Blurring the Lines

The similarities between the Right and the Left are perhaps more well known than most would bother to admit. The differences that arise can be primarily located in the ‘inspiration’. The Right manufactures propaganda and works towards a return to some glorious past; one where the demons that haunt the current age are exorcised and the hegemony of the ‘rightful masters’ is restored. The Left works towards a vision of the future; one where the ‘unjust’ structures are collapsed in favour of a more egalitarian commune.

Both rely on a post-colonial reading of historical events. Cultural excesses (for the Right) and income inequality (for the Left) are both the result of imperialism, among other factors. The anti-imperial propaganda often reaches extremes; the radical preservation of tribal culture and homeland, or a return to the ways of living dictated by religious principles.

The real defeat in contemporary times is not of the Left as many believe – the real shock in the 2016 US presidential elections wasn’t the victory of Donald Trump but the mass acceptance and popularity of Bernie Sanders followed up quickly by the continuing rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Czech Republic elected its first Communist government in decades, the UK saw the surprising rise in popularity of the heavily mocked and tainted (by charges of anti-Semitism) Jeremy Corbyn while Mexico elected Left wing candidate Obrador. The Left is here to stay. The Right is on an epic rise with cascading victories across Europe and the US.

The ‘progressive’ and Politically Correct Liberal agenda is the one on a defeat trail. Across continents, the PC Liberal agenda has repeatedly failed to establish any real connect with the masses.

The rage and mass paranoia that has engulfed much of the populace seems better channeled through the more extreme positions of the spectrum. Xenophobia never went away, there was no ‘End of History’ as Francis Fukuyama claimed. It’s the economic crisis since recession that has led to the mask of Political Correctness to fall off. The Liberal Democrats with the acceptable censorship agenda of political correctness failed to make hay while it was hot; they simply lacked the framework to do so. As I sit reading an article from the Times of India reporting on the Bharatiya Kisan Union (a socialist leaning union) asking ‘outsiders’ to leave Muzaffarnagar within a month or be ‘respectfully removed’ for exactly the same reasons that the Shiv Sena cites in Maharashtra, I am tempted to quote Mao Zedong:

‘There is chaos under the kingdom of heaven; the situation is excellent!’