How do you educate people who read and believe the lies printed by the Mail, Sun, Express and Telegraph?
How do you educate people who admit they are tired of listening to experts, of being told what they are allowed to say and think by people with higher qualifications?
How do you educate people who flatly refuse to acknowledge the facts when they are staring them in the face?
I know the left love a bit of self flagellation and like to feel that they're in some way to blame but I can't buy this crap that we're hearing from the Brexiteers and Trump supporters. If you don't call out racism and fascism where you see it then you are complicit to it's success. That it is clearly in the majority now is a worrying sign that education has already failed a great many people.
Yes, there's people who have a right to feel left behind, disenfranchised and abandoned by the well to do, the political elite and yes, the educated. But the simple fact is that they have been seduced by the same old lies about immigrants and foreigners that the far right have trotted out for centuries when it's generally the more centre right, capitalist parties that have favoured business over workers, allowed jobs to be outsourced, wages depressed and protections removed. The old left, the unionists and yes, the EU tried in vain to protect jobs and workers' rights and all the while the workers believed the promises of prosperity for all in a capitalist utopia and repeatedly reelected the very people who were worsening their lives.
To be honest, beyond the sarcastic notion of IQ testing for voters, I can't actually see an answer. Let's face it, the right wing have always had the better PR, the snappier dressers and the bulk of the media backing them. The only chance the left or the liberals have of touching power is either playing lapdog to the tories in a coalition or by becoming them as Blair did, old labour is just too scruffy, too school teachery and too pinko for the brainwashed electorate to vote for these days and has makes it worse by tearing itself apart in a frenzy of self loathing and self blame every time they are rejected.
Let's face it Brexit was deemed impossible even by Farage and Johnson only for them to be surprised they got away with it, Trump stood no chance. Wilders is looking a shoo in in Holland, France could be ready for Le Pen or will it take one more act of terrorism, Merkl could find one more New Years Eve gropeathon too much and cede to the hard right whilst Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and others on the East of Europe edge ever closer to Putin. Yet still anyone suggesting the West is sliding inexorably into fascism is told that they are scare mongering or that they are the ones responsible for the success of these demagogues. We're fecked, but I'm damned if I'm going to start blaming myself for it.
