Election aftermath: where is the introspection?

Matthew Parris has ordered liberals to stop self-flagellating. It’s truer to say they haven’t started.

Trump supporters in Iowa (via AP/ Alamy)

Wait, wait, wait. It is too tempting to say, whatever the good, bad and ugly, of a Trump win that it has irritated all the right – or rather Left – people. Schadenfreude is an ugly word. The fact is, like it or not, that President Elect Trump could easily be dubbed what we on the Island of Political Sanctimony call a wrong ‘un’.

On that, I shall not elaborate. But I will pause to ask by comparison to whom? I invite you to look at the vexed histories of many presidents. "Honest" Bill Clinton? Lyndon Johnson or even the patron saint of democrat America, JFK? Let he who is without sin cast the first blog.

Of course, it is deeply gratifying to see the likes of Emily Maitlis reduced to swearing and sulking like a teenager whose party has just been stopped by a pyjama-clad dad.  To be clear, as we say dahn London way; “Be’ave luv, will ya. Yer embarrassing yerself”. When even Krish Guru-Murthy’s telling you off, you’ve overplayed your performative hand.

But the smacked gob incredulity of the Maitlis class to discover that the world does not necessarily share its entirely correct view of everything has manifested itself in a way that continues to dig an ever-deeper trench for the podcast demographic.

No sense of introspection. No sense of humility. No real pause to wonder why a man such as Donald Trump should beat a woman such as Kamala Harris and certainly no acknowledgement that it possibly says more about her than him.

And so we get what post-Brexit survivors will remember in PTSD flashback. Here comes the rudeness; “America has failed an intelligence test” one scrawled over LinkedIn yesterday. A site which the exiled of X increasingly use to connect their careers to the rectitude of their politics.

Right up there with "basket of deplorables", can anyone take a guess at why flyover America was not enamoured of the one-time VP? It’s the sort of dismissive arrogance that believes demographic "communities" share values. Hence a woman who struggles a bit with chromosome biology appealed to the sisterhood to carry her over the line and was amazed to find that the first ladies of the American homestead didn’t comply.

Guess what, women don't vote in a single, female ticket and may be rather more preoccupied with wider concerns such as "the economy stupid". See also immigrants. 

Never mind, on into the Valley of Death.

And so the baffled rage continues. And the vacuous nursery rainbow phraseology that passes as political exhortation.

Sports fans will know that in the wake of a bad defeat a head-shaking manager or captain will face the microphone, diplomatically compliment the oppo, “We always knew they would be a tough side. It’s never easy to come here and win.” And then add, “We’ve got to go away and look at what happened here today and learn from it.”

Of this truism, there is no sign.

Bafflingly, Matthew Parris has ordered liberals to stop self-flagellating. It’s truer to say they haven’t started. They never do. Because, deep in their hearts, they do believe that they will overcome because, simply speaking they’re right. Even when the electorate has told them unequivocally that they’re not. And the electorate is the sole arbiter of fact.

Don’t believe me? Parris again: “‘Wrong’, plain and simple. Liberals should stop beating ourselves up, stop whimpering about how we failed to address populist concerns, and face millions of good but deluded men and women with honest argument. They are wrong. We are right. We shall be proved right. Chins up.”

Pausing only to point out that the arguments – such as they were – have been set out and rejected, it is that level of heedlessness that has blighted politics since the 90s. And why everyone is so damned unhappy with our political classes. They face a permanent choice between "least worst". And what that says about Kamala Harris should be something to keep her, Emily and Matthew woke at nights for a lifetime.