04:02 pm
White Riot
Tony Karon doesn’t blog much, but when he does, it’s always interesting. Earlier today, he posted an excerpt from the 1980 film Rude Boy, featuring Joe Strummer and Ray Gange discussing left- and right-wing politics.
When Gange says he wants to be “one of the [rich] people riding around in cars,” Strummer says, “There’s nothing there. You can get all the [wealth] you want, [but] there’s nothing at the end of that road, no humor, life, nothing. . . .It’s all of us or none.” It’s like the punk rock version of What’s the Matter with Kansas?
Once the conversation ends, the movie cuts to The Clash performing “London’s Burning” and “White Riot.” Depending on where you work, the video may be NSFW — it actually has bad words in it.
Watching this made me wish I had seen the Clash in their prime. But it also got me thinking about the similarities between Britain of the late 70s and John McCain and Sarah Palin’s America:
White riot - I wanna riot
White riot - a riot of my own
White riot - I wanna riot
White riot - a riot of my own
Strummer meant this ironically — later in the song he says that most Brits are sheep who “go to school where they teach you how to be thick.” But if you’ve seen the videos of Palin rallies, you know that the chorus represents a pretty good description of what’s happening in the United States today.
Increasingly, McCain-Palin supporters — or at least the Palinistas among them — rant incoherently against forces that they are not even trying to understand. The United States they idealize ceased to exist a long time ago, but it is only with this election that they are beginning to come to terms with the fact that they no longer represent a majority view.
As a result, they have denounced Obama as a terrorist, Muslim, “baby-killer” and racist, even as they use racist symbols (Curious George, watermelon, ribs, fried chicken) in their depictions of him. They are hostile towards anyone they perceive as the enemy — including the media. Some have even threatened violence.
It’s the distillation of white anger into its most virulent form.
In other words, it’s a white riot.
I am not an expert on late 20th Century British history, but it strikes me that there are more similarities between England of the late 70s and contemporary America than just the anger and alienation of a fading culture.
Thatcherism was in large part a response to an exhausted ideology — social democracy — that had managed to disillusion those who had supported it for two generations. Most voters thought that the Labour Party was outdated and out of touch with the average voter’s concerns. The economy was in shambles, and most voters blamed the current government for their own problems. Dozens of past Labourites publicly endorsed Thatcher, portrayed Labour as having moved outside the mainstream of British politics. She also skillfully used the economic crisis to highlight the failures of the Callaghan government.
Today, it is conservatism and Republicanism that is the exhausted ideology and party. It’s not yet clear whether Obama will prove to be the kind of realigning force that Thatcher was in England. But certainly the conditions exist for it to happen.
Britain got over its white anxiety, culture wars, and economic doldrums (and, for that matter, Thatcherism) to become the “Cool Britannia” of the early Blair years. It is possible that an Obama Administration may help bring about a similar transition in the United States.
Of course, just as is the case in England today, a few die hards will continue to hate.