Andy Beckett's Blog, page 3

Homeland by Richard Beck review – shock and war in the US

Journalist Beck argues that the war on terror made America vastly more authoritarian, paving the way for Trump

Almost a quarter of a century on, is the US still being shaped by 9/11? Richard Beck thinks so, despite all the other shocking and pivotal events there since the 2001 attacks, from the financial crisis to the twin election victories of Donald Trump. In this long, ambitious book, which aims to be an “alternative national history”, encompassing politics, popular culture, consumerism, policing, the use of public spaces and even trends in parenting, Beck argues that 9/11 turned the US into a more aggressive, angry and anxious place, with Trump’s ascendancy only one of the consequences.

Beck depicts the “war on terror” that his country launched in response to al-Qaida’s surprise assault as a continuing, almost limitless military operation, which in its first two decades alone caused “900,000 deaths”, including those of “nearly 400,000 civilians”. His account of interventions and atrocities in countries such as Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan is clear and powerful, switching smoothly between strategic objectives and individual victims, yet much of it will be familiar to anyone who even casually follows US foreign policy.

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In Canada, I saw how Trump is ripping North America apart – and how hard its bond will be to repair | Andy Beckett

With the US president now warmer to Moscow than to Ottawa, it’s little surprise Canadians I met rolled their eyes at the decline of the special relationship

As wealthy but lightly defended countries have often learned, being close to a much more powerful state – geographically or diplomatically – can be a precarious existence. All it takes is an aggressive new government in the stronger state and a relatively equal relationship of economic and military cooperation can suddenly turn exploitative, even threatening.

Since Donald Trump’s second inauguration, this realisation has been dawning across the west, but nowhere more disconcertingly than in Canada. Its border with the US is the longest in the world: 5,525 miles of often empty and hard to defend land, lakes and rivers. Canada’s two biggest cities, Toronto and Montreal, are only a few hours to the north, were you to approach them in a US army tank.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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The UK has a history of coddling authoritarian leaders – now it’s happening again | Andy Beckett

British politicians think they exercise a moderating force on strongmen. In practice, ‘diplomacy’ and ‘pragmatism’ only ease their path

Why is Westminster, supposedly one of the world’s great centres of democratic moderation, so welcoming to far-right foreign governments? For more than a century, since the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, authoritarians have often found allies, apologists or a deliberate absence of criticism in the Commons, despite our parliament’s self-image as a historic enemy of fascism.

One reason for this forgiving attitude is that foreign policy is a pragmatic business, and Britain has increasingly become a country that can’t afford to make enemies. The Starmer government’s determination to see no evil in the Trump administration can be partly explained in those terms.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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Do Trump and co want a world reclaimed by straight white men? It’s not certain they’ll get it | Andy Beckett

Trump calls diversity policies ‘immoral’ and Badenoch says they’re ‘poison’. But businesses know multiculturalism is good for the economy

For people who believe that the world should be run by straight white men, these are heady times. Probably the most powerful social conservative on the planet occupies the White House again, and seems determined to drive “immoral” and “discriminatory” diversity policies out of American life.

Two years ago, the US supreme court banned the use of affirmative action in university admissions. A growing list of American and British companies, from Ford to BT to Goldman Sachs, appear to be reducing their commitment to the once fashionable corporate principles of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Meanwhile, Reform UK promises to “scrap DEI rules that have lowered standards and reduced economic productivity”. In politics, commerce and education, a huge, potentially lasting counterrevolution seems to be under way.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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In Trump’s fantasy politics, he can accomplish anything – but reality will prevail | Andy Beckett

His second term seems to represent an unassailable victory for conservative white men – but soon he’ll be another incumbent in an anti-incumbent world

Why exactly is Donald Trump’s new presidency so disorienting? So far, explanations have tended to focus on its manic pace, contempt for political conventions and blatant subversion of supposedly one of the world’s most robust democracies.

But all these elements were also present in his first presidency. Meanwhile, other features of both his terms, such as his cult of personality, scapegoating of immigrants and accusation that liberal elites have caused national decline, are standard practice for hard-right strongmen, and have been for at least a century.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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Farage, Musk and Trump: they crave your attention. Don’t give it to them | Andy Beckett

Populist trolling thrives on the oxygen of publicity. It’s on all of us – media and voters – to start looking away

Even more than other forms of politics, populism needs an audience. Populist politicians want to be famous personalities, to make attention-getting claims and promises, to create new national myths. Like other ambitious but less ideological entertainers, they want their act to be widely noticed, and then requested again and again. Without a receptive audience, populism can just seem cranky and simplistic – little different from fringe political movements down the ages.

