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Transmissions Episode 2: Ukraine, NOBS, and the End of the End of History (w/ George Hoare)

Class Unity

CHAPTER

Anti-Politics: The Basic Response to the End of History

Anti-politics is the sort of politics, the basic response to that post-2016 period. The idea is that people instead of being apathetic or angry, there's this kind of process of repoliticization and dissensus. So if you're talking about majoritarianism, I think it was a massive democratic expression of popular well, but it was a democratic moment without a democratic movement. It was essentially what's now known as PMC at that point in time. But yeah, those were the people who made up the left and various parts of Labour Party which were very keen to have a second referendum.

00:00
Speaker 2
Listeners, I can give some testimony to the fact that he is just stipulating.
Speaker 1
And does
Speaker 2
it, you know, it's very rude. It's very rude. It's quite disturbing. Yeah. David's upset.
Speaker 1
As an English person, this is quite unusual. I'm not a southern European who will just articulate at any opportunity. It takes quite a lot to get my hands going when I'm talking as a Brit. But yeah, so anti-politics.
Speaker 2
Anti-politics is having a good timelessness.
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly. Well, I finished my can of, I won't say what cola it is, but a well-known one. So I've got the sugar as well. And the caffeine. But yeah. But anti-politics, what is this? I think that the idea is that the, you know, it's the sort of politics, the basic response to that post-2016 period. So some people talk about populism and obviously closely related, but what we wanted to put our finger on or try to identify was that during the end of history, you had post-politics, you had, let's say, an elite moral panic about apathy. So I don't know if you'll sort of remember, but there was a lot of worry about how do we get people voting? How do we get people interested in politics? Well, the reason people aren't interested in quote-unquote formal politics is because, you know, politicians are all the same and there's very little ideological distance between parties, at least in Western Europe, for example. But yeah, so anti-politics, the basic, I guess, idea is that people instead of being apathetic or angry, there's this kind of process of repoliticization or this, yeah, return of dissensus if you want to kind of use some five dollar words. There's at least one there. It's like the idea would be that you have, and then the moral panic that the elites try to propagate maybe is, instead of like worrying that people are apathetic and not involved, it's that they're ignorant. It's that they can't understand what's going on. So the way you try and sort of manage this period if you're a kind of a member of an establishment party, for example, is by saying that your fellow citizens are a basket of deplorables or in the British context, or racist, xenophobic, stupid, low information voters, I think is another phrase. The idea is that you see, in general, a mobilization of or a return of people into politics, a greater or lesser extent, and the characteristic forms that these take are against the unrepresentative at that point existing political structures. So I think it's kind of our way to try and look at what the populist moment, because I don't think the term populism is always that useful. This often means different things in different contexts, and it's often a way to sort of dismiss the people who are interested in populist projects, because they're sort of gullible or whatever.
Speaker 4
Yeah, I think that that tracks for me. Regarding, you do have a quote in here about, let's see, where is it? Well, I'll paraphrase. You talk about the majoritarian politics as being both terrifying for both the right and the left. And I definitely, I think that that speaks to your earlier description of anti-politics, but do you have anything else to say about that with regards to the left and our movements on the left?
Speaker 1
So if you're talking about majoritarianism, I think, which is something which I whole hard to do support, the classic example or the kind of defining the litmus test, if you will, was the Brexit referendum in June 2016. Here you had a massive democratic expression of popular well, but it was a democratic moment without a democratic movement. And to link this back to this idea about anti-politics, the existing political structures in Britain, there was no real representation in the cultural establishment, even in the political establishment of the 52% of people who turned out in June to vote to leave the EU. So what was the left's role in this? Well, I can attest that the most vociferous and vicious attacks on the democratic vote came from those who would identify themselves as left wing. Getting called a fascist or a racist was not something that I was expecting to happen, but it did. And I think this was because, well, there's a whole range of explanations, but I think the, probably the crudest one, but one that is correct, I would say, is the class basis of the left at that point. It was essentially what's now known as PMC, but at that point, you know, or in the British context, you would probably say middle class. But yeah, those were the people who made up the left and the momentum and various parts of Labour Party, which were very keen to have a second referendum. So that was the context.

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