Extinction of the middle ground.

 

The media likes to make things simple, on/off, black/white, in or out, its easier to make an attention-grabbing headline if you can polarise the readers, and force them into one of two pigeonholes
, you see we now live in a world that rewards extreme viewpoints, the middle ground has long been deserted as the centrifugal force of identity politics and woke/anti woke culture spins us out to the extremities of the political spectrum.

But let's look at that middle ground for a second, if the middle ground was where we all chose to live the world would be a much better place to live, our ideas would be flexible according to our environment and compromise would be a lot easier to achieve.

If you look at the political spectrum as a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being far left, and 5 being far right, its easier to get someone who is a 2 or a 4 to be a 3 than it is to get a 1 to be a 5 or a 5 to be a 1.

It's not about making people compromise who they are, it's about making compromises and being more tolerant of the things we don't understand, and being understanding of other people's situations.

But this doesn't sell papers, and in a world where clicks, likes, and follows are the objective its a risky move to be in the middle on any subject, this in my humble opinion is an extinction of everyday people's opinions, because we are being forced to plant our flag in one camp or the other, and are forced to abandon any moderate ideals that we might hold just because they don't fit with the loudest voices and if you want your voice heard, you have to be one of the loudest voices out there, this means unless you're controversial, you are never going to be heard over the big mouths who exist only for the attention that they get from being a “savage” on Twitter.

Parliamentary politics aren't immune to this centrifugal force, with the media, both legacy and social media catering to the extreme views of readers and viewers, the House of Commons appears to be a crèche full of children who have had way too much sugar, with only one or two grown-ups trying to keep them in order but let's be honest, they are too tired and overwhelmed to have any effect on the childish politicians who hurl insults they don't understand, and dog whistle to extremists, not realizing or not caring about the damage they're doing to not only to society but to themselves, as they give up their principles for power or money.

As we all know the last two home secretaries' parents would not have been allowed to settle in the UK under current home office rules, same goes for the current Prime minister, yet they all have used language that creates an othering effect, calling migrants and asylum seekers “invaders” and continuing to call them “illegal” despite there being no route into the country other than getting to the UK and then claiming asylum.

MPs like Greg Hands continuously use tactics like the joke letter that the outgoing Labour party left that said “There's no money left” as proof that only a conservative government can control inflation and save the economy, despite Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarting nearly destroying the same economy.

When I watch PMQs it's like someone has asked AI to render a physical representation of the Dunning-Kruger effect, half of these people who are in charge wouldn't make it past the first two episodes of the apprentice, and the rest wouldn't make it onto the show in the first place if this is the best we have to offer as the responsible people we trust our economy and security to, there is little hope for us all, because let's be real about it if Putin should go full on mental and attack the UK in any way, do you think he would be deterred by Jonathan Gullis asking him what a woman is?

If we are going to have any sort of equality in this country we had better get started on returning to moderate politics, and being allowed to have opinions that may or may not fit with the extreme views we see more and more of, because we cant objectively talk about anything without it turning into a full on festival of racism and homophobia, we need to have a discussion about Immigration, but we don't need to have that conversation based on race and making out that we are just letting terrorists in unchecked, we also don't need cover ups for the bad actors that abuse the asylum system, the waters are muddied by the prejudice held by all of us, that conversation would be a lot safer in the middle, where the need to be right is much less a thing, but as I said before, only the extreme loud moths get the attention, so that conversation will be hijacked by right wing edge lords, and then confronted by far left extreme progressives in the end the middle voices get drowned out, lost in a sea of whataboutery, and accusations.

We need to get away from a political landscape where memes and three-word catchphrases rule the media, life is complicated, but with a little understanding, we can all find some common ground where we can all live together in peace, no more blaming X for Y because they went against Z, and no more scapegoating marginalized groups just because they are easy targets, and they represent a tiny slither of the electorate, 1 in 200 people identify as transgender in the UK, that's a small enough number to make them an enemy.

If we are to have any chance of repairing the damage done to the country by the polarised political landscape, we have to not only listen to middle politics but bring them to the fore, its deeply unhelpful to brand every single person on the right as a racist, it just gives the actual racists someone to hide behind, similarly, when we make out that everyone on the left is a vegan eco-warrior with blue hair, you do the whole political spectrum a disservice.

Its time for a fresh look at how we look at political thinking, I truly blive that the majority of people in this country are good people, but when those people are made to pledge to one side or the other, we just weaken the whole system, and make it easier for the bad actors with an agenda to get people to get behind their hate-driven ideology, by lying and making them believe that the “other side” wants to take the things that are important to them away until this happens, there is little hope of healing the rift in political ideology.

Photo by michelle guimarães: https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-protesting-in-a-rally-4664301/