The trouble with clowns

The current state of British politics just makes me despair. Honestly I find it worse than just after the referendum. Sure, there was a brief moment when a crazy racist frog managed to persuade a small majority of people to do a very stupid thing, but that's okay. People do stupid things all the time. Done them myself. Making a daft mistake is annoying, but absolutely forgivable. Without forgiveness, life would hardly be worth living.

And yet...

It's very hard to forgive people who don't even want to try and learn from their mistakes. Brexit has already slain two Prime Ministers and will likely claim a third, regardless of the strategy adopted. I simply cannot fathom how anyone could have endured the last few years and not realised that Brexit is absolute bullshit. And it is, utterly, objectively, demonstrably a stupid decision. I'm not going to justify that here, because that's not the point of this post. It doesn't take any special insight to see the blindingly obvious and I'm fed up with trying to persuade people that fire is hot anyway.

The point is that there are still, despite everything, people not only willing to stand by their initial decision but even up the ante on the stupidity. Like deciding that electing Boris Johnson is a good idea.

Boris. Johnson. As Prime Minister. In the Mother of Parliaments. Whoop-de-bloody-doo.

Are these people for real ? Are they just setting him up to fail ? I doubt it - now's hardly the time, and any hopes that was Theresa May's game plan when she made him foreign secretary were cruelly dashed. No, they really seem to actually be this outstandingly stupid.

What I never understood was why Boris pulled out of the leadership bid last time because Michael Twerpface Gove decided to run. Sure, that was an act of betrayal, but not running signalled that Boris must have considered himself to have all the popularity and charisma of... well, something even less appealing than Michael Gove.

The problem with Boris is that in one key respect he's remarkably similar to Trump. Trump has made an asset out of stupidity, Boris out of being a clown. And I have to say that when Boris was happy enough just to play the joke, things were well enough. He was genuinely funny - no shame in admitting that, even given some very unlikable tendencies. But the minute he started believing in his own lie, things went south very fast. As soon as he realised he might actually have a chance at the leadership, he was willing to sacrifice whatever it is he actually believes on the altar of popularity.

It's not that people like Trump and Boris don't necessarily believe anything. If they know their place and leave actual politics to grown-ups, things are at worst manageably awful, while at best they make their case for their viewpoint the same as everyone else (as Boris did with his documentary calling for Turkey to join the E.U.). But they abandon their ideals as easily as they drop their trousers at the sight of a pretty girl, which is to say far too often.

Boris plays the fool remarkably well, in part because he is in many ways quite genuinely a fool. It's not like he's uneducated or even stupid - he just doesn't care very much about the truth, but only about himself. He can laugh off any mistake or hypocrisy he makes because it's just silly old Boris, no harm done. For Boris, it's a good thing to laugh at him, because it just shows how fun and silly and harmless and un-establishment he is - just as with Trump it's a good thing to hate him, because in the tiny minds of his supporters it shows how biased you are. And you can't mock someone who isn't afraid to be mocked, there's no point. Neither can you wound them by bringing up pesky things like facts, because they don't care about them. When they're on the sidelines, such men are at worst an amusing nuisance. When they achieve power, you have someone in charge who's rejected reality and substituted their own. You cannot hold someone to account who makes an ally of stupidity.

We still haven't learned this. We still keep trying to fight them with fact-checking and bringing up past hypocrisies. It won't work. You can't fight a clown by criticising their silly shoes or choice of make-up, because these are the very things that make the clown a success. It's fun to laugh at the clown when they're being a clown. It's much less fun if they're trying to organise the budget of a country.

Not that we should stop fact-checking. We should keep doing it, because those who do care about the truth will take notice. It's also an important source of future ammunition. But it we want to persuade the supporters of these dangerous buffoons, we have got to change tactics.

Boris himself shows all the signs of doubling down on his past mistakes. This, a person who had the audacity to prepare two articles on Brexit of diametrically opposed positions, is still telling people that we need to have the courage to tell people we can make a success of Brexit. Has the man never seen Yes Minister ? Because the words, "Courageous ? Why courageous ?" have rarely leapt so quickly to mind. If leaving the E.U. is such an obviously good thing, it shouldn't require any courage. And as for needing courage to tell people they can do something, that's utter crap. It doesn't take bravery to tell people they can do things. It takes bravery to tell them that they can't.

What a complete pillock.

And if you need further proof that their supporters don't respond well to evidence, look no further than the latest staggering poll :

Yeah, inspiring stuff, isn't it ? English nationalists are willing to destroy the UK and even the Tory party - this is a poll of Tory members, FFS - instead of averting Brexit. The only thing they hate more than avoiding Brexit is Jeremy "Beardy Weirdy" Corbyn.

And don't forget, this is an issue that the nation as a whole really didn't care much about until very recently. Forget all claims that Brexit "won't be as bad as all that", because Brexiteers literally do not care if it is. Which somewhat undermines claims that Brexit is actually going to be a positive thing, if its supporters are willing to break and smash the country to get it. Why should I believe them if they openly profess not to care if it hurts people ? People have spoken of the different moral values of conservatives and liberals, but where the hell is the "morality" in not caring about ruining your own country ? No Remainer would ever want to stay in the E.U. if it meant wrecking the country and the economy. What can men do against such reckless hate ?

I don't know. All I've got are Tolkein quotes.

I found this very nice painting here but I don't know who the artist is.