Headlines in the Guardian and elsewhere make it obvious how dangerous politics is becoming at this moment. Just look at those that follow.
First, there is a threat to annex Canada:
Trump is not the only thing that has pulled down Trudeau, but he has most certainly destabilised that country already, and matters will get worse. I also fear for minorities there as there is going to be a sharp swing to the right.
Then there is Greenland and the Panama Canal Zone:
I believe Trump when he says he is considering using economic and military force to create a new US empire. I do not think he will stop with Canada, Panama and Greenland, either. Magalomamniacs don't know what moderation is.
Meanwhile, Facebook is giving up moderation of content so that the far-right can say what they like. The flow of propaganda is going to become intense:
Note the use of far-right language in this. Fact-checking and moderation are not censorship, despite the far-right's claims; they are about ensuring the credibility of the content. That is going to disappear.
So are the protections for many. Note this story on McDonald's giving up its diversity programmes under right-wing pressure in the USA:
DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion.
This is going to be a bad time to be:
- a woman, or
- LGBTQ+, or
- a member of an ethnic minority, or
- a migrant, or
- poor, or
- neuro-divergent, or
- to be a part of the majority, in other words.
The world is going to be ever-more rigged in favour of the white, supposedly evangelical Christian from an already privileged background, and they really do not care about the rest of us.
And there is this, of course:
The personal risks of opposing these people are growing, as I am aware. The threats are very real and will only increase in number.
Trump is delivering economic insanity unless, of course, he is actually delivering his plan, which is for fascism, when all of this both makes sense and has horrible resonances.
Worry, a great deal, I suggest.
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I don’t think you mean instance in the first line.
Quite a dangerous 4 years ahead!
Edited. Thanks.
Both in my view, fascism is a science of popularising grudges and amplifying them; the economic chaos which only the rich can weather will continue to create grudges, it is a self fulfilling, reciprocating system of hell. Perfect in fact. Like the piranha’s they are, the Far Right tastes blood in the water.
Interesting article in todays Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/08/kemi-badenoch-tories-elon-musk-far-right-conservative
I believe that his actions pose a real threat to individuals within the UK including Jess Phillips and a Green Party Councillor.
Funnily enough what I dont hear is those who called for Brexit to ‘take back control’ telling Trump et al to zip it. They clearly dont mind the right people interfering in UK politics.
[…] also did not expect that Trump would try to impose his madness on the world, that tariffs would occur, that a trade war would commence, or that he would seek to actively […]
Further to and regarding the Meta removal of fact checking.
Hugo Rickin is saying we can forget EU protections on online safety and disinformation because the Whitehouse is set to regard ALL such regulation as being a direct attack on American tech firms and will be regarded by Trump as a trade war. American Colonialism in 2025
About time we , politely, asked the US to remove its 13 RAF / military bases from the UK
Yes
Will you give up Gibraltar and the Cypriot bases as well?
Why do we have them, barring as reminders of our imperial past?
I have long felt Gibraltar should go back to Spain, for example.
Gladly (I was raised on RAF stations btw including some time at RAF Steamer Point, Aden, just before the Russians took it over and I have a sibling born on an RAF base in S Asia where my dad served just after the war – a WW2 pilot who had 30 years in the RAF at home & abroad).
Given the role RAF Akrotiri is currently playing (MPs are not even allowed to ASK about it, let alone receive answers) in the Gaza genocide,
https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-government-blocks-mp-questions-about-gaza-related-activity-at-its-cyprus-base/
the sooner we close it and hand sovereignty back to the Cypriots, the better. I’ve never understood why they have to be “sovereign” bases. Cyprus is complicated enough, without us making it worse.
Odd that the Tory obsession with Brexit didn’t include withdrawing our troops from EU territory. (Cyprus, Germany etc)
But then there are all those USAF personnel on our bases in UK. At least they are still nominally RAF stations (Weston-on-the-Green etc).
My grandfathers were in the professional navy.
An uncle served as a senior officer in Gibraltar.
I see no remaining reason for us to have the base.
