The Right Wing Zombie Apocalypse Is Not Here

Read some of the articles that have followed Donald Trump’s victory, and the impression you get is that a resurgent Right is ready to take over the world.  Add to that trashing the “liberal media”, which some have been writing off forever. Araam naal mitron, let’s not get carried away. The Right-wing zombie apocalypse is not here, it’s just (justifiably) hyperbolic commentary after a hysterical and polarised campaign and a historic outcome.

However, much of the critique is valid and liberal media would do well to reflect on it. Fareed Zakaria made that point well and effectively on his show GPS on the weekend following the news of Trump’s victory. Unlike him, too many have made one big khichdi of all the political and media implications of the American election and served it as one giant God’s theorem that explains everything. Big mistake.

Let’s break down some of what the US election demonstrated.

Pollsters know nothing.

This is news? Really? Of all places, we in India should know this considering the last many polls. Delhi 2013, Lok Sabha 2014, Delhi 2015, Bihar 2015 … I could go on and on. Poll predictions are a hopeless business, with way more misses than hits. It does not prove pollsters are idiots or smart; it demonstrates something entirely different that I will come to. Wall Street’s geniuses in suits haven’t been able to predict crashes even when there were clear warning signs. There is this piece that cites a famous experiment where monkeys choosing stocks by throwing darts outperformed those picked by the “best and brightest” fund managers. In this famous bet between Warren Buffet and a hedge fund manager foolish or brave enough to take him on, a simple index fund outperformed a portfolio selected by hedge fund managers with fancy degrees. But Wall Street’s influence will stay (Trump will not be able to do jackshit about that), overpaid and undeserving wealth managers and quants will thrive, and pieces such as the one you’re reading (telling us how they are full of shit) will also keep appearing. Ditto for polls and pollsters.

That’s not because either of those professionals know jack, it’s because both their industries are built in a way that needs them. It’s not a moral or intellectual decision, it’s a market decision and markets have a logic of their own. In case of media, polls are big draws for eyeballs and sponsors. Election time is when news channels earn much of their revenue and have the highest viewership. The time between campaigning and poll results is thick with anticipation, excitement and crores of sponsor’s’ ad money looking to be deployed. Getting people to sit around and debate with opinion poll numbers as a talking point, is an effective format. Polls have a delicious irresistibility to them no matter what you think of them. They are of no more consequence than that. So yes, pollsters were wrong, and that won’t change – Trump or no Trump.

Those of you thinking the next election will not have polls or have sheepish pollsters getting it right, my wealth manager friend has a new scheme to sell you that guarantees 500% returns (please read offer document carefully before investing. All offers are subject to market risks, you sucker).

The resurgent Right: the zombies are coming to eat your brain.

No, they are not. Relax and sit down please.   

Brexit and Trump’s victory have been the go-to-points to prove this ridiculous thesis. Did the much decried “socialist” Barack Obama’s victory mean the world was enveloped by a red mist and we all chanted lal salaam? Did it mean racism in America and indeed elsewhere has ended and now we will all hold hands and sing Stand By Me or Vaishnav Jan? It was one election and that’s all. There will be others. The same country that gave Barack  Hussein Obama, two terms has picked a climate change denying racist this time. Who knows what happens next? Film khatam nahi hui hai, aur na kabhi hogi. The political narrative over a long term is more of a continuum than cyclical as eloquently discussed here.

Both Trump’s victory and Brexit were won by the side that is conventionally described as conservative, although that definition is fluid now. In case you think Trump is big on conservative principles (and I omit use of the word ‘values’ consciously) you need to listen to his policy prescriptions during the campaign. That aside, both victories were fair and square. I don’t know what the people on the streets of USA who are chanting “Not My President” or any other slogan have in mind, but he is their president and that’s that. He won the election.

But to club an electoral victory as a sign of the victory of the Right wing ideology that will take over the world displays a lack of understanding or reading of any serious analysis post Trump. Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote is statistical proof that more people voted for her (and many of them will be far from liberal, since Clinton isn’t a beacon of liberalism. Similarly to conclude everyone who voted Trump is “Right Wing” is ignorant). How numbers that conclusively only prove an election result, go on to prove a Right-Wing resurgence all over the world beats me.

