Abusivism: the politization of nastiness

In politics, ‘isms’ used to consist of doctrines setting out why and how society should be steered towards a better future.  People backed or opposed particular political parties because they broadly subscribed to those doctrines.  Sometimes, when circumstances change, people might come to lose confidence in a given doctrine (e.g., when it turns out that lowering taxes repeatedly do not lead to the creation of well-paid jobs; or extending prison sentences in general does not reduce crime rates).  But the clash of isms was on the whole based on disputes over ideas, which were subject to challenges from reasoned analysis and objective evidence.

One of the most disturbing development at the dawn of the 21^stcentury was the displacement of political ideas by the politization of nastiness.  Abusivist (to coin a term) politicians began to present their wild rants as ‘plain speaking’.  They style themselves as ‘ordinary folk’ who dare to talk back to ‘the establishment’. They despise reason, experts, evidence, compassion, empathy – for all they care about is what they ‘know’ to be the ‘truth’, and that ‘truth’ amounts to nothing but abusive attacks on any vulnerable group they feel like picking on.  

 

The targets of their groundless vitriol share one core characteristic – their plight stokes a twisted sense of self-righteous validation in people who, unsurprisingly, admire the ‘no nonsense’ aggressiveness of abusivist politicians. In general, anyone with a modicum of empathy wants to see help given to victims of domestic violence, immigrants desperate for a better life; refugees escaping from wars and chaos; people disadvantaged by their disability or poverty (or both); or individuals harassed and discriminated against as a result of their religion, race, gender or sexuality.  By contrast, followers of abusivist politicians get angry when they learn of these people getting help, and they want to retaliate – which their leaders promise to deliver for them in the form of laws and policies that not only cut any help provided, but would make vulnerable people’s lives even harder, especially through propaganda that misrepresents them as liars and threats.

 

Abusivism does not pretend to operate through reason, and it does not attempt to be civil. It labels as enemies those least able to defend themselves and proceed to attack them – both by promoting distrust and hatred against them, and by using the power of the state wherever possible to hurt them.  It dismisses people who care as ‘do-gooders’, ‘politically correct’, and despairingly ‘woke’. It rallies its supporters to obstruct and intimidate them in the name of some ‘culture war’.   

 

Theresa May once warned about the Conservatives becoming the Nasty Party, but when she had the power to chart a new course, she introduced the ‘Hostile Environment’ policy to drive immigrants away. In the end, she merely paved the way for Boris Johnson, whose casual abusivism has been a defining feature of his career.  In the US, Donald Trump has dedicated himself to reducing the Republican Party to nothing but the Nasty Party.  Not all conservative politicians go along with abusivist politics.  But if they want to save their party’s soul, they had better take action soon to pull it back from the brink.