From top: A mural in Bristol, England; Dan Boyle
For those who believe in the ‘stable genius’ theory of Donald Trump, that his very erraticism is proof of his genius; that for them he is practising a sublime form of right wing anarchism, purposefully seeking to destroy everything that doesn’t accord with his worldview, what I write here probably isn’t for you.
It would be morally suspect to invest so much credit in Trump. The more likely reality is that Trump is every inch the spoiled child he portrays himself to be. Someone who instinctively strikes out at whatever he doesn’t like.
The problem is that this accidental anarchist, however unintentionally, may be defining a particular, peculiar, and ultimately poisonous political creed.
Right wing, far right wing, anarchism is scarcely related at all to its left wing mirror image. Both forms of (wishful) thinking seek to deconstruct society.
Left wing anarchists, sometimes naively sometimes more sinisterly, want to deconstruct in order to build anew. What would follow would they believe be a kinder, more gentle society. In his books George Orwell pretty much demolished these conceits, convincingly showing how narrow the gap is that exists between Utopia and Dystopia.
Right wing anarchists, those inspired by Trump and the merrymakers behind Brexit, seek to deconstruct in order to reconstruct. This reconstruction seeks a return to supposed halcyon days. Times when everything had a place and everyone knew theirs.
A mythical place where the rich could become further rich without having to contribute to any sense of a fair society. A World of benign empire where those less worthy became more worthy merely by basking in the presence of their betters.
Right wing anarchists want to remove every triumph of social democracy. They despise labour rights – the forty hour weeks, paid holidays, maternity rights, social protections. All things they believe compromise the right to make profits.
They abhor consumer rights. The right to know everything that should be known about a good or service before purchase. What has been wrong with caveat emptor where the consumer took total responsibility for a purchase, they ask?
What RWAs (Riggers With Attitude) especially detest are the gains made by the environmental movement over the last number of decades. The idea that environmental costs have to be measured; that there is no right to pollute the air, water, soil or atmosphere, is anathema to these people.
This is the battleground – The entitled against the envisioned.
The Vanguard of the Right are no revolutionaries. They certainly are no harbingers of a better future. They are the pedants of a discredited past.
Their idyll is no Iliad. For them Trojan Horses have been used to create false expectations of a better, fairer society. Expectations have been raised, they believe, in ways that can never be met.
Far better to return to the paternalistic glow of a benign capitalism that never really existed either.
Liberal tolerance has allowed the dark right to fester. It may be that the only way of meeting intolerance is by being intolerant. Liberal distaste of ‘lowering’ themselves to levels of the New Right has given extreme right views a credibility they do not deserve.
Perhaps a head to head, point by point challenge of the hate being promulgated by the New Right being exposed, is the only way of returning them and their hateful views to the obscurity they deserve.
Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle
Pic: AFP/Getty
Yawn.
Unemployment is down ( to record levels amongst blacks ),wages are up,stock market is booming.
Which is why Trump’s approval ratings are higher than Obama’s at the same time in his presidency.
This is all Americans care about not some student union-style rant about right wing anarchism from a failed minority party politician.
“Trump’s approval ratings are higher than Obama’s at the same time in his presidency.”
Except they’re not.
“Arecent poll this week showed President Donald Trump earned a 39 percent approval rating […]
President Barack Obama, whom Trump has frequently attacked both in office and on the campaign trail, received approval ratings of 45 and 44 percent at around the same point as Trump in his first term.”
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-approval-rating-reagan-clinton-1074911
Unless you believe this guy of course…
“President Trump’s approval ratings are lower than Barack Obama’s were at this point in his presidency — but don’t tell that to the president’s eldest son. In an Instagram post that was quickly torn to shreds by fact-checkers, Don Jr. shared a Trump vs. Obama poll on Thursday that was Photoshopped to make his dad’s approval ratings look better than they actually are. He deleted it on Friday, but has not informed his 1.2 million followers that it was factually incorrect.”
https://www.bustle.com/p/don-jr-shared-a-trump-vs-obama-poll-that-was-doctored-to-make-his-dad-look-better-10075318
Meh,polls go up and down.