Similar data exists for the Brexit vote on the age demographic. For one, it was a 52-48 vote split, which is hardly a grand “resurgence” figure. Secondly, the generation that swung the referendum in Brexit’s favour were the geriatrics, whose voter turnout was more than double that of those under-25. From the time of the vote to the time you’re reading this, it would not be too cruel to assume more of the leave voters would be dead. Either way, to extrapolate a referendum or election result (unless it’s a mind-blowing sweep) doesn’t mean either the Left or the Right is taking over the world.

When the Shah of Iran fell and Ayatollah Khomeini came in, it was not the end of capitalism for the Middle East. Ditto for ‘socialism’ with Hugo Chavez and South America or the United Progressive Alliance I (with a historic 59 Left Front seats) in the subcontinent. Justin Trudeau’s win in 2015 didn’t mean everyone in North America was in love with Liberal values packaged in a charming athletic frame, because within a year, the same continent has chosen a racist, misogynist boor displaying some Right-wing characteristics, packaged in an unattractive saggy frame, with tiny hands.

Bottom line: the Right wing zombie apocalypse is not here. Please chill out.

The Liberal overcompensation:

The confirmation bias in the liberal media’s cockiness in how certain they were of Clinton’s victory was obviously a clear problem. But the over compensation that I am observing is dangerous. More dangerous than liberal elitism which does exist and should be reflected upon. But that doesn’t mean one must be neutral to statements and policy positions that are contrary to basic decency and civilised human values.

The thesis goes something like this – that if there are political groups or individual candidates whose values are not in tune with your own, you must also give that view respect, without being judgmental in your reporting.

That is pure bullshit and I hope responsible liberal voices never do so.

Some things need to be called out unequivocally. A man in is mid-forties casually saying that he will, in a few years, be dating a 10-year-old girl he has just chatted with is beyond disgusting. Or demonizing an entire religion, or making fun of a differently-abled reporter, all on camera – and then outright denying he ever did any of those things. There is no “let’s see where he is coming from” for that kind of idiocy, racist dog whistles, nativism and bigoted utterances can’t be glossed over because of some warped notion of liberalism developed by a defensive Right. If a disgusted, judgmental tone shows up in one’s reporting of such incidents, it should.

The law in many Islamic countries makes it okay to kill people for being gay (or in case of ISIS, throw them off buildings), I don’t have to see “where that is coming from”. If calling out primitive cultures for their savage practices is viewed by some Neanderthal mindsets as elitism, so be it. Backward thinking, crude traditions and utter ignorance need to be called out – and that is not elitism. It’s the decent thing to do. Spinning an expectation of basic human decency and respect for gender, ethnicity and equality as elitism is what is dangerous.

But no need for alarm, that worldview is not taking over the world. It will pass. Because each generation is smarter and more civilised than the previous. Conservatives will always have to adjust to progressives. Or at least as long as time progresses and doesn’t ‘conservate’. It always has, it always will. And if Trump is the conservative’s answer to changing a phenomenon that is as old as civilisation, all I have to say is: I wish you had a half-decent mascot for this theory.   

Ashok Malik tweeted on November 10, post the US election result, “Perhaps the postwar period (the second half of the 20th century) was an exceptional period in human history. World has reverted to normal” as if this is the final chapter of the political history of the planet or the climax scene of a film where humanity has reached an equilibrium and now lives happily ever after etc.  

What is normal? In the 1800s’ America, having slaves was normal. Until the middle of the 20th century segregation was normal. For centuries,  empires were normal. In India, in certain communities, untouchability is still normal, in some political battlegrounds bigotry is normal. There is no static “normal” in the continuum of civilisation. As we learn more and each generation’s mistakes and discoveries are scrutinised by the next, the new generation dips into the pool of knowledge, learning and wisdom that earlier ones have contributed to, adds its own and passes it to the next, and a new “normal” emerges.  

One doesn’t adjust one’s moral compass because of an electoral defeat in USA or anywhere else. There are certain human values that we’ve realised because of generations of questioning and culture that need to be protected, which I will happily claim as “liberal” values – Apko apka Trump mubarak ho.

PS: Although I am perplexed as to why some from India’s Right are so keen to claim Trump as their own but those who are must watch this.