The Conservative Party leadership election feels like it's taking place on another world. So here's a handy list of tropes that can help make sense of some of the madness.
In your favour, you're right that the Conservatives think like this, and they get caught up in their own net because they also believe it applies to themselves. So the Conservative party has atrophied and corrupted itself steadily over the past 30 years. They won the last election with Labour votes. It'll be interesting to see where they go from here.
But the Labour Party has these problems, too. Blair accepted that they couldn't beat the Conservatives so they had to become like them. Then Blair rejected the perversity trope and proved its accuracy by invading Iraq, for which we're still suffering the consequences.
Then they elected Jeremy Corbyn. Which is covered by several of these tropes. The Parliamentary party certainly didn't support him.
Finally the point about Dominic Cummings. There's a perfectly legitimate argument to have that lockdown was unnecessary, the costs will prove too high and the vaccines didn't work.
Hirschman's ideas are just part of the stock in trade of all politicians. They're just ways to blame your opponent.
Some nice ideas here.
In your favour, you're right that the Conservatives think like this, and they get caught up in their own net because they also believe it applies to themselves. So the Conservative party has atrophied and corrupted itself steadily over the past 30 years. They won the last election with Labour votes. It'll be interesting to see where they go from here.
But the Labour Party has these problems, too. Blair accepted that they couldn't beat the Conservatives so they had to become like them. Then Blair rejected the perversity trope and proved its accuracy by invading Iraq, for which we're still suffering the consequences.
Then they elected Jeremy Corbyn. Which is covered by several of these tropes. The Parliamentary party certainly didn't support him.
Finally the point about Dominic Cummings. There's a perfectly legitimate argument to have that lockdown was unnecessary, the costs will prove too high and the vaccines didn't work.
Hirschman's ideas are just part of the stock in trade of all politicians. They're just ways to blame your opponent.