attempt to improve their life.

[Lērisama]

Trump

Hillary Clinton in 2016 was the first Democrat ever to outspend the Republican opponent in a presidential campaign

Democrats like being a party of money.

Checks title of thread again

Maybe it's time to move this discussion to a different thread?

[jcb]

Trump

Hillary Clinton in 2016 was the first Democrat ever to outspend the Republican opponent in a presidential campaign

Democrats like being a party of money.

Checks title of thread again

Maybe it's time to move this discussion to a different thread?

The UK is having the same problems as America with deindustrialization, falling unionization rates, the working class unaligning from the traditional left party, etc.

The US is the canary in the coal mines for the UK. If the UK continues down the same current path, they will eventually get their own Trump.

[Raphael]

The UK is having the same problems as America with deindustrialization, falling unionization rates, the working class unaligning from the traditional left party, etc.

The US is the canary in the coal mines for the UK. If the UK continues down the same current path, they will eventually get their own Trump.

I'd say part of the question is whether it makes sense to try to suck up to people who are determined to hate you no matter what you do. Larger and larger parts of the working class in more and more countries are being told by all the sources of information they trust that everyone even remotely to the left of fascists is evil. I don't see how it's likely that people in that position will ever listen to anything said by people to the left of fascists again. Even if, tomorrow, all the left-of-center parties and groups in all those countries where politics follows a Left/Right model would start doing exactly the things jcb wants them to do and saying exactly the things jcb wants them to say.

[jcb]

The UK is having the same problems as America with deindustrialization, falling unionization rates, the working class unaligning from the traditional left party, etc.

The US is the canary in the coal mines for the UK. If the UK continues down the same current path, they will eventually get their own Trump.

I'd say part of the question is whether it makes sense to try to suck up to people who are determined to hate you no matter what you do. Larger and larger parts of the working class in more and more countries are being told by all the sources of information they trust that everyone even remotely to the left of fascists is evil. I don't see how it's likely that people in that position will ever listen to anything said by people to the left of fascists again. Even if, tomorrow, all the left-of-center parties and groups in all those countries where politics follows a Left/Right model would start doing exactly the things jcb wants them to do and saying exactly the things jcb wants them to say.

(1) And *why* do larger and larger parts of the working class no longer trust traditional left parties? Could it be because those parties betrayed them by backstabbing their unions and choosing to become the party of educated professionals instead? Why do you expect the working class to have loyalty to a party that doesn't help them?
(2) The way you talk about the working class sounds the same as malloc, treating them as if they're just a mob of easily influenced cretins.
(3) Dealignment happened gradually over decades, and so will realignment. Saying that you want to give up because it won't happen right away reveals the next step in neoliberals' insidious plot: abandon workers (Clinton, Blair) → workers leave the party → deny that it's happening ( https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... epublicans ) → realize that it's happening → say it's too late to reverse it, so why bother trying (you, right now)

The Democratic party and the Labour party need to admit that neoliberalism has failed. Not only has it not brought prosperity to the majority of people in each country, but it has destroyed their way of life and impoverished them. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar9tlrIQgmE )

[Raphael]

(1) And *why* do larger and larger parts of the working class no longer trust traditional left parties? Could it be because those parties betrayed them by backstabbing their unions and choosing to become the party of educated professionals instead? Why do you expect the working class to have loyalty to a party that doesn't help them?

If the parts of the working class that you're talking about would care about attacks on unions, they wouldn't go in for Trumpism.

As for the "why", it probably depends on the country. As I said before, in the USA, large parts of the working class abandoned the Democratic Party for more than 20 years before Clinton and his ilk took over that party. Aside from bigotry, I'd say part of the problem was that when more and more people with working-class ancestry - both educated professionals and the better-paid parts of the working class itself - discovered that they had ended up with a lot more to lose than their chains, they started to falsely assume that they now shared the interests of the upper class.

(2) The way you talk about the working class sounds the same as malloc, treating them as if they're just a mob of easily influenced cretins.

I wasn't talking about "the" working class, but about larger and larger parts of the working class.

