I’m sure I’m hardly the first person to consider this, but I’ve been musing a little bit now about the way that politics seems to have become an entirely more confused affair. I’m mostly speaking about Western countries like Australia and the US, and these are the observations of an interested amateur more than any kind of political scientist.
I’ve titled this post ‘A Flipping of Political Poles’ to make reference to the notion that the Earth’s magnetic poles periodically reverse – every few hundred thousand years, I think. In much the same way – that top becomes bottom and bottom becomes top (in as much as those terms have any meaning in either case) I think we’re seeing not so much seismic shifts as entire reversals of previously held political positions – certainly within my lifetime.
What do I mean? Well, I think that there has been something of a change in the traditional ‘bases’ of those who support political parties. In the US, where there hasn’t really been a part of labor, it’s perhaps not surprising that there’s such a failure in that vote. What is perhaps surprising is that there has been a movement of traditionally working class voters – of a certain race, to be fair – towards a party of capital. In some ways, that mirrors what I understand to be happening in France, and I think it’s linked to some similar ideas about elitism and popularism. I think the primary motivation for much of these actions is fear; people are worried that they are being left behind, that other groups in society are receiving more attention than them, and hence they vote for populist, and often insular and racist policies. In Australia, there’s been a decline in the primary vote of Labor for a significant period of time, often linked to the declining membership of trade unions, but I think it’s more interesting to know where these votes are going – some may very well be going to parties like the Greens, but I think there are some who are heading towards right wing parties such as One Nation.
What makes this interesting is that, perhaps, there is something similar happening to previously quite conservative voters. Not in the sense that they are voting for labor parties, but rather they are seeking to embrace more progressive policies and thus changing their support. I think the arguments about climate change (at least, in countries other than Australia and the US) and also marriage equality show that conservative parties are quite capable of adopting progressive party positions. Of course, there’s the old adage that conservatism is less about halting progress as it is about making sure that the progress that has to happen continues to benefit the dominant classes…