The Rise of the Far Right

Fascism is like Brexit.

You come up with a simplistic solution for complex problems and people like the offer. The snag is, the real world is not simple, it is incredibly complex. (More so now than it was 100 years ago, or even 50). So simplistic solutions never work in the end. But their proponents argue for more and more extreme measures in the hope they will be proved right if only their incredibly extreme solutions are applied.

Democracy only works properly if you have an informed and educated population who are not deluded by the BS of the latest demagogue to come along, and it's particularly vulnerable during hard times when people become desperate. If you're drowning in the sea, you snatch at anything that looks like a rope, even if it turns out to be a black mamba.

This country has the huge disadvantage of having been, at one time, a superpower. This leads much of the population to have a false consciousness, a belief in Britain's 'greatness' which in their minds makes us special and unique. We aren't, actually. We're just another country with a small land area, limited natural resources, a huge population, and a need to trade in order to survive.

These delusions are helpful to the far-right. Just as many in Germany in the 1920s believed their country had been brought down by Jews, freemasons and socialists, so do many today believe in an 'X factor' which is 'bringing us down.' The X factor includes foreigners (in general), immigrants, the WEF, sinister plots to force digital currency on us, and all sorts of imaginary BS emanating from conspiracy sites on the internet. It's all very dangerous and adds to the general instability, which in turn leads to desperate rope-clutching.
 
Fascism is like Brexit.

You come up with a simplistic solution for complex problems and people like the offer. The snag is, the real world is not simple, it is incredibly complex. (More so now than it was 100 years ago, or even 50). So simplistic solutions never work in the end. But their proponents argue for more and more extreme measures in the hope they will be proved right if only their incredibly extreme solutions are applied.

Democracy only works properly if you have an informed and educated population who are not deluded by the BS of the latest demagogue to come along, and it's particularly vulnerable during hard times when people become desperate. If you're drowning in the sea, you snatch at anything that looks like a rope, even if it turns out to be a black mamba.

This country has the huge disadvantage of having been, at one time, a superpower. This leads much of the population to have a false consciousness, a belief in Britain's 'greatness' which in their minds makes us special and unique. We aren't, actually. We're just another country with a small land area, limited natural resources, a huge population, and a need to trade in order to survive.

These delusions are helpful to the far-right. Just as many in Germany in the 1920s believed their country had been brought down by Jews, freemasons and socialists, so do many today believe in an 'X factor' which is 'bringing us down.' The X factor includes foreigners (in general), immigrants, the WEF, sinister plots to force digital currency on us, and all sorts of imaginary BS emanating from conspiracy sites on the internet. It's all very dangerous and adds to the general instability, which in turn leads to desperate rope-clutching.

Look, I am not some little-Englander who thinks Britannia rules the waves etc. etc. We lost our empire after WWII - well it began in the inter-war years (1920's & 1930's to be fair). I accept that.

However, for better or worse, in the 1950s we became - I think - the third nation* on the planet to detonate a nuclear weapon.

We still have - yes I know it is Trident - an Amercan system - a nuclear capability, so I take exception to your view that we were once a 'superpower'. I think any country that has a nuclear deterrent - especially via atomic powered submarines - can be called a 'superpower' because at the end of the day (and I hope it never happens) if some other country tries to threaten us, we have the abiltity to tell them to back down... and they will.

It has to be the case because otherwise how come we have allowed our conventional army/navy/air force numbers and capability to dwindle to practically zero?

*The Manhatten project 1942-1945 drew heavily on the research and personel of the British Tube Alloys project which pre-dated it. Russia was the second Nuclear power in 1949 with essentially a copy of the Nagasaki 'Fat Boy' bomb due to the disgraceful espionage of Klaus Fuchs - without whose help Britain would probably have been the second 'superpower' with a nuclear capability.
 
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