My brother was born in Akrotiri and we were there when the Turkish were forced to protect their ‘own’.
A very anachronistic situation, the cold war is really no longer with us.
In the case of Greenland: Two major Danish companies: Vestas and Orsted (latter majority state owned). Both with major US interests – Vestas No 1 or 2 in US market for wind turbines. Orsted massive US renewable interests. Does Trump go hard or soft on the two companies? Is this what he thinks is the start of negotiations ref Greenland?
In the case of Musk & the Trump mini-me Farage: this from the Guardian: “Musk’s absurd and grotesque description of Phillips as a “rape genocide apologist” can be disqualified from the debate. (Nigel Farage says it was a fair exercise of free speech.)”
Is describing Farage as a “feral dwarf with a predicliction for small boys” “a fair exercise in free speech” – of course it is NOT – and is as detached from reality (feral dwarf excepted) as Musk’s nonesense and Farage’s support of it. But you can’t have it both ways – on the one hand supporting lies/grotesqueries but then hiding behind English libel laws – or can you? & therin lies the problem – the fascists (and Farage and Musk fall into that category) are very happy to use anything that comes to hand – but if mud is thrown at them – they will run crying to mummy – in this case English libel laws.
On the Zuckerberg issue, it’s well worth watching these two clips from Ari Melber and Chris Hayes on MSNBC yesterday evening. The former looks in detail at Zuckerberg’s about turn on fact checking, etc, and ask’s the simple question of him: has this been done because you were threatened by Trump, because Trump yesterday claimed ‘it probably’ was?
Meanwhile, having looked at all those ‘tech bros’ who’ve now lined up behind Trump Hayes points out a simple fact: that we can now clearly see that there are a cohort of tech billionaires who are anti democracy. No surprise to most of us there, of course, but as Hayes notes, now there’s no doubt. But he also relates this back to the hero worship Bush enjoyed after 9/11 (when his approval rating was over 80%) and how, and few years later, when his approval rating had collapsed, all those who’d been such ardent supporters denied they ever had.
I do think there’s one difference here, though, and that all comes down to what extent they can cement authoritarian rule before the mid terms. Given the resources they have at their disposal I think it quite possible they can.
Anyway, the links are below. Well worth 20 minutes of anyone’s time.
https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari-melber
https://www.msnbc.com/all
Thanks
I will watch later
Thanks Ivan, both examples give much needed insight into what is happening as a precursor to January 20th
But we have authoritarian rule here in the UK, right now, with Tory anti-terror legislation being used to justify intimidatory raids on journalists, non-violent protesters, mothers of non- violent protesters, those planning or discussing non-violent protest, elderly Jews supporting (legitimate) Palestinian resistance to unlawful occupation, or those objecting to fossil fuel interests. Intimidatory arrest & detention, repressive bail conditions, removal of right to a fair trial by limiting defendants from explaining their motives (preventing a war crime for eg). Suppressing right of juries to give “perverse” verdicts. Suppressing anyone trying to publicise that right.
All that has already happened, and there are plenty of victims. Assange was the tip of the iceberg.
The UK is an authoritarian state (unless you quietly and passively do nothing and say nothing to disagree with it).
I tried to point this out on a Guardian comment, including linking to an article previously printed in the Guardian about the arrest and detention under the Terrorism Act of a mother who’s daughter had protested and been arrested. My comment was deleted as not abiding by community rules. Tried again, making it more bland – still deleted. Seems you aren’t even allowed to notice these things in the MSM.
Zuckerberg’s history with Cambridge Analytics showed us he really doesn’t give a flying one for democracy. He’s money all the way.
Why is anyone surprised now?
Richard, you have provided an excellent demonstration of the scale of the self-inflicted disaster, the suicidal folly that was Brexit; we have made of ourselves the past-its-sell-by date, ultra-processed meat in a sandwich book-ended between Trump and Putin.
From a British perspective, there is really nothing more to be said. And the British people still don’t “get it”. They think that just another modestly corrupt wriggle will turn up – because we are British, and we think there is always a free lunch somewhere being prepared, just for us – and remove us from the hook; because we think it has worked so often before, because that is what we believe, no matter what. We still do not realise how low we have sunk.
