How To Succeed In Politics Without Really Trying

Or: “How I learned to stop worrying and love populism”

Image credit: the author

The twin axioms of representative democracy are (i) that no matter how incompetent, mendacious, unstable, and venal you may be, you can stand for election; and (ii) no matter how ignorant, simple-minded, bigoted, and unstable you may be, you can vote.

Not surprisingly, the results achieved from representative democracy have always been poor, and over the last few years have veered from low-quality to absolutely catastrophic. Brexit, Trump, Babis, Modi, Bolsonaro, Duterte, PiS and scores of other bad ideas have all benefited from the fact the average person knows little and understands almost nothing. People simply cleave to whatever simple-minded memes they’re fed because this is the easiest option. Politics is a sub-sub branch of the entertainment industry and we vote for the most amusing clown, the most outrageous buffoon.

We can’t conceive that there would actually be terrible consequences.

Brexit and Trump demonstrated with absolute clarity the fact that a great many voters are far, far more gullible, ignorant, and stupid than even the most cynical politician had hitherto dared to dream. This is knowledge that cannot be un-learned.