"Running around during an election calling large chunks of voters thick, moronic, stupid and a plethora of other names is hardly likely to get them to support you - It may make you feel good, and it will silence millions from debating in public and sharing their honest opinions but it won't change anything when people get into the privacy of the voting booth." Carl Minns draws an important lesson from the US Presidential election.
Edward Ball welcomes the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC.
Everything you think you know about the behaviour of crowds is wrong says David Edmonds, drawing on the latest psychological research.
Mark Richards pays tribute to the photographer and cinematographer Wolf Suschitzky.
"They were nearly always at Christmas day with us. Kenneth Williams had the most remarkable knowledge of English history and an incredible sense of humour. Joanie [Sims] was adorable, funny and very loving." Robin Le Mesurier, son John Le Mesurier and Hattie Jacques and a member of the Wombles, is interviewed by Carry On Blogging!
Let's end with Paul Simon's American Tune, which once appeared as a Sunday video choice on Liberal England...
Yes, Clinton's public depiction of half of Trump's supporters as deplorable ... bigots and xenophobes (many radio & TV commentators of course forgot to mention the "half of") must have confirmed the swing against her. She should have learned from Cameron whose sneering reference to 'kippers as 'fruitcakes and closet racists' came before UKIP's greatest electoral triumphs. Publicly shaming large sectors of the population does not work any more, if it ever did. The preeminence of the Sun and Daily Mail in popular media, in spite of unthinking slagging-off by the intelligentsia, is further evidence of that.
ReplyDeleteI for one have been careful not to use such language about Leavers, especially as I count several as colleagues in the fight against the Labour establishment by here. Indeed, at least one of our stalwart members is a Leaver, from the best of all Liberal reasons that she does not want to be enslaved by an over-weening authority. In vain do I explain the democratic structures of the EU. Years of failure by the BBC, the press and presumably most education authorities to do the same have had the predictable result. (I had to laugh when Peter Bone MP accused the BBC of pro-EU bias after the Brexit vote.)
When Liberal Democrats once again put the case for the EU, we must be careful to concentrate on the way the electorate has never been properly informed about the EU and indeed was deliberately misled during the Brexit campaign. I predict that we will be pushing at an open door as bill-payers post-Christmas contemplate the ten per cent increase in the cost of imported goods over last January's prices. What we must not do is insult them, even though the most rabid Brexiteers insult us.
[I see I have gone on rather long. If you want to turn this into a Guest Post rather than a comment, I do not mind.]
I wish I had come across this dictum of (20th century US composer) Virgil Thomson earlier: "Never underestimate the public's intelligence, baby, and never overestimate its information". Very appropriate to the Brexit debate.
ReplyDeleteHat-tip to On An Overgrown Path blog.