A recent Rasmussen poll had him higher,others have him lower.
The point is that for all the biased liberal media complaints about him Trump’s approval ratings are consistently around or above those of all recent president’s at the same time in their first term.
The bookies have him as favourite to win the next election but the mid-terms will be a good indication of how his vote is holding up.
Hahaha.
A Trump supporter proved wrong, with facts. Sigh.
Dan Boyle thinks raising taxes changes the weather.
Trump cuts taxes so people can keep more of their own money.
Dan failed at his last election yet claims a pension for his ‘service’.
Trump won his election, the first time a trying, and takes no salary for his office.
Dan is a failed politician.
Trump is a winner.
Raising taxes changes people’s behaviours.
Changed behaviours can affects the environment.
Changes to the environment affect the climate.
(see plastic bag tax)
Confusing environment with climate, A classic Meanie-Greenie Dodge.
Does… does Culchie not know what the environment actually is? Good lord.
Come out from behind your sneer and explain it to us so Nigel.
Ahem. The ‘environment’ is inclusive of weather and climate, Culchie.
‘liberal tolerance’ and the first image is of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson engaged in a homosexual kiss to imply their union is unnatural.
Did you choose that image Dan Boyle? and why did you choose it?
And why does BS continue to use the picture of Dan looking like a Geography teacher who has been out on the turps all night.
This post really upset you, didn’t it? Have a little rest and come back with the good stuff, charge, you’ve been not quite yourself (literally) for a while now, petal.
To reduce envy.
Very good.
Me.
On the contrary it suggests they were absolutely made for each other. The funny thing is I don’t think it is a homosexual kiss but a reference to an older image from Eastern Europe. I’ll try to track it down later if no-one else chips in first
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/gorbachev-honecker-kiss-1986/
Became famously grafftid:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_fraternal_kiss
There now you know.
Thanks Nigel – every day’s a school day!
The changing of the socialist fraternal kiss into a homosexual kiss in the graffiti you reference is the very same snide slur. Heterosexual men depicted as homosexuals to show an unnatural union.
Mocking a persons sexuality or appearance is unacceptable.
I suppose it depends on whether you view homosexuality as unnatural or not, but otherwise I find your sentiments laudably progressive and you’ve made a good case for why this sort of thing might be problematic, Good for you.
@Nigel your comment is misleading. I don’t think it does depend on viewing homosexuality as unnatural or natural. I can answer that directly. Depicting two heterosexual men engaged in a sexual act is not natural or appropriate, it’s a slur on those depicted and on the gay community.
A better test of this type of ‘satire’ would be wether you find it appropriate to mock people based on their sexual orientation.
Hmm. I see where you’re coming from, but I’m not sure I buy that such a depiction is a ‘slur’ on those depicted. I do agree that such a depiction as mockery contains an implicit backhanded slur against the homosexual community, though. Fair point.
Whatever one thinks of either Johnson or Trump mockery of their bodies, their hair, their skin, their sexual identity is the bottom of the barrel and if that is the type of warfare the left is engaged they have lost all ends up because this ‘type’ of satire is entirely at odds with their values. And so, if the left is this quick to desert it’s values what bloody good is it??
I’d still like to know why either Dan Boyle or Broadsheet thought this image selection was appropriate
I think it’s pretty clear they posted it because it was based on the older pictures I linked to above. And you’re right their sexuality shouldn’t be mocked, particularly Trump’s, since it potentially makes light of him being a serial sexual predator.
I don’t pick the picture but I don’t pick up on the homophobia either. It is a visual pun of the famous Brezhnev/Honecker photo that plays on the idea of political symbiosis.
Thanks for the clarification Dan.
