Hey now, the Trumpster's in town!
I'm sure that you, gentler reader are as consumed with interest as I am at the visit of the Orange one to our fair shores. Indeed, so interested am I that I spent most of this morning in Magnet trying unsuccessfully to exchange some kitchen cupboard handles. But here he is, the red carpet has been rolled out, various royals have been deployed and many of my fellow countrymen seem somewhat exercised by his presence.
And why wouldn't they be? The Donald has, after all shown himself to be even worse than we feared when he breezed into the Oval Office on a tide of alternative facts and intriguing disability impressions. I'll not stop to bother listing his crimes here as I don't have all day, besides, this is a liberal echo chamber where I'm preaching to the converted, I very much doubt any MAGA hat types are generally tuning in for my patented blend of tired social commentary and wilful meandering. So I'll assume we're all singing from pretty much the same hymn sheet, if not necessarily in the same key.
And for once, most of the country seems to be largely on the same page. The streets of London remained conspicuously empty for his arrival, most who talk of him do so contemptuously. His approval ratings in this country run at an hilarious 16%, and most people are astonished it's that high. Even anti-Corbynista's grudgingly applaud St Jez refusing to rock up to the banquet. It is, weirdly, only the Brexit / Spiked mob and the vast majority of print media which seem to have a good word to say for the wacky old rapist. And this must be causing some serious cognitive dissonance for the Faragistes.
Imagine this: you voted Brexit not from out and out racism or the desire to rip up worker's rights, but out of that slightly odd but also endearingly bonkers patriotic strain that some of our fellow citizens have. You get a bit misty eyed at thoughts of Blighty, you've got a Union Jack Bedspread, you've still got a Charles and Di wedding mug, you refer to Camilla as "that woman". You also think good old Nigel's onto something, you have this vague inchoate sense of unfair play, of it all being a bit not British, so this having a pop at the establighment is very much in keeping with that good old Bulldog sprit. John Bull has awoken!
Except now, now you're being asked to make nice with a bloke who said he wanted to "nail" Diana, who has leered publicly over St Kate of Middleton, who called the Duchess of Sussex "nasty", whose first act when he set foot on English soil was to insult the mayor of London. We're supposed to put up with this sort of thing from a colonial? But Nigel seems to like him, and so does Boris (now), and they seem like good eggs. It's enough to give anyone a migraine.
But this is merely one facet of the dizzying mess in which we find ourselves these days. In fact have done ever since the rug got pulled out from underneath everyone in 2008, because what we're seeing now is the probably fairly necessary playing-out of whatever dark forces were unleashed by the world suddenly realising that the people in charge don't have a fucking clue. At least Trump makes it obvious. Those more left than I would take this argument further, back to Reagan and Thatcher's dismantling of the post-war economic settlement which ensured that the gap between haves and have-nots got wider at a spectacular rate, I tend more to the opinion that people are just dicks and generally were anyway. We just have more of an excuse to act like dicks these days. I'm only partly joking, by the way, ten minutes on twitter is enough to make you want to nuke the whole planet from orbit and start again.
But this is where we find ourselves, two sides of an angry divide, neither really wishing to understand the other. Which is where this handy Coastalblog guide to the culture wars comes in. Firstly, a list of words and phrases which you can use to safely ignore the person that's using them, as it's really not worth wasting your time on them:
"Privileged Westminster bubble"
"Leftist Elites"
"What people really voted for"
"People didn't understand what they voted for"
"Rootless metropolitan intellectuals"
"Remoaners"
"Brexshit"
"17.4 Million"
"The will of the people"
"Traitors"
"What real people think"
"Northern working class towns"
"BBC Bias"
"Main stream media"
Anyone spouting these shop-worn constructions is clearly incapable of original thought and should be moved away from immediately. You will note that there are more from the Brexity side than Remain, but that, sadly is as a result of the fact that they are more likely to fall back on stock phrases, what with actual facts not exactly being their friends. But I don't wish to appear biased, I will note that the first phrase tends to be spouted more by the deep-red end of the Labour party than it does by the pale-blue Brexiteers. I would also, in the interest of balance, point out that someone bandying around the word "fascist" willy-nilly without a proper understanding of its meaning is equally worth ignoring.
Other people worth ignoring:
Anyone who asks for money for their "journalism"
Anyone whose twitter handle has a tonne of hashtags
Anyone whose twitter handle has a load of flags on it
Anyone who blames it all on old people
Anyone who blames it all on working class people
Anyone who claims to be working class themselves
Anyone who tries co-opting the working class to their side of the argument
Anyone who thinks that a vast socio-economic group all thinks the same way
Anyone who blames Tony Blair (not Cameron though, this pretty much was all his fault)
(as a side-note, it's amazing how everyone cares what "the working class" thinks all of a sudden - it's almost as if they were a handy prop to be used as and when quite well paid people who wouldn't know a working class person if they handed them a black pudding need to make some sweeping point on a minor BBC politics programme.)
We are at a point in our history where, whilst the battle is worth fighting, that the discourse from both sides (and this isn't a false equivalence, I'm a card-carrying remainer, but that doesn't stop me from being appalled at the way some on my side conduct themselves) has become shrill and idiotic, it's not that we can't see the other person's point of view, it's that we don't seem to want to try. So do I have any solutions? No, no I do not. My advice is to sack it all off and go to the pub. Have a lovely day everyone!
