Politically Enraged

We are all politically selfish but we can try not to be- part of that comes by embracing the truth of our political views' limitations and confronting bad behaviour in our political circles. Ultimately, we can deal with it by being honest about where we stand and with whom. If you don't withdraw support for bad behaviour in your political spheres, are you not contributing to the problems of it? Maybe listening to those who raise concerns about your political stances is how to strengthen and improve them and - if necessary- change them if they're wrong, rather than pig headed surety that we're all right and everyone else is wrong.

Watching clips from the tory conference has only shored up my fears that political lying is utterly normalised in the UK. The concern that we cannot trust our elected representatives to tell us the truth on issues we care about is utter madness- so why aren't more people up in arms. In Peter Obornes book about political lying, he attributes its acceleration to Trump and Johnson. But those men take advantage of an inherent flaw in society- that many people are so desperately wedded to right wing ideology, they'd prefer lies about its efficacy over the factual truth of the damage it's done to our nations. As this acceptance of lies arose amongst the political right, the political left should have demanded honesty- but at every turn we have fallen into the trap of the right, trying to apply a justice system and fairness rules that they operate outside of, whilst holding us to it's harshest outcomes. The concern of where this leads is multi-faceted and grows ever nearer- so why aren't more people, more people against the tories, up in arms about it. And why is it that our only escape from the conservatives is being swaddled in the cloth of "sensible conservatism" when it's so clear that fealty to that ideology is why we're in such a mess?

Rachel Reeves was recently on LBC answering people's questions, and after being schooled by a friend of mine who you should follow everywhere @nojustice she was asked why she was using tory policy to fight back against tory problems, to which she responded with tory rhetoric- Reeves said she wants to "grow the economy to fight inequality"- where have we heard that before? Oh yes, Liz Truss and her magic growing pie! The time is approaching to understand the nuts and bolts of fiscal policy and stating "I want to grow the economy" is like saying "I want to do my job". We have to have a clear understanding of what fiscal changes will be made to move us past this dark period of time. Ultimately, as I've explained several times my enemy isn't labour- it's conservatism. And if Labour continue to spout conservative talking points and rhetoric I feel within my rights to be frustrated about that in the extreme. We have to move past conservatism- so let's do that, shall we.

Two weeks ago I said I wouldn't vote for a party who endorses transphobia. It's not for me to teach people why a weak stance on equality is a bad look for a political party of any stripe, plus it's a waste of time- those disingenuous enough to claim there isn't a valid, and wide point there, are fully cognisant of my reasoning- they just reject it because they fear it applies to them. But I want to pose a question in today's episode- what if I'm right? I mention labour's (at least perceived) slide into conservative viewpoints and I pose the question- what if they do mean what they say, and want to offer us a continuation of the conservatism that's brought us this low? Focusing on getting the tories out is fine and good- but ignoring the looming concern of more conservatism is to ignore the problems we'll face in the years to come, and I can't focus on the short term as the long term gets bleaker.

Voting for parties who are pro minorities isn't tory enabling, it's sending a message to anti minority parties that they don't get support if they don't back minority rights and protections. The simpering folk who think UK labour showing up at pride with fancy t shirts is a sign they're pro minority are fools. Labour hasn't proved for a long time that it's on the side of LGBT+ people and I knew that if they didn't improve, it would become a wedge issue for me. Their desperation to appeal to knuckle draggers has sickened me, and those who have continued to say what they're doing is necessary fail to realise that their own inaction is what causes labour's foolish thought that this is what people want: as labour move to the right to appease bigot voters who don't like them anyway, their core base refuse to stand up to them out of fear of another tory win- labour just see this as an endorsement of bigotry so continue on, and as more minorities peel away a doubling down occurs, the same foolish "hold your nerve" rhetoric as Truss and even Sunak have been stating- but this isnt about the economy. It's about playing Russian roulette with minority rights, and we don't have to sit around and find out whether labour are firing blanks at us, or if they fully intend to let us be the casualties that help them win- if our "allies" stood with us and told labour they could get lost til they moderate their stance, labour would have no choice but to do just that. But apparently it's easier to accuse people tired of labour's crooning at bigots of being tory enablers.