Perhaps at a stretch it’s possible to frame ‘My God, Help Me to Survive This mortal Love’ and to an extent ‘Make Everything Great Again’ as “political symbiosis” (if you wish) rather than puerile schoolboy mockery.
“The Kiss of Death” (Johnson and Trump kissing May 2016) is that particular ‘joke’ gone too far. The group that created the mural said of it – “Like what you see? Didn’t think so. Register to vote and we can avoid our very own kiss of death?”. I suppose there’s not a whiff of homophobia off that either??
The ‘gag’ may well have a historical context but it does not make it any more savoury
When you have to explain a joke…
“Liberal tolerance has allowed the dark right to fester. ”
I disagree, a mutual abject refusal to countenance the beliefs of the other side has led to rampant escalation all over. I assure you, if the Proud Boys weren’t 100% guaranteed a scrap every time they went for a march they’d march a lot less, or possibly wouldn’t even exist. Ditto for Antifa. Let’s not pretend for a second that both sides of the political divide aren’t populated mainly by fuppheads who just want an excuse to shout a lot, wave a funny sign and thump somebody. The liberals haven’t exactly been standing saintly accepting slings and arrows, much as you’d like to paint them that way.
Thank goodness not everyone on here suffers from tribal epistemology.
Pretty bad dose of both-sideism though.
You’ve forgotten the whataboutery.
Have you got anything besides buzzwords today Nige
I posted links to the historical, political and cultural antecedents of the image used in the post above if that’s any good to you.
The thing about Nigel is his knowledge extends a mile wide but an inch deep.
But at least I can tell a hawk from a handsaw.
Know,not tell.
To be strictly accurate.
First time for everything, eh, charge?
Strictly speaking, yes.
I had you down as more of a Strictly Come Dancing man tbh.
The only Dance I am Strictly about is the Dance….. OF JUSTICE.
So called mainstream politicians hate change, it threatens their cosy existence andf fat pensions.
So let me see if I’ve got the rules right: Any leftie can many any deranged claim they want on this so-called news site without any evidence to support these ludicrous claims (eg Trump is a serial sexual predator).
Anybody who challenges this orthodoxy is guilty of ‘wrong-think’ and will be banished from the site.
Ans yet Trump is the most successful American president in at least a century (after less than 2 years). He is destroying the rule of the decadent, self-aggrandizing, mob of democrats (the same ones who opposed the end of slavery and who founded the KKK) whilst restoring the original vision of an American Republic.
Trump wants to return America to the people: controlling lefties abhor that notion.
The media vilify him, at every turn, yet Trump’s base is rock-solid and growing.
His support with African Americans (for example) has doubled in a year. If he keeps this up the democrats will never win another election ever again.
Wow it doubled in a year (to 20%);
at that growth rate it will be 80% in 2020 for the election, and 640% by the 2024 election! Go Trump!
Actually it’s at 31%. Democrats can’t win an election without 85% of the African American vote.
oh, in that case Trump will get 120% of the black vote in 2020….
…it’s kinda scary, but I can imagine that actually happening.
I’ve just realised yesterday 300 newspapers across the US coordinated an anti-Trump editorial blast.
[They’re scared]
Is this Dan Boyle’s contribution?
Does he invoice for this?
Yup.300 newspapers play right into Trump’s hands giving him ample scope to tell his supporters the media are ganging up in him.
Read the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial on why they didn’t join in for that exact reason.
Yeah playing up to his shrinking base while turning off more and more people with his antics. His biggest asset is that he inherited an economy in recovery from Obama.
NIgel, your protectors at Broadsheet failed to publish my question to you yesterday so I’m restating it today.
How does a tax on plastic bags change the weather?
Will need evidence.
Who said a tax on plastic bags would change the weather? The tax on plastic bags was to reduce the number of plastic bags being fecked about the place.
Hardly statesmanlike behaviour, though. Barely adult, but that’s probably a plus in your world.
Here is a running aggregate of many polls and includes comparisons with previous presidents. From a site called 538. Run by Nate Silver…
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo