Nineteenth-century anti-democrats would recognise in recent events in the USA many of the dangers they warned against, if the ‘great unwashed’ were given the vote. They would point to the empowerment of ignorance, of short-sighted prejudices, of wild conspiracy theories, and of the most primitive and violent of human feelings in public life. On 6 January 2021 we saw all these operating in the lawless chaos that broke out on the streets of Washington DC, and even inside the Capitol building, triggered by Trump’s refusal to accept the result of the previous November’s election. (For anyone who may have forgotten it, there’s an excellent TV documentary telling the whole story, which I saw the other night on SVT2, but I think is available here: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/trumps-heist-president-who-wouldnt-lose.)

We must hope that there’s no reprise of this next time around. That of course is due very soon – on our (British) ‘Guy Fawkes Day’ (!), as it happens. It should make for exciting viewing, for those of us relaxing comfortably – and safely, for the moment – on our sofas in front of our TVs, with an ocean and 200-odd years of history between us. I’ll certainly be staying up for it.

But of course the result will affect us too, in Europe, in the Middle East and in Ukraine especially. How exactly it will bear on us we can’t yet tell; mainly because Trump (if he wins) is so unpredictable. What effect will his declared admiration for foreign dictators like Putin or wannabe dictators like Netanyahu have; or, overruling (‘trumping’?) this, his oft expressed – and traditionally American, although it’s been in abeyance in recent years – American isolationism? His flights of fancy could take him, and us, anywhere.

And of course he has admirers in Europe – on the far Right of British politics, for example – who are envying his ‘populist’ appeal, and taking lessons from it. (We’ve had our ‘popular’ riots in Britain too.) The specific issues may be different in each case (although immigration features in both), but the basic trigger is the same. That is a collapse of trust in politics generally, and therefore in government, or perhaps ‘democracy’ itself; although it’s usually expressed in other terms – as distrust of the corruption of democracy by ‘élites’, the ‘deep state’, ‘liberals’ (in America), Leftists, judges, intellectuals, foreigners, the ‘woke’ tendency, the BBC (or MSM in the US), pro-Palestine marchers, and Gary Lineker. That makes up a tidy group of straw men whom the copycat Trumpists in Britain can vent their hate on. And hatred is always a powerful weapon if you want to get the great unwashed on your side. Vide 1930s Germany.

How can we counter this – if of course we wish to? For ‘intellectuals’ like me, education would seem to be an obvious corrective, with recent surveys, both in the UK and in the US, indicating a clear correlation between low levels of schooling and more ‘populist’ or Right-wing views. I’ve long advocated the incorporation of logical and critical thinking into all levels of education, if they’re not there already (as I like to think they often are in History courses: mine, anyway). One problem with this is that one person’s ‘critical thought’ can be seen by others as political ‘indoctrination’, on one side or the other; and is certainly not likely to be favoured by those – and there are many of these, especially in America – who regard History as primarily a means of instilling ‘patriotism’. (‘Why are you studying British history?’ an American student of mine recalled being asked by his Republican neighbour. ‘America has the best history in the world!’) Beyond this there’s the larger problem, alluded to already, that the ‘populist’ Right will usually dismiss ‘intellectualism’ entirely, regarding it as intrinsically ‘élitist’, biased against ‘ordinary people’ like them, and its findings as being mere opinions, on a level with any prejudice. ‘I’m a free American, and can believe anything I want’. (I’ve quoted this before: https://bernardjporter.com/2024/09/21/stupidity-3/.) It’s difficult in argument to navigate around this kind of thing.

But ‘this kind of thing’ – people’s opinions – must be at least partly determined by wider societal pressures, which these days are inclining folk to disbelief, disrespect and mistrust, fuelled by immoral government ministers and an amoral press. And – to take it a bit further – these pressures in their turn may be influenced by the state of the society we are now living in, both in the UK and in the US, seen more broadly; which I – and I’m not alone here – regard as a ‘late (or ‘last’?) stage of capitalism’. The power of capitalist-accumulated money in the public sphere has long been obvious in America, of course, but is also currently increasing in Britain; personified in the former country by the cheating capitalist Donald Trump – an Ayn Rand ‘hero’ if ever there was one; and over here by the fabulously rich – albeit rather smoother (that’s a Public School education for you) – Rishi Sunak.

Of course the path travelled by capitalism has never been a smooth and uncluttered one, but has always encountered bumps and setbacks along the way; which will explain the interlude we’re experiencing just now in Britain with the election of a Labour government which may be able to tame the beast; and the possibility that in America Kemala Harris – unconvincingly characterised as a ‘Marxist’ by Trump – could do the same if she wins on November 5. Unlikely, I realise; but if not it will simply bolster my quasi-Marxist reading.

One thing I’m reluctant to accept is that aforementioned belief of my nineteenth-century anti-democrats, that democracy is too good for the ‘great unwashed’, because they’re irredeemably stupid. But these days I’m finding it more and more difficult to disagree.