Harris and Biden: Hurrah for democracy, the PC brigade are back in power

For many, seeing the back of the tantrumic Trump is an understandable cause for celebration. For the new elites, however, it is far more than that. It is also a time to breath again because they have managed, for now at least, to see the backs of the deplorables – the incorrigible, “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic” masses, as Hillary Clinton described them.

Hurrah, the woke technocrats are back in power. The clever lawyers who know how to speak properly, the PC professionals who know all about human rights but little about actual rights, and of course the cultural elites who can see something profound in the wearing of Converse sneakers by Kamala Harris: In a world without politics, culture is God.

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When Obama was elected it felt like the election of a black president could allow America to bin their racist past and to judge all people, at last, on their character rather than the colour of their skin.

The tags on Harris’s sneakers, that read, “stop hate” and “black joy”, coupled with the almost complete focus on the vice president’s colour and sex suggest that Martin Luther King’s call for character recognition has taken a major step backwards.

There is much talk about the return of democracy, but it is interesting that being “boring” – read having no strong principles or beliefs – is now equated with democratic renewal.

To emphasis the point, following Biden’s election, there has been much talk about the “adults” having re-entered the building. T-shirts are even available with the slogan, “The Adults Have Arrived”.

Again, with regard to Trump this makes sense. But again, this is not just about Trump’s infantile character but about how the new elites, on both sides of the Atlantic, see both themselves and the people.

In this regard it was interesting to read the opening short paper that was sent to me this week, published by the Centre of Comparable Politics and Media Research, written by Professor Natalie Fenton.

In her paper, examining the “Delusion of democracy”, Professor Fenton unpicks the Brexit-inspired 2019 General Election in the UK and attempts, in all manner of means, to explain how this election was not democratic.

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Masquerading as a defender of democracy and the people, Fenton however, cannot but help to demonstrate her elitist attitude towards the electorate as she discusses how the easily led masses were duped by, “new techniques of digital manipulation” used by the rich against the poor. Moreover, she explains that this election was, apparently, fuelled by a “political economy of lies”, and that, “lies are simply more crowd pleasing” and “mood inducing”.

As an old comrade of mine recently reminded me, if you want to really understand what someone is saying ask yourself, “What are they saying about the people?”

Here, what Professor Fenton is really saying is that, unlike herself, who is not “manipulated”, the “crowd” can be easily pleased by simple things. And for some unexplained reason, “lies”, like being tickled on the belly, are more pleasing than the truth.

For the new elites, democracy is seen and said to be working when they get the result they want. When the people vote the wrong way, they are either manipulated or deplorable. When they vote the correct way, as we are seeing with Biden and Harris, democracy is celebrated once again, and the “adults” resume their correct position at the table and strap us firmly back into our highchairs.

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