At last! A neologism for a concept that I have long believed needs to be named and critiqued.
In a discussion about political correctness on the Ezra Klein Show podcast, journalist Adam Serwer describes what happens when members of a politically powerful group get outraged. When candidate Barack Obama said that certain people ‘cling to guns’… when candidate Hillary Clinton called a segment of the electorate ‘deplorables’ … when Labour MP Emily Thornberry posted a picture of white van and an English flag on the streets of Rochester… they were vilified.
Yet somehow, none of these furore were coded as Political Correctness, which was something I moaned about at the time of the Thornberry gaffe. It seemed to me then, and now, that the label ‘political correctness’ is a right-wing stick with which to beat minority group concerns, an act of dismissal and de-legitimisation.
Serwer says that we need to give a name to the kind of right-wing outrage that comes when one of their groups is shown disrespect. He suggests ‘populist correctness’ which sounds just right to me.
Imagine Your Well Meaning Policy in the Tiny Hands of Donald Trump
https://twitter.com/KevinNR/status/823226458139197440
One tangential effect of the Trump presidency—I hate to call it anything so optimistic as a ‘silver lining’—is that it is likely to reconfigure many people’s conception of the state and its power.
An ongoing difficulty for those of us who campaign on human rights issues is convincing ordinary that rights violations effect them. The people who usually have their human rights violated first are usually out of the mainstream: people on the political fringes, religious minorities, or those who are part of unconventional sub-cultures. Those who are part of the conventional majority do not the abuses happen to others, and even if they are told about them, they never really believe the old Pastor Niemöller warning that they could be next (I’ve talked about this before).
Although I think such attitudes are mistaken, I think they are forgivable. When one lives in a country with a healthy democratic culture under politicians who are conventional and centrist, it is entirely rational to think that any clipping or shaving of human rights will not affect you, because, frankly, they won’t.
This is why the British people appear to have consented to their government logging communication and browsing history: few people really believe that Prime Ministers like David Cameron or Teresa May will use their surveillance powers to establish a Nineteen Eighty-four style surveillance state.
Warnings to that effect (perhaps even deploying the word ‘Orwellian’) are perceived as hyperbole.
Likewise with the way in which people consented to human rights abuses perpetuated by the Obama Administration. Because the forty-fourth president was a thoughtful and essentially decent person, it was assumed that any capability the U.S. Government has to invade citizens privacy, or to launch drone strikes on foreigners, would be used wisely and sparingly.
But Barack Obama gifted Donald Trump an expansive surveillance state.
While I do not believe the Trump presidency is likely to be materially or morally helpful to the world, it will at least be rhetorically useful. In his awfulness and in his likely abuse of his power, he will provide the perfect warning, a salutary tale, a bogeyman that we can use to warn policy-makers and voters everywhere about the dangers of eroding civil liberties.
So when someone proposes a slight curb on free speech, or subtle change to surveillance powers, the argument will no longer be some nebulous hypothetical In the future someone could misuse these powers. Instead, the argument will be Imagine these powers in the hands of Donald Trump. The fact he has been elected and is busy ignoring all the standards, traditions and norms that keep a democracy strong and trusted, shows us just how quickly a stable democracy can slip off the rails. He is a stark reminder that we should build safeguards and worst-case-scenarios into our laws.
None of this is particularly interesting to the Irish or to ethnic minorities, of course. They don’t need to imagine state over-reach because they already have first-hand experience of how the state can abuse it’s power at their expense.
The Disgraceful Behaviour of the Senate on the Supreme Court Opening
The incredible gravity of the U.S. Presidential election pulled all of our attention towards Donald Trump and his scandalous behaviour. His unexpected victory will have us reeling for weeks to come. His forthcoming presidency will probably be a permenant distraction. Just as his presidential primary rivals failed to get their message across, so other pressing issues will surely be crowded out by a general obsession and fascination with Mr Trump.
Here is one such issue that has not received the attention it deserves: the Republican-controlled Senate’s refusal to confirm, or even hold hearings on Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s choice for the United States Supreme Court.
Continue reading “The Disgraceful Behaviour of the Senate on the Supreme Court Opening”
These Two Photos Show Eight Years of Change
New York Magazine has a long feature on the eight years of Obama’s America.
The first illustration in the piece is a compelling diptych of President Obama: two portraits taken eight years apart. The difference is stark. His hair has turned grey and his face is rumpled.
However, the photograph that really brought home for me the changes of the past eight years was one taken on inauguration day in January 2009. Its a version of an image that I’ve commented on before.
At first glance, the image looks modern. People mediating their own experience of the moment via a glowing rectangle. Taking their very own version of a famous photograph.
But when you compare it to the photograph below, taken in 2016, the inauguration image suddenly looks horribly dated.
How Margaret Thatcher Hacked My Brain And Made Me Slightly Less Sexist
“My nephew Luke has no memory of a white male president” says Melissa Ryan. “Hillary Clinton just made history but for millions of children she won’t be the first woman president. She’ll just be the president.”
This is exactly right, I responded.
I was born right before Margaret Thatcher became the British Prime Minister and she remained so until I was nearly 11 years old. In my head, the word ‘Prime Minister’ was inherently gendered female and whenever, in fiction or historical context, the Prime Minister was referred to with the male pronouns he/him, it felt odd. Continue reading “How Margaret Thatcher Hacked My Brain And Made Me Slightly Less Sexist”