In Britain, the US and many other democracies from India to Argentina, populism’s current dominant variant is rightwing, and much of its intended audience is the rightwing media. Conservative commentators, reporters and public intellectuals are constantly required to amplify populism’s messages and help maintain the public profiles of its leading figures. With only five Reform UK MPs, Nigel Farage needs the Tory press – just as the Tory press needs him, with rightwing politics in Britain otherwise at a low ebb.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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Have those who say Starmer is failing forgotten the madness of the Tory years already? | Andy Beckett

The PM can’t simply sit back and hope things will settle down. But look to history: there is an inevitability about his predicament

For anyone on the right, a Labour government under siege is one of the most reassuringly familiar sights in British politics. The party’s intermittent attempts to rule this country usually face regular policy controversies, proliferating enemies and relentless press attacks. There are often deteriorating Labour poll ratings, panicky government communications and policy lurches to the right. Minor scandals are magnified and ministers forced to resign. Despite attempted relaunches, Labour’s sense of momentum in office begins to ebb away. The many people hostile to the party look up the dates of coming elections and lick their lips.

From Labour’s first short-lived governments in the 1920s and its struggling ones in the 1970s to Gordon Brown’s gloomy premiership in the late 2000s, most Labour administrations have become beleaguered sooner or later. No matter that the Tories have often been more out of their depth in office, as Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak’s administrations have recently reminded us: it’s Labour that is most associated with government as crisis management.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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Bullies can sense weakness – which is why Labour must not shy away from taking on the global far right | Andy Beckett

By paying lip service to extremist narratives around immigration, Starmer is weakening, not strengthening, his government’s position

The rise of the far right is an awful but inescapable fact of modern politics. Across the world, in supposedly stable and moderate democracies as well as volatile ones, in mainstream and fringe parties, new and old media, and the minds of many voters who don’t consider themselves extremists, far-right ideas are circulating and growing.

Immigration is ruining society. Net zero is a conspiracy against the people. Promoting diversity is a perversion of the natural order. Traditional patriotism is the only real patriotism. Liberals should be purged from the state bureaucracy – otherwise, national decline is inevitable.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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Meet the groups trying to create a new leftwing party – and channel the energy missing from Starmer’s Labour | Andy Beckett

As disenchantment grows with mainstream parties, these collectives argue that the time is right – but there will be big obstacles

Ever since Keir Starmer began shoving Labour rightwards in 2020, a space has been opening up in British politics. The limited enthusiasm for Labour at the election and since has widened that space further, as has a more general dissatisfaction: a common feeling that our party system doesn’t properly represent voters on many issues, from inequality to Gaza.

Until recently, the pandemic and then the protracted collapse of the Conservative government distracted most people from this void to the left of Labour. The fact that the more radical leadership of his predecessor ended badly, with Labour’s heavy 2019 defeat, also discouraged further leftwing experiments. Of the many thousands who had been drawn in by Corbynism, some left Labour for the Greens, while others gave up on party politics, threatening to become a lost generation of progressives.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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If I were a cautious, centre-left prime minister, Trump’s victory would have me worried | Andy Beckett

A Kamala-Harris-like fate could await Keir Starmer unless he becomes more class conscious – even populist

Whatever determinedly positive things centre-left leaders around the world have said about Donald Trump’s victory in public, in private they must have greeted it with a shudder. Not just because of the dark and chaotic prospect of another Trump presidency, but because in many ways the defeated Kamala Harris is just like them. She is a hard worker, a patient reformer, a reasonably good communicator, an instinctive mover towards the ideological centre, a supposed antidote to rightwing populism, and yet also an incumbent, in an era when such perceived protectors of the status quo are widely despised.

Keir Starmer may have particular cause to worry. On her campaign website, Harris promised to “bring together” trade unions and business, “grow the economy” and increase both basic pay rates and employment. She said she had voted for legislation “creating hundreds of thousands of high-quality clean-energy jobs”, and “ensuring America’s energy security”. She said she would “cut red tape” to “build more housing”. She pledged “tough, smart solutions to secure the border … and reform our broken immigration system.” Above all, she presented her rightwing opponent as “cruel”, “dangerous” and “unfit to lead”.

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