On the world historical importance of pandering to middle-class, middle-brow, mid-western voters

Weekend roundup on how to stop Trump

Greetings! 

And many thanks to everyone who subscribed to Writing from London last week. As always, I am particularly grateful to those who signed up as paying subscribers because – and I am sorry if this sounds selfish – you allow me to keep on working!

I had a bit of pushback on my criticism of the US Democrats for failing to devise an effective strategy to prevent  Donald Trump regaining power.  I will take on the criticism​s as they go to the heart of how to fight against extremism..

To my mind, many on the US centre and left entertain two contradictory thoughts.

On the one hand they see Trump with considerable justice as a far-right demagogue, who threatens American democracy. After the attack on the Capitol, who can doubt that?

On the other, they will not engage in the classic anti-fascist tactic of building the widest possible coalition to fight him. They do not compromise or seek to peel away moderate conservatives.  They put forward Biden and Harris as their candidates, even though they are unpopular. The centre-left fights the far-left and vice versa. The woke try to drive their opponents out of public life.

The worst of it is that they seem to subscribe to the modern assumption that we live in bubbles and arguments can never change our minds.