RABBLE-ROUSERS

 Rabble-rousers are dangerous fellows, whom we sometimes rather guiltily enjoy, but who can mightily upset our societies. History produces many examples of this species, who need to be recognized for what they are before they cause undue damage. A rabble-rouser, or more correctly a “demagogue”, is most effective in democratic societies, where the people, or at least the electorate, appoint the government and can be moved to replace or reorganize that government. Typically, the techniques employed by the rabble-rouser include scapegoating, fearmongering, lying, oversimplifying, distorting and promising the impossible. Mix these often-unseen elements with practiced emotional oratory and strong personal charisma and you have a powerful brew on your hands, sometimes a brew involving violence and mayhem. With some sadness, I have to admit that this demagogic profile fits to a T the present US President Donald J. Trump.

                 Trump inflames the passions of his audience

I am not blind to the merits of President Trump. He has given a new voice to many Americans who felt marginalized and he has put a bomb under an Establishment hitherto tenacious in its possession of privilege. The US has prospered and avoided new military conflicts. He has even helped Israel make peace with her neighbours. Yes, there is a credit side on the Trump balance sheet, but, alas, the liabilities side is much larger. For the Donald presidency has seen outrageous lies disseminated daily, with very few retractions, amid a weird atmosphere of self-congratulation and rampant egotism. Trump has appealed to the prejudices of his supporters, notably fear of Mexicans and immigrants generally. His language is so tactless he has widened the gap between whites and other minorities in the US.

Internationally Trump’s hostile attitude has alienated his natural allies in Europe and the Far East. Over-simplifying tricky issues, Trump has withdrawn from alliances, treaties and partnerships leaving a power vacuum which Russia and China are only too happy to fill. This is a poor legacy for future Western democrats and is the product of Trump’s ignorance of US diplomatic history and espousal of a tub-thumping America First policy (or rather “slogan”). He has substantially debased the dignity of his office.

We hope Trump is a one-off, though US demagogues have a long pedigree from William Jennings Bryan through Huey Long to Senator Joe McCarthy. I dread a close US presidential election on 3 November, only about three weeks away, with Trumpian screams of “Fraud” and possible recourse to a controversial Supreme Court, erratic House Speaker Pelosi and a fanciful bipartisan ticket if normal inauguration is made impossible. It could be very nasty indeed!

Americans may need to be vigilant and agile if things go seriously wrong constitutionally.  There is a chilling historical precedent. Adolf Hitler’s Nazis were the largest party in the Reichstag after the elections on 30/01/1933 but had no majority. In February the Reichstag building was set alight by the Communists, said Hitler, but more likely by the Nazis, to cause panic. A temporary state of emergency was declared on 28 February suspending basic rights and there was paramilitary violence. New elections took place on 6/03/33 but the Nazis still failed to get a majority. The Prussian elite and the Nazis came to an understanding at Potsdam on 21/3/33 and passed an Enabling Act which transformed liberal Weimar Germany into a de facto legal dictatorship on 23/3/33 under Adolf Hitler. All this was achieved in just 2 months. If Trump has no scruples about, nor respect for, the traditions of the US, he has this deadly pathway to follow. I hesitate to use Trump’s name in the same breath as that of Hitler, (they are worlds apart) but I cannot say there is absolutely no danger.

   

Wilkes and Liberty

                         

Influential Nigel Farage

The UK is far from perfect. It has not been much plagued by demagogues recently but John Wilkes in the 1770s caused a huge popular anti-monarchist furore and Lord George Gordon led the infamous Gordon Riots of 1780 which ravaged London.  In our times Nigel Farage has been an eloquent advocate of Brexit, a cause I support, using all the rhetorical tricks, swaying the 2016 referendum and pretending to be “just Folks”. Nor can the French gloat: their parade of odd-balls includes Jean-Baptiste Marat, revolutionary terrorist and failed Ami du Peuple, General Boulanger, the “man on the black horse” who excited the French briefly in 1890, and Jean-Marie Le Pen, extreme nationalist who polled surprisingly well in 2002 for President.

All democracies are targeted by plausible rabble-rousing demagogues. We democrats must ignore their blandishments and repeat to ourselves the proven values of reason, tolerance and unity to weather the storms capricious nature will hurl against us.

 

SMD        11.10.20

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2020

FOLLOW THAT TASTE-BUD!