I'm sure that you, gentler reader are as consumed with interest as I am at the visit of the Orange one to our fair shores. Indeed, so interested am I that I spent most of this morning in Magnet trying unsuccessfully to exchange some kitchen cupboard handles. But here he is, the red carpet has been rolled out, various royals have been deployed and many of my fellow countrymen seem somewhat exercised by his presence.
And why wouldn't they be? The Donald has, after all shown himself to be even worse than we feared when he breezed into the Oval Office on a tide of alternative facts and intriguing disability impressions. I'll not stop to bother listing his crimes here as I don't have all day, besides, this is a liberal echo chamber where I'm preaching to the converted, I very much doubt any MAGA hat types are generally tuning in for my patented blend of tired social commentary and wilful meandering. So I'll assume we're all singing from pretty much the same hymn sheet, if not necessarily in the same key.
And for once, most of the country seems to be largely on the same page. The streets of London remained conspicuously empty for his arrival, most who talk of him do so contemptuously. His approval ratings in this country run at an hilarious 16%, and most people are astonished it's that high. Even anti-Corbynista's grudgingly applaud St Jez refusing to rock up to the banquet. It is, weirdly, only the Brexit / Spiked mob and the vast majority of print media which seem to have a good word to say for the wacky old rapist. And this must be causing some serious cognitive dissonance for the Faragistes.
Imagine this: you voted Brexit not from out and out racism or the desire to rip up worker's rights, but out of that slightly odd but also endearingly bonkers patriotic strain that some of our fellow citizens have. You get a bit misty eyed at thoughts of Blighty, you've got a Union Jack Bedspread, you've still got a Charles and Di wedding mug, you refer to Camilla as "that woman". You also think good old Nigel's onto something, you have this vague inchoate sense of unfair play, of it all being a bit not British, so this having a pop at the establighment is very much in keeping with that good old Bulldog sprit. John Bull has awoken!
Except now, now you're being asked to make nice with a bloke who said he wanted to "nail" Diana, who has leered publicly over St Kate of Middleton, who called the Duchess of Sussex "nasty", whose first act when he set foot on English soil was to insult the mayor of London. We're supposed to put up with this sort of thing from a colonial? But Nigel seems to like him, and so does Boris (now), and they seem like good eggs. It's enough to give anyone a migraine.
But this is merely one facet of the dizzying mess in which we find ourselves these days. In fact have done ever since the rug got pulled out from underneath everyone in 2008, because what we're seeing now is the probably fairly necessary playing-out of whatever dark forces were unleashed by the world suddenly realising that the people in charge don't have a fucking clue. At least Trump makes it obvious. Those more left than I would take this argument further, back to Reagan and Thatcher's dismantling of the post-war economic settlement which ensured that the gap between haves and have-nots got wider at a spectacular rate, I tend more to the opinion that people are just dicks and generally were anyway. We just have more of an excuse to act like dicks these days. I'm only partly joking, by the way, ten minutes on twitter is enough to make you want to nuke the whole planet from orbit and start again.
But this is where we find ourselves, two sides of an angry divide, neither really wishing to understand the other. Which is where this handy Coastalblog guide to the culture wars comes in. Firstly, a list of words and phrases which you can use to safely ignore the person that's using them, as it's really not worth wasting your time on them:
"Privileged Westminster bubble"
"Leftist Elites"
"What people really voted for"
"People didn't understand what they voted for"
"Rootless metropolitan intellectuals"
"Remoaners"
"Brexshit"
"17.4 Million"
"The will of the people"
"Traitors"
"What real people think"
"Northern working class towns"
"BBC Bias"
"Main stream media"
Anyone spouting these shop-worn constructions is clearly incapable of original thought and should be moved away from immediately. You will note that there are more from the Brexity side than Remain, but that, sadly is as a result of the fact that they are more likely to fall back on stock phrases, what with actual facts not exactly being their friends. But I don't wish to appear biased, I will note that the first phrase tends to be spouted more by the deep-red end of the Labour party than it does by the pale-blue Brexiteers. I would also, in the interest of balance, point out that someone bandying around the word "fascist" willy-nilly without a proper understanding of its meaning is equally worth ignoring.
Other people worth ignoring:
Anyone who asks for money for their "journalism"
Anyone whose twitter handle has a tonne of hashtags
Anyone whose twitter handle has a load of flags on it
Anyone who blames it all on old people
Anyone who blames it all on working class people
Anyone who claims to be working class themselves
Anyone who tries co-opting the working class to their side of the argument
Anyone who thinks that a vast socio-economic group all thinks the same way
Anyone who blames Tony Blair (not Cameron though, this pretty much was all his fault)
(as a side-note, it's amazing how everyone cares what "the working class" thinks all of a sudden - it's almost as if they were a handy prop to be used as and when quite well paid people who wouldn't know a working class person if they handed them a black pudding need to make some sweeping point on a minor BBC politics programme.)
We are at a point in our history where, whilst the battle is worth fighting, that the discourse from both sides (and this isn't a false equivalence, I'm a card-carrying remainer, but that doesn't stop me from being appalled at the way some on my side conduct themselves) has become shrill and idiotic, it's not that we can't see the other person's point of view, it's that we don't seem to want to try. So do I have any solutions? No, no I do not. My advice is to sack it all off and go to the pub. Have a lovely day everyone!
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