Three Cheers for the Home Team

The US midterm election is over. Democrats now control the House of Representatives. Republicans have a majority in the Senate. And a sociopath is still President of one of the world's increasingly dangerous superpowers.

Here in the UK, Brexit sucks up almost all energy, and people like myself look in horror as the country positions itself for a terminal dive into decline. Former Prime Minister John Major wrote: "There is no doubt in my own mind that our [Brexit] decision is a colossal misjudgment that will diminish both the UK and the EU... It may even, over time, break up our United Kingdom."

But enough of these woeful facts. Let's turn to metaphor. Consider how the US election demonstrates human beings' capacity to turn critical events into a game. There are winners and losers, cheerleaders and mascots, loud-mouthed commentators giving blow-by-blow empty interpretations, raucous fans rooting for their team, angry crowds screaming, people getting hurt.  Oh, and endless overtime;  the US election cycle is about two years long. When it's all over, the debris is collected and the arena cleaned up-- until next time. In the US, ‘next time’ comes quickly. As soon as a round is over, the Bully-in -Chief takes the field and dirties it up again.

You don't have to take my word for it that politics is a blood sport. In the mid 1900's, the Welsh MP Nye Bevan (architect of the NHS) said it. (He also remarked on his deep hatred of the Tory Party, suggesting they were lower than vermin. And this is way before Boris Johnson.)

And here's Barack Obama, that most restrained of human beings, commenting on the political process:

[An election is]... not mechanical…. There is always the possibility of surprise. And in that sense it’s a little bit like sports. It doesn’t matter what the odds are…. And that makes it scary if you’re rooting for one team or the other, but that’s the drama of it.”

Quintessentially, the bloodiness of athletics embodies a traditional macho ethos. That ethos dominates how contemporary politics operates: winner takes all, opponents are crushed (or killed), there’s only one victor.

What might a democratic process predicated on other ‘rules’ look like? It’s not clear , but it’s a question to consider before we tear ourselves to bits in the name of democracy.

Rose Levinson

November 2018

100 Year Old Poem, For Today

"It is difficult to get the news from poems, but people die everyday for lack of what is found there" - William Carlos Williams

American Rhino

Check the online definition. You learn a rhinocerous is a large, heavily built  mammal with one or two horns on its nose and thick folded skin. You discover that all rhinoceroses are endangered. However, before getting upset at the possibility of their extinction, consider first who and where they are.

Right now, a large herd of them is to be found in the United States Senate. They can be seen huddled together, mostly male with a few females stuffed into their mass, watching a woman tell the truth about her sexual assault by one of their fellow rhinos. Their snouts lift upwards, they sniff the political winds, they lower their massive heads and snort untruths about her whilst defending their accused member. He's a good rhino, they insist; such a well educated beast would never harm a lady; he was only playing rhino games like we all do, but his hooves got a bit heavy. Snort, snort, he's all right and she's lying. Snort, snort, let him drink at our watering hole;  leave her outside in the heavy weather.

Keep watching as they snuffle their way through questions by the press; as they enlist the head rhino's press secretary to bray about how no one, least of all head rhino himself, is mocking the accuser; as they whisper reassurances to one another that elevating the accused to a position of high honour is only right for he is, verily, the very essence of rhinodom. He's even better than many of them at appearing dainty when he crushes someone under him. And when he's angry, his rage is magnificent to behold, righteous and wreckless and thrilling in its disregard of truth.

Listen as the largest rhino of all, he of strange orange skin and hair, has the last bellow. "My fellow creatures", he roars, demanding apologies for hurting one of his herd, "you made the mistake of naming what should never be named, wounding one of our finest beasts. Never again question the power of one who demonstrates how easy  to move to the front of the herd. You pulverise whoever gets underfoot."

Note: sadly, honourable non-elected rhinoceroses are an endangered species. This is not meant to disparage their magnificent being.

-Rose Levinson