5. Political Failure

The trends we’re describing have converged at a time of notable failure across an entire political spectrum. While this played out very differently in the US than it did in Europe, there seem to be some broad undercurrents fuelling this political failure.

Politicians seem to have drifted away from principled leadership to managerialism, focused on small, almost cosmetic fixes to a system that many feel has let them down. Take economics, for example. Whoever was in power, the basic facts of the economic system remained more or less the same. The minor policy tweaks, differing taxation levels and differences in rhetoric did not conceal the lack of a vision for the future of society that takes into account the enormous global changes.

Some think that the political establishment is unresponsive because of a deliberate plan among the elites to usurp more power and render increasing areas beyond normal politics, towards a certain “liberal” political agenda of theirs. But I find it more likely that what’s behind this is a lack of vision. Perhaps more things are being put on bureaucratic auto-pilot not because of a plan but because of the lack of a plan. Maybe the “elites” are also winging it.

The perceived sluggishness of the political establishment was in part rooted in a lack of ideological innovation — a host of similar solutions continued to be espoused in various form. In many a European democracy, political parties became undifferentiated, gravitating towards the centre to win the highest number of voters. Political parties that never actually put ideas into practice gave ideologies the illusion of meaning — leading eventually to ideology becoming a tired, almost useless term.

When “ideology” failed to innovate and became distrusted and discredited, many people snapped back to the familiarity of identitarianism. The Left’s failure was particularly damaging — when they shifted towards the center, they ceased to represent many of the marginalized among whom they traditionally had strong support. Feeling unrepresented, many turned to their identity, fueling both far-right populism and religious extremism, depending on which identity they subscribe to.

In the United States, the political system was arguably even more dysfunctional. The rise of identitarianism led to increased polarization and in-fighting. The fact of special interest groups holding more sway than ordinary citizens led many to view the political establishment as opaque, unresponsive, self-serving and unconcerned with their pain. “Career politician” became a derogatory term.

When “politicians don’t change anything” becomes a widely held sentiment, and when trust in politicians crashes in the midst of an atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety, a loud-mouthed, abrasive, authoritarian “outsider” who promises to “drain the swamp” can quickly gain a groundswell of support. Trump was the “human Molotov cocktail” his supporters could throw at a political system that failed them.

Menu:
Introduction
#1 The Triumph of Globalization
#2 The Loss of Anchors
#3 Economic Transformation
#4 Obsolete Nationalism (Previous Section)
#5 Political Failure (You are here)
#6 Social Media Broke our Public Sphere
#7 The Unravelling of the Middle-East
Conclusion: The Trump Effect

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