The new political landscape – Is right the new wrong?

Subtle changes have ensured that politics is more toxic than ever before…

Hide Images

First they said we would leave the European Union; no I said, this will go down in history as the most overhyped political event of century.

Have you even met someone that’s voting leave? This country doesn’t have the bottle and I’d be shocked if it’s even close.

Then they said Trump would win; no I said, it’s impossible.

Stop attention seeking and comparing it to a fluky Brexit; you don’t understand the American system. This man cannot convince the swing states that he has any right to be President.

Stop shitting it for no reason, I’ll bet you a fiver he loses. (I lost a lot of money that night.)

So when the self-proclaimed Andrew Neils started to pipe up over the French election, I started to stress.

I knew Le Pen obviously wouldn’t and couldn’t win. She had called Muslim prayer in the streets “an occupation of territory,” whilst she was forced to expel her own father from his own party after he referred to the Holocaust as a mere “detail of history.”

But I couldn’t say it. Even though the polls predicted a resounding defeat for Le Pen, I had to listen to people whine for days about their ‘gut feeling.’ Maybe I should have kept quiet the whole time …

No surprises then that for the first time in what feels like political eternity, I awoke to good news. I have no hesitations in calling it thus, such an over-simplification perfectly encapsulates the ‘new politics.’

Politics is no longer Left against Right, replaced by a new political divide which is even more toxic than what came before it.

Awkward…

Politics has, in the minds of many, become good vs evil. Most people I have spoken to in the last week understandably can’t recognise that Macron is an independent candidate or name establishment figures that were once expected to challenge.

Nonetheless, they still proclaim armageddon at any mention of Le Pen. What are the two divergent worldviews that have led to such a distinction?

In one corner you have Brexit, Trump and Le Pen, who push isolationist, national self-deterministic and aggressive reactions to the tribulations instigated by globalisation. Such a worldview directly clashes with the metropolitan liberalism of Macron, the Remain campaign and the establishment epitomised by Hillary Clinton.

Such a split has transcended the traditional political spectrum. Those left behind by globalisation have started to wholeheartedly reject the forward-thinking liberal approach offered by the slick and calculated Macron.

The French President’s Blair-like philosophy that weds social progressive values with a dynamic approach to modern economics once would have been the perfect tonic for the working man’s problems.

Surely not?

Whilst Macron’s youth, vivacity and ability to look slick in any suit would have once sparked a reaction against the establishment, he now represents it. It is the aggressive challengers to the new 21st century establishment that have wreaked havoc in the last year.

A Soviet-esque wardrobe and political outlook, shedloads of misogynistic money and most recently xenophobic fascism have all inspired the little man. Who knows what’s next?

I have got most things wrong. But politics has changed; you can hold me to that.