I strongly encourage you to bin off your Daily Telegraph subscription and beg you to stop watching GB News.
The right perform well because of scaremongering. People, as a rule, don't like responsibility. They like to see themselves as the victim. They like to blame others for their destitution. The right is incredibly good at playing into this. The left isn't, because the left is about society helping itself.
Immigration isn't actually an issue anywhere, think about how preposterous that is. Where do you even draw the line? Continent? Economic bloc? Country? County? City? Neighbourhood? Immigration is useful, for the right, because the problems of the people are because of somebody else.
Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Sunak, Badenoch, they're all self serving. They will all say the most ridiculous things to get elected, and not because they believe it, but because they want to be in power and further their own individual capital. They will play to people's fears. They will play against the innate humanity that's supposed to be in ever person. They will tell you that society doesn't exist and the only way forward is self sufficiency and selfishness. They play on fear.
The left is shit because it doesn't do this. It goes against the founding principles of the leftist movement to be for everyone, even those at the bottom.
Socialism is for society. It is for the people. Fascism is about the cult of the leader, the singular and their vision.
Go to bed.
I clearly seem to have touched a nerve, and I apologise for that. That was not my intention.
For clarity, I don’t hold a Daily Telegraph subscription and I don’t watch GB News. I formed this viewpoint myself without being unduly influenced by right wing news sources, I feel. I also read the likes of The Guardian regularly, as well as more impartial sources like the BBC.
I don’t disagree with much of what you say. I do think the right thrives on fear, and I vehemently disagree with much of the rhetoric espoused by the likes of Donald Trump. I feel that the right gets overly venomous towards very vulnerable groups at times.
However, my point is that I don’t think the left are always paragons of virtue and light either, and rightly or wrongly, I think they may put people off voting for them by coming across condescending or insulting at times. You may feel that immigration is not the major issue it’s made out to be. To be completely honest, I agree with you. However, a lot of people clearly disagree and have some concerns about it. I feel that the right thing for the left to do would be to address those concerns, either through calmly and compellingly setting out a positive case for immigration or through proposing a left wing solution to the discussed immigration “issues”. What is instead frequently done in left wing circles is that people are instantly vilified as “stupid old racists” or similar for daring to express the slightest concern about immigration and deviate even slightly from the “morally superior” left wing viewpoint.
This is not going to convince anyone with mild concerns about immigration, and it pushes them into the arms of people like Trump who propose solutions, but also ramp up the venomous rhetoric, exaggerate issues, and ultimately make people even more concerned. You catch a lot more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, and that saying currently seems to be lost on some in left wing political circles.
It’s the same with other issues, such as identity politics. Instead of calmly addressing any concerns and setting out the positive case for things such as trans rights, the left often instantly goes on the attack against people who dare to have even the slightest concern or deviance from the “morally acceptable” viewpoint, deeming them a “bigot”, “TERF”, “transphobe” or similar, which pushes them into the arms of the more extreme right.
I think it’s sometimes forgotten that being left wing is simply a political view. It does not make you morally superior to people with right wing political views. Left wing political circles often direct considerable vitriol at people who disagree with them; look at the insults and venom hurled towards people who voted for Trump both times, people who voted for Boris in 2019, people who voted for Brexit in 2016, people who voted for Farage in 2024. I’m not saying that the right is perfect in this sense either (the 6th January insurrection is truly damning evidence against the right in this regard), but it does seem like some in left wing political circles have a particular issue of being really venomous towards people who don’t agree with them 100%.
My view is that instead of insulting these people, the left needs to try and understand them and try and see where they’re coming from. If the left understands people’s concerns and either sets out a compelling positive case against them or sets out a compelling solution, people will be far more inclined to trust left wing politics and vote for left wing parties. People vote for right wing populists for a reason, and the left needs to try and listen to them and understand what that reason is rather than insulting these people.
