Live by the meme, die by the meme

We do think this is a bit rich from The Observer:

Trump’s fantasy that migrants are eating cats proves the meme has prevailed over real politics

Signs and symbols are increasingly being wielded by politicians around the world in place of reasoned debate about serious issues

Politics isn’t about reasoned debate over serious issues, it’s about memes. At least one of us has done this for a real political party in an election cycle. Politics isn’t about reality, it’s about what people believe.

Memes about those foreigns barbecuing cats are something we’re not going to comment upon - only to say that if that’s what people believe is happening then that’s what people believe. Politics is about those beliefs.

We have our own more recent example domestically. Until just a few weeks back it was an absolute truth of British politics that there had been “austerity”. The Tory B’stards had deliberately and with malice aforethought slashed away at government. Those of us who pointed out that, acshully, real spending, nominal spending, spending as a proportion of GDP, had - absent the fall back from the pandemic and financial crisis highs - risen over the years were pooh-poohed as spouting nonsense. Yet we were right. As the current mumblings from the current government are showing. There are “black holes” in the government accounts, too much has been spent and not enough taxed. Despite taxation being the highest, as a proportion of everything, since the War. Thus these “difficult decisions” that must be taken.

The proof that there was no austerity being that we’re now told there is no unspent pot of money, no austerity that can be reversed.

But the meme won. That’s the way politics works. It is not about reality, it’s about what people believe.

Say, you know, that underfunding of the NHS. We’ve seen people insisting that NHS got under inflation funding over the years of the Tory B’Stards. There’s not a year since the early 1950s when the NHS has had a less than inflation funding round. It’s beliefs, not facts, that matter. True, there are those who insist the NHS just always requires more than mere general inflation - but that’s proof of a problem with the NHS, nothing else.

Of course, memes do end up, eventually, being confronted with reality. Which is what makes those incorrect beliefs so dangerous. We end up committed to a plan based upon beliefs and then those ugly facts rear their heads.

As long as everyone grasps this politics will carry on as it has for centuries. An inefficient and largely useless way of running things but with that saving grace of allowing a change of power at the top without a bloody revolution. The true danger is those politicians who believe their own memes. Like this idea that the British grid and energy production system is going to be net zero in only 4.25 years. Two decades back that was a useful enough meme to get loins girded for the task*. Here’s reality knocking on the door now and it’s simply not going to work. Having a politician in charge who actually believes the meme, now that’s dangerous.

Politics concerns beliefs about reality, not reality itself. Which is why memes work and also why they’re dangerous.

Tim Worstall

*Note we don’t say correct, or righteous, but as a piece of propaganda it works