Its a bit like living in the End Times.
Hopefully he is just softening up Denmark/EU, Panama and Canada to make some kind of agreements favourable to the US . ‘Military action’ from someone who has vowed to end all wars just a way of stirring things up
But it is proto fascism – creating more distractions and more enemies for the US middle class to blame for their falling living standards.
And proto fascists have been encouraged by Musk to emerge here – Jenrick ,Badenoch – on ‘invading alien cultures ‘ calling for inquiries into (hint- ‘Paki’) grooming gangs to talk about for the next few years, just as the Rwanda imaginary scheme to keep migration in the headlines year after year.
Anything, so we don’t talk about poverty homelessness , destitution etc.
So difficult to comprehend what we are living through.
Agreed
Ths is beyond our experience
Surely, the most frightening thing about the current situation is that it’s NOT new…
“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power…. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
Might the comments of Mr Trump and Mr Musk tell us that the dominant groups in America are intending to change the currentish, unstated American empire, into an overt imperial empire?
Might we now be facing a choice between a uni-power world, dominated by and for the plutocrats of the U. S A, and their associates in other parts of the world, or a multi-power world with different politico-economic forces?
Might some forms of multi-criteria decision analysis be in order?
Yes, in a word.
A Unipower US world is what we have had, but all the current thrashing about is because the US Empire is failing fast and they don’t like it. By 2030 China will be well ahead of the US economy. Fortunately, China has a 2000 year history of not being aggressive and belligerent, other than border wars with Vietnam/Japan and Mongolia. Compare with the USA (and previously UK) where you would be hard pushed to find a year they were not at war with somebody.
I think the latest Trump nonsense about Canada, Greenland etc is a sudden realisation that while the US has been squandering its wealth on endless (and pointless) wars, China has been doing deals and making arrangements that will ensure it has access to Africa, Central Asia, South America, etc.
It was apparent that Trump internalised a seething rage and cold determination for revenge when Melanie went all weak at the knees in Trudeau’s company.
He is a very dangerous man.
If I were China/Russia etc I would be cracking open the champagne, celebrating the “approval” of my land grabs in the Pacific and Ukraine.
The threat to this country is here now and real. Beyond the attacks on our body politic, and the betrayal of it by Jenrick etc, I am constantly harping on about the reach of social media amongst the 14-30 age group. These will be voters at the next GE. Most of the 14-19 age group know who Farage and Musk are, and have favourable views of them (“Farage is for the people”). We have American bases on our land, we have American lock control of ‘our’ nuclear weapons. We have our Quislings already. We may have American political refugees arriving. What we don’t have is the blazing anger that a charismatic leader/s would have in the face of these threats, or the quiet authority of a Harold Wilson. What we don’t have is the sense to rally our European allies (getting less every day it seems) into a bloc response. We most certainly live in interesting times,
Jeremy Corbyn was for the people, and millions responded to his message of hope. For that he had to be silenced (the BBC and Guardian played a leading role). Millions of people are for Farridge and for that he is showcased and given a platform by the mainstream media, especially the BBC. It’s a mystery.
I have long thought the ‘Left’ has made a very poor job of rebutting neoliberalism. In part that is because the Left is stuck in an eternal past (that I doubt ever really existed, save in the Left’s mind). Even Putin, a senior member of the KGB, has abandoned the extreme Left, for the extreme Right (they are so close together, how do you tell the difference?).
