It's a strange and scary time in politics the world over. The fact that a dangerous dipshit is at the helm of one of the world's superpowers is old news, but the fact he's seemingly kicked off a brand new illegal war in the Middle East is new, if not entirely unexpected.
Over here in the UK, we saw an interesting development in that the Green Party — long assumed to be a distant "they'll never get in" option, lagging behind even the Liberal Democrats — successfully managed to take the hotly contested Gorton and Denton by-election in Manchester earlier this week. You could feel a significant portion of the nation breathe a sigh of relief as Hannah Spencer (now Hannah Spencer MP) successfully fended off the Greens' nearest rival, the odious Reform UK.
For those reading from outside the UK, Reform UK are a successor to the UK Independence Party (aka UKIP), and an openly racist hate-filled group led by the scuzzbucket Nigel Farage. And before someone takes issue with me calling them openly racist, I direct you to Reform's candidate for Gorton and Denton, Matt Goodwin, responding to his loss by claiming that "a dangerous Muslim sectarianism has emerged".
But Goodwin, badloser (sic) that he is, is not the most interesting thing about what happened in Gorton and Denton. The media response to the Greens' success is. Multiple publications have demonstrated a bizarre resistance to the Greens' message of "hope, not hate" with openly hostile interviews and attempts to smear the party as being "The Green Menace".
To the eternal credit of the Greens' leader, Zack Polanski, he has been taking all this in his stride, and has been handling the outright abuse being thrown his way over the last couple of weeks with absolute ease and professionalism. It's the first time in my life I can remember seeing a politician — a party leader, at that — going about their business in a way that I actually consider to be admirable, rather than something that I just feel like I would reluctantly put up with were they to find themselves with any sort of power.
In many ways, the Greens' recent success feels like the UK is having our own "Mamdani moment". New York, USA elected Zohran Mamdani, an openly socialist mayor, a little while back, and he has also had to fend off some absolute bullshit coming his way from the media, other politicians and political commentators — and he, too, has taken it all in his stride, giving the distinct impression that he actually wants to make a positive difference for once.
I feel like we might be on the cusp of something noteworthy in terms of politics right now. People are sick and fed up with the billionaire oligarchs being the ones who have a say in how countries are run, and people like Mamdani, Polanski and the people who follow them seem serious about actually doing something about the problem.
Whether or not they will be successful is another matter, of course, and I am still not in a place where I am at all hopeful about the immediate future for most of the world. But I can say, with all honesty, that this is the first time in my life, at the age of 44, that I actually feel like there are at least a few politicians out there worth listening to and worth supporting, even.
"Hope, not hate" is a simple but powerful message, and one I would like to believe is one that good people can latch onto and throw their support behind. I guess it remains to be seen what the future holds in this regard, but the Gorton and Denton result is, at least, a good start if nothing else.
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