Alcoholic Politics: a diagnosis

‘Alcoholic Politics’ refers to the condition of being addicted to political influences that are seriously harmful.

‘Alpoholics’ – to coin a term – are unhappy with their lot. Some are understandably aggrieved that they are paid a pittance while their superrich bosses pocket millions. Some are obsessively angry that they do not get as much help as those people who just happen to have suffered more in life. Whatever the reason, they turn to political inebriation – the stuff that takes your mind off reality, conjures up imaginary escapes that actually lead nowhere, removes your inhibition to be rude to others, gives you a sense of high, and plunges you to depressive rejection of any sensible path ahead.

Demagogues and political con merchants target their intoxicating brand of facile delusion on Alpoholics, who just can’t get enough of that bewildering sensation of not having to deal with anything anymore. One gulp after another of that heady potion sends them to that illusory realm where taxes are no more, regulations are removed, big corporations willingly treat their workers with fairness and generosity, diseases are never infectious, the poor lift themselves out of poverty, and all immigrants and refugees are banished.

When the hangover hits, Alpoholics blame responsible politicians and every kind of ‘do-gooder’ for trapping them in a world where evidence-based public policies are essential for keeping us safe from violence, ill health, exploitation, economic insecurity, climate chaos, and countless other threats. They don’t want to face the reality of people needing to learn from each other, work together to find solutions, and cooperate on overcoming their problems. It’s so much easier to get drunk on false promises, scapegoat blaming, and incoherent ranting.

The thing with Alpoholics is that you can’t tell them to stop. You can’t confront them with the nonsense they spout. They can’t grasp what is going on. What you can do is to try in their moments of sobriety help them see what is really happening. Shouting abuse at innocent strangers, joining in riots, echoing threats against the lives of others – is that how on reflection they want to be seen by their children, their parents, themselves?

Instead of being lectured, they need support – someone who will listen to them, to whom they can turn to talk things through. In practice, this can take the form of a neighbourhood network of mentors – which may include some who had been Alpoholics themselves – who are ready to meet with someone willing to explore recovery, taking one step at a time, shedding the addictive pull, and reconnecting with others without twisted perception or inflamed emotions.

Most of all, they need to be given hope, to have some goal they feel worthy of working towards. Countering the constant flow of depressing news and manipulative negativity, attention should be directed at efforts that make life tangibly better for people they care about. Big announcements about national targets rarely engage people deeply. It is the day-to-day experience of kindness, helpfulness, and understanding that builds trust, and keeps people focussed on the good that can be done, and away from destructive illusions.

Faux Checks & Unbalanced: US style

If there was a time when countries around the world were supposed to emulate the US in terms of democratic development, we have surely reached the point where everyone should learn to avoid the pitfalls of the American system of government.

Every government needs non-party-political experts and administrators to ensure that assessments are carried out reliably, and plans are implemented fairly and effectively. But the US favours having political appointees in a myriad of positions, including the most senior ones for all major government departments and agencies. There is no requirement for appointees to have any relevant expertise or proven experience, so long as they fit with what the person at the top of the chain of command wants.

So, if the US President happens to want to appoint a vaccine-denier to look after the health of the country, a climate change-denier to deal with energy policy, someone whose geopolitical assessments aligned with Putin’s to oversee national security, an individual who sees no educational role for the federal government to take charge of education, and people who cannot be trusted on law and order to head up Justice or the FBI – it will all happen unless enough of the mostly subservient members of his party in the Senate dare oppose him.

As for the idea that the US has a written constitution that provides impartial safeguards, what that constitution permits or forbids is always up for interpretation by the Supreme Court – and whenever a case comes up that is contested on party political lines, the court’s views are split between its members who were appointed by a Democrat president, and those appointed by a Republican president. Which version prevails depends on which side has the majority, and at the moment, the Republican side has a 6-3 advantage. Not surprisingly, it struck down a Democrat president’s policy to give relief to student loans, but supported the Republican demand to overturn the right to abortion. 