Whether they're "easily influenced" depends on "by whom?" I don't think that I could easily influence them while having my current political views, for instance, and I strongly doubt that you could. Popular influencers who tell everyone that you and me drink the blood of babies in secret Satanic rituals, on the other hand...

(3) Dealignment happened gradually over decades, and so will realignment.

Now that's actually a good point. However, if it's true, that means that in the short term, left-of-center parties will have to focus on their support among educated professionals to keep themselves from disappearing.

Of course that doesn't mean ignoring the economic interests of the working class. No matter what you might say, IMO the main substantial, as opposed to perceived, conflict of class interests in our time is between the super-rich and everyone else, and left-of-center parties should solidly support the interests of the everyone-else group instead of what they're doing now. The great challenge is to get as many people in the everyone-else group as possible to agree with the previous sentence, and stop hating other subdivisions of the everyone-else group more than the super-rich.

Saying that you want to give up because it won't happen right away reveals the next step in neoliberals' insidious plot: abandon workers (Clinton, Blair) → workers leave the party → deny that it's happening ( https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... epublicans ) → realize that it's happening → say it's too late to reverse it, so why bother trying (you, right now)

That's partly accurate as a description of a process; it's completely ridiculous as a description of a "plot". And if you seriously think that I'm a part of an "insidious neoliberal plot", that simply demonstrates that you don't have any clue what you're talking about. I am not responsible for what the fantasy version of me inside your head does, says, or thinks.

The Democratic party and the Labour party need to admit that neoliberalism has failed. Not only has it not brought prosperity to the majority of people in each country, but it has destroyed their way of life and impoverished them. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar9tlrIQgmE )

No disagreement. They'll still have to mobilize some voters while they do that, though, and you yourself acknowledge that it'll, in the best case, take a while for the working class voters whom they've lost to return.

[jcb]

If the parts of the working class that you're talking about would care about attacks on unions, they wouldn't go in for Trumpism.

It may be obvious to you and me that unions are part of the solution, but to somebody who's never been in an established union, the benefit is not clear, and even potentially dangerous, because forming a union (or even just trying to form one) could get them fired. From their point of view, Trump is offering them a different vehicle that will take them to prosperity, one that seems more likely to work than the vehicle that the Democrats are offering.

As for the "why", it probably depends on the country. As I said before, in the USA, large parts of the working class abandoned the Democratic Party for more than 20 years before Clinton and his ilk took over that party. Aside from bigotry, I'd say part of the problem was that when more and more people with working-class ancestry - both educated professionals and the better-paid parts of the working class itself - discovered that they had ended up with a lot more to lose than their chains, they started to falsely assume that they now shared the interests of the upper class.

It is telling that many Democratic party politicians grew up with poor/modest means, but then became highly educated and successful lawyers. (Obama, and the Clintons come to mind. An honorable mention to former politician John Edwards, who always talked about the textile mill that his father worked at.) The problem is, growing up poor/modest is not the same as being poor/modest later in life, and living well later in life can alienate one from the people who are still poor/modest, and make one forget their needs/wants.

Of course that doesn't mean ignoring the economic interests of the working class. No matter what you might say, IMO the main substantial, as opposed to perceived, conflict of class interests in our time is between the super-rich and everyone else, and left-of-center parties should solidly support the interests of the everyone-else group instead of what they're doing now. The great challenge is to get as many people in the everyone-else group as possible to agree with the previous sentence, and stop hating other subdivisions of the everyone-else group more than the super-rich.

Agreed.

That's partly accurate as a description of a process; it's completely ridiculous as a description of a "plot". And if you seriously think that I'm a part of an "insidious neoliberal plot", that simply demonstrates that you don't have any clue what you're talking about. I am not responsible for what the fantasy version of me inside your head does, says, or thinks.

I say plot, because disempowering workers was/is a goal of the neoliberals, not an accident. As for you, saying that left parties shouldn't even bother trying to win back working class voters is carrying water for the neoliberals, whether you realize or acknowledge it or not.