 

One of the many pleasures of Lockdown is the tsunami of TV programmes, even channels, devoted to acquiring, preparing, cooking and eating food. Not plain food but mouth-watering, fancy, quasi-exotic food stretching the culinary talents of many viewers. Personally, I am a fan of Rick Stein’s fish and seafood enthusiasms but I do not disparage The Great British Bake-off and the myriad shows explaining the delights of Indian, Thai, Spanish and, I imagine, Belarussian delicacies.

        A Rick Stein bonne-bouche

Influential as they are, these programmes got me thinking. I thought of Covid-stricken Donald Trump, aged 74 and at 110 kg and 6ft 3in, classified as clinically obese. I too am 110kg but am aged 78 and a mere 5ft 10in, so my classification is a, rather alarming, state secret. Our esteemed Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, had his own almost lethal brush with Covid-19 in April. Once short and fat, he has now lost 2 stone and his diet regime is simple – eat less and exercise more! Mind you, Petronella Wyatt, an ex-lover of Boris, describes Boris in this week’s Spectator, as one whose “idea of fine dining was Pizza Express!”. She also relates a crisis in their relationship when she cooked him an elaborate seafood risotto. Arriving late as usual, he looked on the dish “as one might gaze upon a dish of beetles,” saying “I can’t eat that. Do you have any crisps?” Petronella writes “This enraged me more than any of his sexual delinquencies. As Colette said, Food has ruined more relationships than infidelity!”

But Boris is now right – we must eat less. One of the 7 Deadly Sins, invented by early Church Fathers, is Gluttony, a vice we hardly recognise these days.

The Emperor Vitellius

Vitellius only survived as Roman Emperor for 8 months in 69AD. His claim to fame was his gluttony and, armed with emetics, he had 3 gastronomic beanos every day!  Unsurprisingly, according to ever-unreliable Suetonius, he had a flabby reputation but his feasts were spectacular. In one he served 2,000 choice fishes and 7,000 birds before reserving for himself a huge platter containing the livers of pike, the brains of pheasant and peacocks, the tongues of flamingoes and the milt (semen) of lampreys. This brutal fellow was soon dispatched by the Roman mob, aiding Vespasian’s legions.

Fast forward to the Victorian naturalist Frank Buckland (1826-1880) whose gluttony took a peculiar form. Buckland was the son of amateur paleontologists, his father becoming a clerical Dean. His parents regularly feasted on delicacies like mice in batter, squirrel pie, horse’s tongue and ostrich.

 

                                   

        Frank Buckland pioneer of zoöphagy

There was a notion in the 19^th century that new options could be found for providing new food for humanity. From a boy, Frank decided to eat his way through the animal kingdom, He ate cats and then he befriended zoos, whose dead beasts he consumed. Starting with a panther (yuk), he moved onto black bear (ugh). It became a lifetime obsession and he founded The Acclimatisation Society. In 1862 he invited 100 guests to sit down to a relatively conservative sea-slug, kangaroo, guan and curassow dinner. He later progressed to boiled elephant trunk, rhinoceros pie, porpoise heads and stewed mole. Buckland was a real pioneer in his very odd field.

We associate gluttony with excessive eating but it also embraces the familiar phenomenon of those who are excessively particular about their food. There is a very striking passage in C S Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, where Lewis imagines a correspondence between a Senior Devil and the Junior Devil he is mentoring:

 “But what do quantities matter, provided we can use a human belly and palate to produce querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness and self-concern? Glubose,(a Senior Devil) has this old woman well in hand. She is a positive terror to hostesses and servants. She is always turning from what has been offered her to say with a demure little sigh and a smile ‘Oh please, please ... all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast’. You see? Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognises as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome it may be to others.”

Finally and inevitably, I call upon the French to get our gastric juices flowing again. The enigmatic Francois Mitterand, President of France (1981-1995) had concealed his prostate cancer while in office. Later, knowing he was dying, he called together 30 friends and family for a final dinner and they consumed Marennes oysters, foie gras, capon and as the coup de grace a plate of ortolans (bunting song birds). It was illegal to kill or trap ortolans even then but the French surround eating ortolans, bones and all, with a ritual of covering the head with a large napkin to retain the distinctive taste of these tiny birds, drowned in Armagnac and roasted in a ramekin.

Truly taste-buds take us on strange journeys – time for the Alka-Seltzer!

                    The innocent Ortolan

 

SMD

5.10.20

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2020