When it comes to the rule of law, the US President can, like some medieval monarch, pardon convicted criminals without any justification. There is no question of excluding cases where there is a personal interest, no requirement for any form of an impartial board to assess the propriety of any decision. To compound the irony, while the US system enables individual states to bar convicted felons from voting in elections, it allows a convicted felon such as Trump to run for and obtain the office of US president. And as president, the Republican majority Supreme Court has declared that he is immune from prosecution for any ‘official’ act – however egregious – he might undertake.

Meanwhile, citizens in certain states are given greater voting power than others. Every state, whatever its population, can elect two US senators. For example, the half a million people in Wyoming are represented by the same number of senators (and thus have the same political influence in the Senate) as the almost 40 million people in California. Imagine the 41,000 residents of the County of Rutland in the UK having the same number of representatives in one of our legislative chambers as the 3 million people of West Midlands. 

And this disproportionality reappears in the electoral system for the US president, making it possible for a candidate to receive fewer votes from the people than their rival, and still win the presidency by dint of an archaic electoral college arrangements that inherently give citizens in the smaller (more rural) states greater influence than others.

The US since the days of President Woodrow Wilson has talked of bringing democracy to the rest of the world. It cannot leave it any longer to start rebuilding it at home.

What is Our Shared Identity?

Some people have very strong views about who ‘We’ are. They invoke ‘We’ as an identity badge that keeps them apart from various kinds of people who they would like to see excluded from their conception of ‘their’ school, business, neighbourhood, or country. 

But what is it that matters so much to them in cutting off certain people?

It turns out that it’s a mixed bag of dreads and dislikes. Examples include things like shades of skin tone, facial features supposedly associated with ‘race’, country of birth, language spoken – even particular dialect or accent, one’s place of worship, religious affiliation, attachment to certain customs, or how one dresses. 

However, does any of this make sense?

Is skin tone remotely reliable as a marker for who can be trusted? Have we not all received help from people who speak more than one language? Do we need more futile religious wars before we reach the familiar conclusion that we are better off living in peace regardless of obscure theological differences? Don’t customs change and become no less engaging? And why get wound up over headdresses when designated ‘hijabs’, while one can be so meekly deferential towards them when they appear as a nun’s wimple? 

The people who cynically stoke obsessions with such irrelevant differences often fall back on the claim that they point to critical divergence in values. ‘We’ are supposed to have one set of admirable values, and these ‘others’ allegedly do not share them and should therefore be kept away. So, what are these values?

According to what may be termed the ‘Chauvinist’ conception of values, ‘good’ and ‘right’ are somehow derived exclusively from being ‘white’, subscribing to some anti-compassion religion that nonetheless claims to be ‘Christian’, despising other nations, holding that women should be subservient to men, deferential to ‘get rich quick’ gurus, outraged by any form of ‘unconventional’ sexuality, and inclined to glorify aggression. In reality, these are not widely shared values at all, though they are quite influential amongst many people who gravitate towards certain types of political party.

By contrast, the shared values we do regard as important, and would want others to exhibit are what may be called Values of Mutual Concern – these are the values embedded in the Golden Rule of doing to others as we would want others to treat us; the values that underpin solidarity and facilitate cooperation. In essence, as we would want to experience kindness, fair treatment, and adequate support when we are in need, we value the display of kindness, fair treatment, and adequate support whenever people are in need. If anyone has malicious intent or set on harmful behaviour, we would have to guard against them. But otherwise, we want to live and work with people who will be considerate and helpful to each other without picking over factors that have no bearing on their readiness to give and receive consideration and help. 

Whatever organisation, neighbourhood, or country, we find ourselves in, WE on reflection are likely to see that far from wanting to be near people who would treat others with callous indifference or even vile aggression regardless of how considerate or helpful they might be, the ones we would prefer any day to be our colleagues, neighbours, compatriots are those who are disposed to deal with others respectfully, fairly, and reciprocally.

Hear any more about the importance of shared identity? Remember what kind of people WE truly want to be identified with.