I did find Aurelian’s most recent take on the Left interesting; and one paragraph neatly summarised the argument; and I thought it worth sharing:
“What passes for the Left today no longer tries to address real problems, but purely conceptual ones. Its enemies are abstractions such as ‘racism’, ‘sexism’ and, of course, ‘fascism’ which cannot be seen or measured, and which are ultimately based on subjective reactions (‘that statement made me feel insecure.’) It follows that such enemies can never be beaten, because every time some alleged manifestation of an -ism is destroyed, a more subtle and deeply-hidden, version will take its place. In which case, of course, what’s the point, and why bother? Well, Foucault would have replied, because the discourse of anti-ism (and ‘justice’ in general) acts as a mechanism for making certain people powerful. They are not powerful in curing alleged problems (these problems being insoluble by definition), but through dictating the understanding of the problems and monopolising the imagined solutions, as well as fighting vicious internal battles for power and control. And indeed, that is what politics largely consists of today: ferocious competition to occupy and dominate the Grievance Space”.
I thought Aurelian’s argument neatly eviscerated the Left’s carcase, revealing its inner vacuousness; it creates conceptual intricacies based on the authenticity of ideas, rather than solutions; it reminds me of Robespierre’s telling self- observation in ‘Danton’s Death’ (1835); “my thoughts spy on me”. The Left is more interested in spying on the authenticity of Left ideas, than finding practical solutions to real human and political problems. One reason the Right need no ideas at all, and no solutions; jusr sound bites.
Much to agree with
Racism, sexism etc are not abstract concepts, they are scars, real and metaphorical, on the bodies of people. The ‘extreme left’ is an abstract concept. useful for depicting a literal handful of ideologues (e.g. Stalin stans) and grifters (e.g. George Galloway), while equating it with the hordes of the extreme right is a false equivalence. And I would bitterly contest the ‘grievance space’ of the ecological movement – this is actually the language of the government extremism list in ‘Respect’, eco concerns and socialism included. This is a real battle, not some intellectual conceit.
I agree with Colin to be honest – those concepts like racism, sexism DO exist, the problem is more tragic than that for Labour in that if you allow huge inequality to exist – like any good Neo-liberal government does – those problems or grievances are simply exacerbated because EVERYONE has less and the varied grievance ‘sectors’ get used to using their particular issue as leverage for change.
So, the general malaise caused by (say) austerity which everyone is suffering from becomes more atomised, dis aggregated and ‘individualised. The groups are made to compete with each other for the same thing they are all missing – investment , good law and regulation. They start to work in silos and too often represent themselves which does not help their cause but helps disingenuous politicians.
Even worse, the ‘sectorisation’ of need through ‘ism’s’ and gender, race etc., also helps nasty party’s like the Tories and Reform then exploit differences making spurious claims as to who is deserving and who is not on the basis of false moral judgements. And that is where the issue is parked and not solved, everyone at each other’s throats. A huge diversion, the oldest trick in the book.
Weak left-ist parties like post Thatcher Labour get sucked into the the various streams of discontent and just empathise (what can you do when you are cowardly and insecure about why you exist?) rather than do the sensible thing and just invest whole sale into the economy and public sector which will benefit all the groups. Labour would rather work hard to destroy its Left.
State trickle down is the only trickle down that actually works.
Somehow the ‘Left’ has forgotten that in Europe and here. They have forgotten actually how simple it is and what the consequences are if it is not used – which Keynes himself laid out in in 1919 was it, and was ignored. And then what happened? Make life harder for people and you will seed Fascism. It is simple my friends, it really is.
Tim Snyder has a lot to say about the Left too in his latest book ‘On Freedom’ saying much the same as Aurelian in that the Left is too concerned with ‘equality’ than ‘freedom’ (p.235) – to me this is saying that the Left are interested in the intermediate outputs of investment rather final outputs like the freedom to live your life free of fear of old age, bad education, debt, ill health etc.
Freedom has been captured wholesale by the Right which we know is a rich person’s version of freedom masquerading as that of the common people. I have friends richer than me with property abroad but they are just as scared of becoming ill and neglected and made by poor by those factors as I am. So tell me then, what has actually got better?
Why is it OK to be well off, have loads of nice things but still be scared of life? Because that is where we seem to be, in this paradoxical world where on one hand we strive to self realise at any cost, but also seem to know that towards the end of our life we need others more than ever but seem to deny it at the same time?
For me, standing well back from it all, I’m looking at the total political, moral and ideological failure of us as a species.
