"Myth-making and politics as performance are now delivering the keys to high office across western democracies. If politics has long intersected with the world of showbusiness, the 21st century has so blurred the two that they often seem to be one and the same. The president of the United States of America, as you may have noticed, does not derive his popularity from any conventional notion of substantive achievement, but instead from a daily pantomime of boasting and nastiness that keeps his supporters in the required state of excitement. Italy and now Ukraine have seen the rise of politicians who actually used to be comedians; in the latter, the latest development is the launch of a new anti-establishment party led by a rock star."
John Harris at The Guardian writes that "the Brexit instinct is at least partly about outrage for outrage’s sake–the kind of sensibility whose most vivid cultural manifestation was in the brazen provocations of punk rock."
Sunday, July 28, 2019
"Urge to Break Things"
Labels:
2010s,
Boris Johnson,
Britain,
cultural history,
European Union,
politics,
Trump,
twenty-first century
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