I don’t like John Major. He spent a significant part of the 1980s cosying up yo Margaret Thatcher and the decisions he made harmed a great many poor people as she paved the way for the crash of 2008 and the rise of the fascists in Europe. But today, as an old man, he spoke about the western alliances that have enabled the slow emergence of liberal ideas to permeate societies and make war between those societies unthinkable, being destroyed by the small minded, neo-nazis who have taken over the Whitehouse. He spoke of fear, of Chinese Communism taking over where the US shrinks and how bad that is for the US.
The word that governs the Republicans right now is transactional. It is a tiny word devoid of empathy or people. It looks at balance sheets and trade as the only civilised action when they are actually, the least civilised. It believes in the profound ignorance of people buying and selling each other in a universe where money has to relevance outside of the human race. It used fascist ideas and language – our problems are foreigners, we are not as great as we once were – to inveigle people into betraying democratic principles. It never relies on the intensity or depth of the intellect but employs trite Goebbelian statements of the kind George Orwell so brilliantly expounded.
And now we look from Putin to Trump and we see no difference.
#vladimirputin
#donaldtrump