Thanks
This is one of the other issues on which I am musing
Identity politics has not helped the left, and has overly divided it.
The need for tangible goals is very clear now.
Fine post Mr Warren. Thus we need practical stuff.
Locally produced & owned
food
energy
locally organised transport, health, education
locally xyz.
The right whingers have no answers to any of this. But that is what people want – & that is what could & should be delivered. FFS it’s not that hard, existing examples abound.
Agreed
Mike, both you and Richard have mentioned ‘localism’ as part of an improvement before. In your lust, you include Health and Power…..
Let’s take Health. It is extremely difficult to develop new drugs or therapies locally. It may be possible to deliver therapies normally, but the process of testing and approval seems necessarily much less lical, probably multi-regional.
Power: difficult to develop or manufacture wind or solar solutions locally… Though their deployment and maintenance may be more regional.
Communications … Global standards & production seem to be essential.
It seems that most regulated industries cannot just be local. In a previous post RM mentioned localism and mentioned local jobs, trades, artisans …. But almost everyone’s lives also rely on systems and devices that cannot only be local. Many of our society’s workforce are part of this type of industry.
We shouldn’t neglect this when looking at solutions.
Do you mean the Left or the ‘Left’? I ask because you use both and I am not sure if you mean to distinguish them.
I would argue that the Left in its proper sense, still exists, but not in any recognisably organised way. There are many people who take the view that a credible left-wing politics is focused on creating and sustaining the conditions necessary for others to fulfil their potential and, ideally thrive. This political philosophy is essentially agnostic in respect of others’ private thoughts; it may of course be critical of others’ actions, where these weaken or undermine attempts to sustain conditions which support human welfare. Such people have no desire to police the purity or authenticity of others’ thought and recognise the self-defeating nature of such antics.
Several decades of neoliberalism have not been without consequence: politically, ideologically, and sociologically. Many individuals with profoundly humanitarian motivations may consider themselves ‘left’ but exist cognitively within an essentially Thatcherite ontology where ‘me’ and ‘my ideas’ must prevail against the competition of both the Enemy and the enemy within. This results in Aurelian’s scrabbling over the ‘grievance space’, a hallmark not of the left per se, but of a cohort better described using the North American term ‘progressives’. The purity spiral of progressive Top Trumps mostly plays out in social media, which is quite explicitly designed to encourage competitive self-promotion and self-commodification; something quite at odds with the principles of, say, democratic socialism.
The neoliberal fixation with labelling people has fuelled this enormously by creating identity categories that are often functionally useless in promoting greater social and economic equality. Protected characteristics can have a role in detecting direct and indirect discrimination, which is of course important, but I increasingly wonder whether they were intended, in part, to lead to the fragmentation and jostling that now consistently militates against unity of social purpose.
I would like to have the time to unpack this, but it’s been a long day so I am leaving that to John.
Mr Corah,
“Do you mean the Left or the ‘Left’? I ask because you use both and I am not sure if you mean to distinguish them”.
And there you have it. You have perfectly illustrated my argument. I rest my case.
Am I being naïve in thinking if Trump wants to rattle everyone’s cages and disrupt the global system so significantly, he’ll end up with egg on his tangerine face?
He can’t take on the world, can he?
He can
Most people cower in the face of well armed and ultra wealthy bullies who control the world’s reserve currency.
With the world going mad and nobody paying a blind bit of notice to International Law – eg Trump wanting to take control of Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, various countries fighting over the Syrian corpse, genocide in Gaza, the UK Government frightened to take on Elon Musk in case they upset Trump etc, etc, Scotland should just declare it’s Independence and to hell with now is not the time!!
Articles on this are coming soon
I learned a new word today – either you’re an even better wordsmith that I imagined, or your transcript software has one heck of a sense of humour. Your paragraph after the Guardian clipping about Greenland holds this gem:
magalomaniac
Thank you very much.
Oops!
I assumed MAGAlomaniac was intentional?!
Like another’s MAGAts. (Is that (C) BayTampaBay?)
It was a typo
FT used Maganomics at the weekend….