Alternative Editorial: Who’s Smiling This New Year?

Supporters of Donald Trump, one carrying a bust of the President, climb the walls of the U.S. Capitol building. Craig Ruttle / Redux, from New Yorker

New Year January 2021 is not a time for celebration or seasonal positivity. 

Britain is in lock down as the Covid pandemic wreaks havoc across the country with 1 in 30 infected. Deaths arising directly from a positive test now stand at 81,000 – higher than the USA rate per head of population. Our historically fragile NHS is unable to withstand the pressure as doctors and nurses report being exhausted and scared, facing thousands of otherwise preventable deaths. In London 1 in 20 people are infected and Mayor Khan has declared a ‘major incident’, obliging him to call out the London Fire Brigade to help drive ambulances. 

Yet even this ongoing tragedy was knocked off the front pages on January 6th when a very different kind of ‘major incident’ occurred in the US. On the day that the US Congress was due to ratify Joe Biden’s win in the December General Election, thousands of the outgoing President’s followers marched to Capitol Hill in response to Trump’s call to “fight like hell” to “take back the country”.

When a significant number stormed the building at what looked like an attempt at insurrection – obliging the gathered Senators to dive below their desks or speedily descend into bunkers - five people, including one police officer, died.

Much is being written about the cause and effect of both these phenomena – the latter in particular is still causing shocked reverberations around the world. But our inquiry is whether or not, in Week 39 of The Shift, they have anything in common? Can we perceive the changing role of citizens in either the ongoing pandemic or the attack on a democratic institution?  Maybe less the role of direct protagonists – that is still unfolding – but in the broader responses possible to what the vast majority of us are simply reading in the headlines. In other words, what is going on and what should we be doing about it?

With regards to COVID firstly, the answer to the first question may be quicker to answer with humility: it’s hard to know. Life on the internet means we always have multiple perspectives on ‘the truth’.  Even the mainstream newspapers diverge enormously: this morning some are gung-ho about the vaccination rollout, others are already feeling betrayed over its failure. A BBC news report about a nurse contracting the virus after being vaccinated was later removed but then covered by the Metro. The Times newspaper headlines PM Johnson’s call to stay at home “as if you had the virus” right next to a picture of two toddlers enjoying one of RHS gardens ‘now opening’.

As we have described time and again in our 2020 editorials, there is no clear source of authority on the status of COVID. Is this why so many people continue to go without masks in the public space, despite the indisputable evidence that deaths from coronavirus come from its transmission as an airborne virus? YouGov’s poll in July revealed that Britain had the lowest compliance with mask wearing in Europe. While we were hovering at 38% mask usage, Spain was at 86%, Italy at 85% and Germany at 64% 

An important insight arising from YouGov’s analysis of the results show that it is not due to consideration of the evidence that people are making up their minds, but on perception of authority. While Boris rated high on mask wearing, he converted very late. Other leaders in the public eye however – Priti Patel but also Keir Starmer – were rarely seen with masks. Says lead data journalist Matthew Smith:

What seems to be clear is that many Britons see face masks as an inherent good, even among those not wearing them, but that many will not do so until the Government tells them they have to.

Overall seven in ten Britons think wearing a face mask helps public health, with those who wear face masks more frequently being more likely to think this. Nevertheless, fully half (51%) of those who never wear a face mask say they think such covering are good for public health.

YouGov’s conclusion is that until the government says clearly that everyone must wear a mask at all times outside of the house, people will continue to go out with their faces uncovered, meaning that numbers of infection and death will keep spiralling upwards. Without a simple, clear UK government edict, we cannot move safely or freely through the streets.

However, such a call for authority seems to be the opposite of what the ‘popular’ call for more autonomy and freedom demands. Those still gathering and protesting in Trafalgar Square equate mask-wearing with a long-term plot by elites to subdue us, removing our rights to public mobility and the open air. So many contradicting notions of what freedom means and how it is constituted are now being contested in public discourse.

In the US, this same plurality abounds, with plenty of internal contradictions. Outgoing President Trump has walked a very tight line between calling his administration the ‘Party of Law and Order’ while at the same time upholding the rights of citizens to take the law into their own hands. This came to a head on Jan 6th. What might have been a protest march for those who were looking to correct what they (without evidence) believed to be a stolen election turned into an attempt at the biggest steal of all: the storming of Capitol Hill. 

Those simply observing will see how quickly Trump sacrificed his most ardent supporters, condemning their actions in a bid to stay on social media. Yet those already deeply invested in his movement will see whatever he does as code to ensure their movement’s survival. After four years of daily emails, hourly tweets and spectacular in-person gatherings they are entirely in the mental grip of Trump’s story about himself as their saviour.

To them, however madcap his actions, they still signify freedom from the neoliberal culture that has governed us for previous decades. As we have also experienced with Brexit, one person’s freedom is another person’s prison sentence.

On the one hand it is vital that we do not ignore the signs of extreme behaviour now surfacing from Trump’s movement. There are plenty of parallels with the acceleration of fascism that must be assessed. On the other hand, we should not underestimate ourselves as a global society. We can understand this phenomenon well enough not to be forced into hard-power responses to quell what we fear.

We must all become capable of making distinctions between the truly dangerous and the intentionally disruptive. If not, those interested in control above all else, will take the opportunity to crack down on any movement gatherings – whether they be to save the planet (Extinction Rebellion) or to save a demagogue (Trump for President). 

This kind of subtlety, however, does not sit easily with a media built on a polarizing business model. Unless you read a wide range of newspapers every day, you are likely to be pulled into one camp or another, each identifying its own set of demons. Similarly, each political party is invested in the electoral failure of almost half the population, seizing on any weakness in the other as leverage for their cause.

In the US, while it’s easy to go with the condemnation of outgoing President Trump’s behaviour and the intent to disrupt on Capitol Hill, it’s also important to keep in mind the many bloody coups that the US government (both Democrat and Republican) have backed around the world without much protest from US citizens (ongoing in Libya, Yemen and Venezuela).

Or the many, many ways black lives have been suppressed and hardly noticed by the mainstream, only now coming to light with Black Lives Matter yet still ignored by the majority. We are on an ongoing, long-term journey of social and civic awareness and (we hope) improvement.

Whichever way these high-stake debates go in the next few months, there are some convergences of possible bad outcomes that we would be negligent not to prepare for. The widely advertised prediction that the internet will be shut down by elites stifling debate calls for the same response as the predictions that our supply lines will collapse in the face of climate catastrophe.

What is that response? It will be based on us drawing together in our place-based communities, overcoming differences and building collective resilience based on relationship and trust. Learning how to become more self-sufficient in food and energy in creative, enjoyable ways. If we organize these matters well, they will also generate belonging, meaning and a sense of our own agency within our cosmolocal communities – connected to and participating in the global commons.

For more clues on how to get on that path, join our co-creator calls every fortnight. We will be highlighting the methods of Transition Towns, Trust the People,, Civic Square, Coalville CANs – all sorts of citizen action networks from around the world. When we think about what a year in such Alternative groups could bring, we might even be tempted to revise our opening lines, smile, and wish you a Happy New Year.