The election of Donald Trump should have been a wake-up call for the left. Instead, we have seen a doubling down on the very strategies that guaranteed his victory in the first place. Trump supporters are scorned and derided with increased vehemence, Brexit voters are still smeared as racist, and the working classes are urged to know their place and vote in accordance with the instructions of their technocratic masters. It would also appear that the word ‘Nazi’ has been redefined as ‘anyone with whom the left disagrees’. I’ve never met a Nazi, although I’m assured by many of my liberal friends that you’re never more than six feet away from one.
With Theresa May polling better than ever, and Marine Le Pen gaining ground in the run-up to the French elections, now might be a good time to reflect on where we on the left are going wrong. It seems to me that we have two options. We could return to our traditional objectives and strive to redress social inequality and thereby improve the lives of working-class people. Or we could continue this bourgeois obsession with identity politics and see where that gets us. I know which I’d prefer, but something tells me I’m not going to get my way.