Lying has been mainstreamed by politics, with people on the individual level convinced that they can lie and mislead with impunity- everything from why the economy is ruined to who is sleeping with who to what the passcode to a phone is- culture and politics are both sticky with lies.

There's two things I loathe from people more of my political leaning- those who talk about right wing appeasement being a long game, and those who think that lowering their standards to "anyone but the tories" is a helpful political stance. Now, more than ever, we need to be relentlessly pressuring politicians to do what we need them to. A failure at this point to make brave, necessary changes to everything from economy to media mismanagement of fact, will lead to a worsening of the socio-political status quo, and if that happens, a very scary door opens after the next election. We need brave, competent leadership more than ever before right now. So you- you listening to this, stake your claim. Raise it with your political friends, have the awkward discussions around why 'at least they aren't the tories' isn't a defence of mediocre government- and why we need to ask for more, not less.

There's this perception that allyship is easy, when genuine allyship is fraught with making mistakes and taking a genuine, hard look at yourself and asking if you might consciously or unconsciously perpetuate some of the cruelties you may claim to stand against. There's also a perception that it's all fun and games. Allyship sometimes means taking the hatred, vitriol and insanity that comes with standing with minoritised people. This pride month has been so disappointing- seeing Oxfam pull their video where anti trans people were correctly identified as a vitriolic hate group who bully trans people then offer a mealy "everyone is allowed to exist UwU" statement, watching sports teams and celebrities espouse support for the LGBT+ only to remove it when receiving a fraction of the hate we receive ourselves just for existing, or sharing damaging propaganda which is designed to further demonise us in the eyes of a society that barely grudgingly tolerates us at the best of times. I feel like we're at the doorway of a descent into a very dark time when people are going to continue to condone escalating rhetoric against us- prove me wrong. Understand what an ally is, what allyship is, face up to whatever dark thoughts you have and deal with & conquer them- and help us to stop the escalating hatred before we pass through the threshold.

We are objectively in an ethical crisis when it comes to British politics. From Braverman's ongoing dishonesty about Rwanda and speeding to Sunak and Johnson's repeated lawbreaking. The problem is the splash damage that their foolishness causes. We're struggling with myriad issues in the UK and we can't even talk about how to navigate these crises because we're fixated on the never ending stream of scandal- and when we do, finally, exhausted, wade our way to the centre, the moment we could finally discuss the policy we find completely unworkable policy not meant to help British people suffering, only to either aid the conservatives in their mediocrity or to do functionally nothing but give pundits something to point to in their never ending defence of this shower. What happened to politics? When did we collectively give the greenlight for morals to go out the window, for politicians to decide that lies and scandal were their main business, instead of being public servants? And how do we get back to decency... and can we?

I don't care whose mouth conservatism comes out of, it's bad. Seems to me it's also the only option we have in the UK right now, being as everyone thinks it's simply marvellous and I'm fed up of this being the only perceived option. Labour's current stances on things like immigration, NHS privatisation, culture war rhetoric, brexit- all are huge concerns to me, and whilst I'm not a fool and know that a labour government wouldn't be as much of a chaos filled train wreck as the radical conservatives with their stop the boats but not your cars tax dodging law breaking nonsense, I have to ask myself about the big policies we're being offered and how I feel. An aversion to renegotiating brexit is a red flag- "temporary outsourcing" won't save the NHS and eschewing leftist voters to attract disenfranchised right wing voters who foam at the mouth for conservatism is a concern. People are free to choose who they want to vote for, but if your defence of Labour is "they're just saying these things to win then they'll go back on it" I ask you what sort of meds you're on, because your plan is to vote for someone saying the opposite of what you want to hear and you're still going to vote for them..? And if you expect that after labour has made myriad promises to disenfranchised cons voters to win, he'll go back on that and give you your centre left utopia, you're barmy. Now's the time for people with concerns about this iteration of labour to collectively impart a message about what sort of politics you want to see from them- if you don't do that, you won't get it and it's not because people like me are tory enabling by raising these issues- it's because you're letting labour dictate policy to you the same way the conservatives rattle on about the will of the people and what the public want, whilst doing precisely the opposite.