We Can All See It
It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.
The quote above is from US Senator Bernie Sanders, explaining why he thinks the Democratic Party lost the recent US election.
Here’s another quote, this time from Peter Dutton, leader of the right-wing Coalition in Australia.
When (voters) see a government that is more interested in pronouns than they are people, it starts to become a real problem.
Dutton’s quote was also delivered in the aftermath of the Trump victory and is predicting a failure of the Australian Labor Party at the next election for essentially the same reason. Two people at opposite ends of the political spectrum and at opposite ends of the Earth, both saying something very similar about the electability of progressive parties, should give us pause.
A Long Tradition
I’m from a working-class family in the UK. For generations on both sides of my family, my male ancestors were dock workers, railway labourers, truck drivers, unemployed, or career military. Women in my family were housewives, cleaners or shop assistants (sometimes all three). They were poor, they worked hard and (until the advent of free contraception for women) they had lots of children. All my family, since the vote was finally extended that far down, have voted Labour and I have always understood why: in the UK, Labour is the party of working people and the Conservative Party is for the bosses and the aspiring middle class. Labour is backed by the unions, the Conservatives are backed by big business. Labour wants to increase workers’ rights, the Conservatives want to remove them. Voting Labour has always been enlightened self-interest.
Until recently.
What Went Wrong
Since the rise of Reagan and Thatcher in the late 70s, early 80s, the working class has begun to desert left-wing parties in favour of right-wing ones. The panic reaction by the Left to move further right led to the emergence of centre-right parties such as Tony Blair’s “New Labour” which, while keeping many of their their socially progressive policies, dramatically watered down their commitment to socially economic policies. The new Left, all around the world, was now extremely like the old Right when it came to economic policies. The only real difference between them was in their approach to social issues, paving the way for the “culture wars” we now see. This has pushed the working class ever farther into the arms of conservative parties and the reason, to someone from the working class, is obvious: poor people are not progressives. They are conservatives.
Which is a polite way of saying that the working class is full of bigots: racists, misogynists, homophobes and transphobes. You name it, they hate it — or can easily be persuaded that they do. (It is no coincidence that the timorous flight of socialist parties to embrace right-wing economic policies came shortly after the rise of the Murdoch media empire.)
A Two-Party System?
So, we have two parties. On the economic front, one says it wants growth, low inflation, a balanced budget, and free trade. It also wants strong border protection, an efficient civil service, strong law enforcement and punitive sentencing. The other says it wants exactly the same. How do you choose between them?
Well, one says it wants equal rights for women, action on climate change, protections for gays and transvestites, more benefits for the sick and needy and more restrictions on development. The other says it wants everyone to succeed only on merit – including women – that climate change action will push up taxes and reduce sovereignty, that gays and transvestites are an affront to God, that it’s not our place to support other people’s families and that fewer restrictions will mean a more vibrant economy.
For many in the working class, the choice has now become really simple. The only policies that distinguish Left from Right are their social policies. Economically, they might as well stop pretending there is much difference at all. Given that, one side likes perverts and women bosses, it wants to take our tax money and give it to the undeserving poor and to foreigners, and it wants to hobble the economy for weird, “ideological” reasons, sometimes citing science that nobody believes, cares about or understands.
Why would anybody vote for that?
Well, we’re learning that they wouldn’t. Even when the conservatives are run by obviously callous, uncaring, loutish men like Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Peter Dutton, they will still get the working-class vote because those voters are not voting for these rich, vain, elitist men but against so many other things – like women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, rights for minority religions and asylum seekers. They’re voting for promises that legitimise their privilege, bigotry and ignorance: like the promise that taxes won’t be spent on people who are lazy or criminal, the promise of a border secure against foreigners, and the promise of support for their inclination to reject change, especially when they don’t care that someone else has a need for it.
So, What Can The Left Do?
I can see only one way forward. Left wing parties need to go back to promoting enlightened self-interest. Embrace genuinely socialist economics. Promise to distribute the wealth of the nation fairly. We live in an age where wealth inequality is growing worse all the time. The Left needs the courage to take a principled stand against laissez-faire Capitalism. Tax the rich. Tax them hard. Reintroduce wealth taxes, inheritance taxes and truly progressive income taxes – with 95% rates at the top for individuals and corporations. Cripple the influence of wealth on politics. Ban political contributions, access-selling and nepotism. Close the private schools and the private hospitals. Make access to legal services free for everyone. Make public housing the norm, with fair rents for everyone. Smash corruption with a powerful determination. Pass laws that powerfully penalise lies and deception in public fora (I’m looking at you, News Corp) with no exceptions for politicians or “opinion pieces”.
There is a lot the Left can do. Will the current crop of “progressive” parties do any of it? Not likely. We need new, committed parties with firm beliefs in fairness and justice for all, with powerful voices that aren’t afraid to tell people what is really in their interest – despite the howling and caterwauling from the right-wing media, the billionaires, the corporations and other vested interests.
But it needs to be done now. Right now, while we still have democracies left in the world. If we act now, the vast hordes of the working class voter can drown out any opposition. If we wait until democracy is gone, only a revolution will save us.
And those unpopular social issues, like human rights? Well, once parties exist that are demonstrably committed to fairness, I think the working class will start to trust them again and be OK with them treating everybody fairly, even if it doesn’t quite jibe with their cultural prejudices.