Michael Kelly“It’s hard not to have the impression that the move is really designed to crush dissenting voices”, writes Michael Kelly
Dissatisfaction with political consensus is hardly confined to the US. At the funeral Mass of former Taoiseach Charles Haughey in 2006, his son Seán quoted his mother to the effect that “everyone hated Charlie, except the people”.
There can be no doubt that it was by and large what is loosely termed ‘the ordinary people’ who elected Donald Trump as incoming US President. Virtually the entire media and political establishment were against him. Even the hierarchy of the Republican Party – whose banner he was running under – disowned him in the latter weeks of the election campaign.
His victory was an upset of epic proportions, and the reaction to it has shown that those horrified by Mr Trump’s victory show little appetite for trying to understand why disaffected people voted the way they did.
Dissatisfaction is spreading across large parts of the Western World and increasing numbers of people feel forced towards extremes because they find no place for their legitimate concerns in the political mainstream.
In Austria at the weekend, the candidate from the anti-immigrant Freedom Party Norbert Hofer narrowly lost with 46.7% of the vote. Were many of the people who supported him ideologically far-right and hostile towards immigration? Undoubtedly the answer is ‘yes’. Could it be that a sizeable proportion of those voters who opted for Mr Hofer concerned about whether or not their country can sustain largescale immigration? The answer is also ‘yes’. Too many people feel unheard in politics, and it is increasingly fashionable to dismiss these people as extremists without trying to understand whether their concerns are legitimate or not.
Last week in France, lawmakers voted to outlaw pro-life advertising that aims to encourage a mother not to abort her child if the advertising is thought to exert “moral pressure” upon the woman. A Catholic archbishop has called the move “a very serious attack on the principles of democracy”.
What’s serious is the absolute lack of clarity of what exactly lawmakers are trying to ban. No one could disagree with the need to avoid misinformation, but it’s hard not to have the impression that the move is really designed to crush dissenting voices. There is a worrying trend in the West to try and ensure that all people think alike. Of course, the problem with that is, to quote the old saying, “in a world where all think alike, few think at all”.
What we are witnessing, I think, is people who are fed up of being told how to think. They are fed up with being told they are racists for expressing the slightest doubt about mass immigration. They are fed up with being dismissed as bigots because they believe that marriage is between one man and one woman.
They are fed up with being described as fascists because they believe that women experiencing difficulties in pregnancy deserve more than abortion. In short, they are sick, sore and tired about not being heard. We shouldn’t be surprised if people find themselves as fellow travellers with movements that don’t share a holistic Christian worldview so long as the establishment media and political parties are unwilling to at least allow people to articulate concerns.