Are we seeing the end of politics as we know it? Fanatics will rule the roost. facts and experts ignored as the public sakes its thirst on the altar of ignorance? Gone are the days of respect for opposing views. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,”. Now it is “I will say whatever I want whether true of not”.
Traditional politics were – Conservatives cutting taxes red tape, Labour using taxes to help the disadvantaged and the rights of workers, a vast over simplificaton I know. LibDems were largely a bye-election party, the greens an irrelevance, and the rest were lunatics on the fringe. I did not vote for them, but respected their philosophy that I beleived to be wrong. That changed with Thatcher’s hatred of the working class.
Now we have the fringe being welcomed by the fearful, jealous, angry, stupid and bigoted. Especially the bigoted – the person who deems facts that contradict them as irrelevant. Patriotism and nationalism are archaic terms that I had hoped would be banished from the vocabulary by now – but it is raising its ugly head again – let us hope it does not results in millions of deaths like before!