Political Circus Maxima

Loons and Bigots

Modern political contests in the West resemble Monty Python's Flying Circus more and more with each passing year.  One of the reasons is that the traditional divides between Left and Right have pretty much broken down.  All mainstream parties are statist in orientation and seek to out-compete by promising to expand the role and power of the state.  It's "deck-chairs on the Titanic" sort-of-stuff. 

The sad reality is that the vast majority of people throughout the West "have no god, but Caesar".  When "conservative" and "right wing" governments win elections to take or retain power, the Left have nowhere to go but into cloud-cuckoo land to explain their losses.  The same phenomenon applies when "left wing" governments win elections and displace "right wing" governments.

Here is an example.  With the recent Conservative election victory in the UK, all sorts of theories are being expounded by the Left to explain their electoral failure.  Usually a conspiracy of some sorts is seen as the real cause of electoral defeat.  One explanation will inevitably blame the interference by the US Republican party in the UK election.  This from the Guardian:

The Conservatives are to draft in a deployment of Republican activists to bolster their efforts in key seats before the UK election.  In an unusual move, a team organised by the US Young Republicans International Committee will arrive on 2 May to help out in the marginal seat of Enfield North, and the constituency of Aylesbury, where the Conservatives face a challenge from the UK Independence party (Ukip), as well as the safer seat of Windsor. The move will be controversial because they are set to campaign though they are not able to vote in the UK.

The Americans will arrive during a campaign in which the Conservatives lack ground troops in tight battleground seats compared with Labour, meaning they are relying on mailshots of election literature and busloads of mostly young Tory activists at weekends known as Team 2015.

"This ​feels​ very much like a subversion of democracy"

Fiona Dent, Labour party candidate for Windsor

The expected arrival of the US activists has infuriated Labour candidates in the targeted seats, who pointed out the Republican party’s opposition to President Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms aimed at improving care for the poorest in society.

The "comments" section under the article--if representing the true heart of the UK Labour Party--shows how the Labour Party core is now evolving into what might be called the lunatic fringe. 

• Well they've been importing their policies from the Republicans (who get their policies from ALEC and the corporations that fund it) for years so it's not exactly a shock.
  
• Worse than that, this is TREASON. Importing lunatics into place that still have sane heads makes it worse.
  
• The Tories are subverting democracy in every way imaginable.
  
• Foreign activists interfering in the democratic process of a sovereign nation? Well done, Tories. You have sold everything and you're officially bankrupt.
  
• Importing thugs from America.
  
• Guaranteed to piss off any English voter. Who the hell are these swivel-eyed republican loons telling me to vote toff? I reckon this is a clever ploy by Labour to get more votes. It might just work...

Needless to say, the abiding theme of the commentators is that it is the Young Republicans who are the wacky extremists.

These events, of course, took place before the election.  Now that Labour lost handsomely, the bad result will stand as proof that a deadly conspiracy was inflicted upon the Left by the dark forces of monied evil: the right wing, creationist bigots from America.  Since both parties contest the statist centre, the losing party now has no room to move, except to the fringes and the extremes.