Newfoundland and Beyond

He blew it.

The recent Newfoundland provincial election conforms in broad strokes to my theory that politics are getting more radical and more disaffected. In this heat, the middle-of-the-pavement Liberals beat back, barely, what might have been another in a recent string of Conservative provincial victories. The polls again were wrong. A Conservative win, however, would have been historic—Newfoundland and Labrador voters are not inclined to turf out governments quickly, and this one had been in for only one term. Even so, they were reduced to a minority. 

I think they did no worse because the Tories under Crosbie chose the wrong strategy. They fought the Liberals for the centre. “Vote for me! Nothing will change!”

This is a good strategy only if the electorate is simply tired of the government; or if they are corrupt. Not smart against a one-term government. There was as a result really nothing to choose in terms of policy or ideology between the Rouge and the Bleu. The disaffected had no ballot option, no way to “send a message” if they wanted change. This was the old cynical politics.

Instead, as a result, we had a surge in independents. We might have seen a surge in the NDP too, but for the fact that they were caught flat-footed, and did not run candidates in most ridings.

In other, related news, Drudge reports a recent Gallup poll finding that 40% of Americans now identify themselves as pro-socialism. It used to be around 25%, back in Stalin’s day. Greater polarization and radicalization, again.

This seems incompatible with the recent poll surge for Joe Biden as a “moderate” in the Democratic primary stakes.

Either poll may be wrong—polling has been wrong a lot lately. But if 40% of the American electorate is now socialist, that translates to 80% or so of Democrats. If Biden has 40% of the Democratic vote, that means that 50% of his vote must be pro-socialist, and ideologically more aligned with other candidates. They are probably only parking their votes, then, and can be easily stripped off. If they are supporting him now, it is not because he is a moderate. Perhaps they just don’t know what he or the other candidates stand for yet. His natural ideological ceiling, even if the only moderate in the race, is 20%. His current boom is probably a mirage.

Some, it is true, might just have as their first priority somehow stopping Trump, and be gravitating to Biden on those grounds. But that does not tend to be the usual reaction, even in the case of a President despised by the other side. The Dems ran the ideological Mondale against Reagan for his second term. They ran the ideological McGovern against Nixon for his.

Moving over to Britain, we again see evidence of growing polarization. Milkshakes have been flung now at Nigel Farage, Carl Benjamin, and Tommy Robinson. It’s becoming a thing. Heavier projectiles have been aimed at Benjamin and Robinson, and things seem to be escalating. For Britain, this seems shocking public rudeness.

While Farage, Benjamin, and Robinson represent a radicalization of politics on the right, it is the reaction on the left that seems truly extreme. These three have all been declared beyond the realm of permissible discourse, “racists,” “Nazis.” Yet their public positions are not at all extreme. Benjamin seems to simply be a liberal. Farage is concentrating at least for now only on the issue of leaving the EU, something a majority of Britons demonstrably support. Robinson is more radical: critical of Islam and Muslim immigration.

But if the left finds this last troublesome, they are being remarkably hypocritical. Until perhaps two minutes ago, by my watch, the left was loudly criticising Islam. They were demanding invasions to end female genital mutilation. They were protesting the US being in alliance with “intolerant” “fundamentalist” Saudi Arabia who oppressed women. They were insisting the burkha was oppressive; and so on.

Obviously, it is not opposition to Islam that troubles them about Robinson, or about UKIP.

It is the sense that they are losing their power. 

Storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1889.

Most often, these extremists on the left when unmasked turn out to be teachers and professors.

These are not a powerless or disenfranchised group. This is an elite. This is a group invested with a good deal of power, privilege, and material comfort. They simply feel they deserve more.

They expect to be respected and obeyed. Because they are supposedly superior. Increasingly, they are not.

That, it seems to me, is the source of all the radicalism on the left.

It looks like hysteria. And it is perfectly self-destructive. The growing radicalism of this "elite" is sure over time to shake the allegiance of remaining members of the general public still inclined to defer to their established authority.

Again, I think we are seeing a collapse of an ancien regime.