Oh well, I got that forecast badly wrong.
Sadly we now have a convicted felon leading perhaps the most disreputable cabinet in US history with a number of his picks facing allegations of sexual misbehaviour and the chaos already underway with Matt Gaetz withdrawing from the Attorney General pick. We were told that Team Trump had learned from the mistakes made in cabinet selection from 2016 but it seems that they lied about that too.
However, what’s been done cannot be undone and we now face 4 more years of global chaos. It makes me glad that I am in the winter rather than spring of my life.
But perhaps it’s also a suitable point to pause and ask why progressive causes and Governments have fared so badly at the polls recently with Italy and France, soon to be joined perhaps by Germany, seeing another lurch to the right. The US economy was after all hailed by The Economist as being the envy of the world just weeks before voters threw the Democrats out so decisively claiming that the economy was their biggest worry!
No doubt the abject failure of Biden’s Presidency to constantly highlight the growing strength of the economy was a problem, just as the MAGA constant messaging that it was a disaster obviously hit home. No doubt either, that the border was an issue too and the Democrat failure to drive home his impact on sinking the harshest border deal was a factor. But populism doesn’t rely on facts or logic it’s driven by emotions, fear and grievance and the fact that the headline economy was good didn’t change the fact that millions of Americans felt poorer
One other factor which has been receiving a fair bit of coverage across not just the US elections but globally is the impact of so called “culture wars”. Anthony Scaramucci said on a podcast recently something to the effect that Democrats had a meme where a daughter asks her mother “Who are you voting for?” and Mum replies “For you” highlighting the women’s rights issues. He says though, that the reality was women saying to their sons “I’m voting for you” because the right wing really cut through on gender worries. Whether on the lies they told about boys going to school and coming home girls or real concerns about biological boys and men playing girls’ or women’s sports this is an issue which touches nerves.
Like it or not, for most people this is an issue and it cost us just as it did the Democrats. For most people it’s pretty simple; if you are born with a penis and testicles you are a boy. If you are born with a vagina then you are a girl. Of course there are people who are prisoners in the wrong body and for whom this rule doesn’t work but changing the rules for everyone to accommodate this minority is not something the majority of people see as sensible or reasonable. Despite e.g. MSPs of every party voting for the GRA the tories under dross and their pals in the media made it into an anti SNP issue and it worked for them.
It’s clear from the General Election and subsequent by-elections that we have lost the trust and respect of many voters and that’s very hard to recover, just ask the Labour or Tory parties. We were seen as a Government which was pretty boring and pragmatic but no longer. Senseless fights over issues which most voters did not support has cost us dear as has internal squabbling and back-stabbing and policies which were handled so badly. Why on earth Lorna Slater was given ministerial lead is something I will never understand! When the going got tough; the Greens got going and kept running. In truth could Humza not have manufactured a better end to the “coalition”? We looked like a Party in chaos and that’s not going to attract voters.
One of the most important things in life as in politics is to know when and who to fight. We are never going to win in the UK Supreme Court and going there with policies which don’t have popular support is even dafter.
Bill Clinton famously had the phrase “It’s the economy stupid” on his campaign walls but as we saw in the US it’s not just the economy. It’s how people feel about their everyday lives. Especially when you have an economy which depends on migrants and a population which doesn’t want immigration. Just imagine the Health Service or hospitality without them.
But we do have a good story to tell but are not good at telling it.
Are we more secure in our homes and on the streets? Of course the crime figures over the term of the SNP Government show us that but when did we last tell people?
Are the NHS staffing numbers better,? The figures over the term of the SNP Government show us that but when did we last tell people?
Is Inward investment to Scotland higher? Of course, the figures show us that but when did we… you get the picture.
We need to tell people what we’ve done, what we’re doing and what we’re going to do for them and why. Not just once but constantly. Repetition is the key!
There’s a sense with some that if everything isn’t perfect nothing can be good! We must ensure that, since perfection can never be achieved, we do not allow perfection to be the enemy of the good. There’s much to be proud of in Scotland summed up in the acronym TABIS coined by Paul Lewis that Things Are Better In Scotland. Sure things could be better but in many cases they’re the best in the UK. Sure if you are lucky enough to earn over £31k you will pay £28 a year extra in tax but you get a lot for that £28. Let’s start telling our good story and challenge the professional doom-mongers!