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The corollary to this is that when you're furious at the bulk of the population for being "apathetic", that's largely because this country is a pretty good place to live and most people aren't forced to be political. https://twitter.com/sapphicstoinis/status/1356903125316116481
There do exist places where the majority has no choice but to engage in politics. You wouldn't want to live there.
It's like the famous non-Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times". Most normal people crave boring times, which has always enraged extremists of all types.
Orwell (yes, him again) once wrote that the left needed to learn that British workers have a lot more to lose than their chains. Incredibly, that's still true in 2021. You'll rarely hear anyone left of Stella Creasy acknowledge there's anything good about living in the UK.
This applies to the US too, though perhaps to a lesser extent. They have social problems far more gaping than hours, exacerbated by their skeletal safety net, but it's still a very wealthy, peaceful country compared to most.
I often see flat incredulity on here that the Tories are still getting about 40%, despite everything. What people need to accept is that most British people don't have the impression they live in a failing state, and that's not because they've been lied to by the "MSM".
This is genuinely a very bad government. But that hasn't made itself felt in the lives of a critical mass of voters, with the exception of the pandemic, which most people acknowledge is a global crisis and not HMG's fault.
Don't assume you're immune to propaganda yourself, either. My Corbyn-liking aunt, who I've often tweeted about, insists that 100% of the bad things about the UK's COVID response are down to the Tories while all the good things are down to hardworking NHS staff. It's bollocks.
I don't think anyone's denying things could be a lot better. The point is, most British people have a roof over their heads, hot and cold running water and aren't starving, which isn't true for much of humanity through most of history. https://twitter.com/EmmaSzewczak/status/1357263755525165056
That's my baseline, you see. Abject poverty is the human norm, the idea most people in a country can be free of it is very much a modern invention.
It's a left-wing staple to claim the opposite, that abundance is the natural human state and only capitalism keeps anyone poor. It's not true, it's not even nearly true. Grotesque misery and hardship is the baseline, always.
And no, expropriating all the billionaires wouldn't fix poverty either, at least not for long. Set your sights higher.
You don't have to look that far back. I imagine most Uighurs in Xinjiang have quite strong political views right about now. https://twitter.com/ThickleyP/status/1357265674918330369
Most Corbynites would sign up to "shoot fascists", but then end up spending most of their time reporting dissidents to the Soviet-controlled government. https://twitter.com/ThickleyP/status/1357266836891594752
Right, but older people's votes count too, and even the worst-off person in the country isn't literally starving, even if their food situation is a lot more precarious than we'd like. https://twitter.com/ReactiveRich/status/1357267520789635073
Yes, if you want to really help the wretched of the Earth, then give your backing to Syrian democrats. But of course, when Western governments attempt any such thing, the left accuses them of "imperialism". https://twitter.com/ReactiveRich/status/1357268101012807680
Going back to "poverty is the baseline": the left's rejection of this principle is also why they reject capitalism. They see a world full of very poor people and conclude the current system must be monstrous, not seeing that the trendline is the thing.
I like Brendan, but he couldn't have illustrated my point more perfectly if he'd tried. Much of what he says is true, but it doesn't FEEL true to ordinary people because they don't feel the pinch of necessity themselves. https://twitter.com/bmay/status/1356948702942920705
That doesn't make them selfish, either, just human. As for "isolated", perhaps that's true in a diplomatic sense, but thanks to social media, the average British person is more connected to the outside world than they ever have been. @bmay
