
Black and white thinking takes us closer to fascism
We do not, for example, live in a world where the people of Israel are wholly good or wholly bad. Likewise, we do not live in a world where the same could be said of Palestinians, or the US government, or even – and perhaps this is the most difficult to admit these days – the Parliamentary Labour Party.
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There are good and bad people in every one of the groups I have mentioned. The numbers of those who are good and those who are bad might vary within them but to pretend everything is a simple question of groups being good or evil, or right and wrong, is mistaken.
The reality of human life is that such simplistic claims can never be justified. In every group, every society, among people of every ethnicity or race, and in every state, and every organisation, we have to recognise good and bad can coexist, and sometimes simultaneously even in the same people.
I know this makes life much harder. But, if we succumb to the temptation to subscribe to generalisms about any group, anywhere, at any time, and believe blanket descriptions can apply to them without taking into account the diverse nature of humanity, then we succumb to something that is best called fascism.
Fascists have one political goal, which is all too easily seen among some politicians in both the UK and the United States at present. They seek to describe some group in society as the 'other'.
They then ascribe to that group a range of characteristics which can, in truth, be found in any group in any society, anywhere, but which they claim are commonplace or universal within the group they deem to be the 'other'.
They then blame all the ills in a society upon that 'other'. The extermination of that group becomes their political focus, all the while disguising the fact that what they are really doing is pursuing an agenda that, almost without exception in the case of fascism, is intended to advance the interest of some (but not all) among the wealthiest in their society, at cost to everyone else.
This is most easily seen in the US, where the support of some (but I stress, not all) within the tech community for the agenda pursued by Donald Trump and far-right think tanks is resulting in the 'othering' of those they describe as illegal immigrants.
US president Donald Trump They are then indifferent to the suffering of all those who might share ethnicity with those they 'other'. All of this is being done to advance the interests of a white, male, evangelical Christian anti-feminist elite within that society over the interests of all others.
In the UK, we see a similar exploitation of so-called illegal immigrants, even though no-one is an illegal immigrant in the UK until their application to be resident here has been formally declined.
It is easy to identify far-right politicians from Reform UK and the Conservative Party who are undertaking this activity but, as Keir Starmer has reminded us, not least with his 'island of strangers' speech, this is something Labour are also all too keen to do.
Division is now a political strategy when not so long ago our whole focus was upon the creation of integrated communities so that people might live in harmony.
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The change has been dramatic and appears to have been quite sudden but in practice it can be fairly easily traced as having begun in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis.
Then, it became apparent to many that our economy was being systemically structured to ensure some got all the advantages of the actions the state undertook as a consequence of the banking collapse.
The majority, and most definitely those on median incomes or less, enjoyed no gain at all, and quite probably suffered losses.
People were told there was growth, that there was no such thing as austerity, and that government services were being maintained by additional government spending. But what they experienced was something entirely different. They were not better off. Services were worse. The society in which they lived was very definitely suffering, and they were angry about that.
Then, despite the fact that this was actually because of the exploitation created by some bankers and others in a wealthy elite (and again, I stress, this was not universal), some politicians, acting with the outright support of those who were benefiting the most, chose to blame those they call illegal migrants for the situation the majority of people found themselves in.
The anger and disillusion people quite reasonably felt as a consequence of the deliberate failure of the Tories to meet need was redirected for the political advantage of the elite that was actually exploiting people and, in the process, something once described by the German historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt occurred.
As she explained, the constant lying of our politicians is not intended to make people believe the lies that they are told. Instead, its goal is to ensure no-one believes anything any more. The intention is to ensure no-one can, with any degree of certainty, distinguish between truth and lies, and so between right and wrong.
People deprived of that power are, in Arendt's opinion, also deprived of the power to think and judge and, as a consequence, are then unwittingly subject to the rule of lies. This then means politicians who wish to manipulate a population for their own advantage are free to do so.
That is what happens when we give up on nuance. That is what happens when we give up on believing we have more in common with others than that which divides us. That is what happens when we forget there is right and wrong, but that there is no-one, or any group, that is at all times and in all places possessed of either quality on every occasion.
That is, in effect, what happens when we give up on judgment. We become exposed to manipulation and so to abuse.
And this is where we are. This is why politicians think they can lie to us, on Gaza, on the state of the UK, on Scottish independence, and on almost anything else. It's because they believe we have forgotten how to determine the truth in among the noise that those who wish to distract us deliberately create.
It is our job to work out what is really happening and to form a judgment upon it. That is what politics and political economy demand of us.
It's hard and it sometimes leaves us confused and feeling alienated, but that is the price we have to pay if we are to continue to believe in humanity and decency, and to believe there are things we must do because they are simply right.

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The Independent
27 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump wants to put Washington DC under full federal control. Can he?
President Donald Trump has repeatedly voiced intentions to place Washington D.C. under complete federal control, citing a need to curb crime. This stance comes despite city officials saying that crime rates are already on the decline. While the president holds some sway over the capital's police force and National Guard, a comprehensive federal takeover would almost certainly face legal challenges and likely be blocked in court. The U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1787, established a federal capital district to serve as the permanent seat of government. It explicitly grants Congress complete legislative authority over the district. However, Congress has historically delegated a degree of day-to-day municipal governance to other bodies. How is DC governed? A federal law passed by Congress in 1973, known as the Home Rule Act, allowed city residents to elect a mayor and council, who have some autonomy to pass their own laws. Congress still has budgetary oversight over D.C., however, and can overturn local legislation. Congress did that most recently in 2023, voting to overturn changes to Washington's laws that lowered penalties for some crimes. Who controls DC law enforcement? The Democratic mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, has authority over the city's Metropolitan Police Department. However, the Home Rule Act allows the president to take control of the MPD for federal purposes during emergencies if 'special conditions of an emergency nature exist.' A presidential takeover is limited to 30 days, unless Congress votes to extend it through a joint resolution. Trump invoked this part of the Home Rule Act on Monday, saying in an executive order that there is a "crime emergency" in the city that necessitates federal management of the police department. Bowser has pushed back on Trump's claims of unchecked violence, saying the city is "not experiencing a crime spike" and highlighting that violent crime hit its lowest level in more than three decades last year. Violent crime, including murders, spiked in 2023, turning Washington into one of the nation's deadliest cities, according to city police data. However, violent crime dropped 35 per cent in 2024, according to federal data, and it has fallen an additional 26 per cent in the first seven months of 2025. Trump also has broad control over the D.C. National Guard's 2,700 soldiers and airmen. They report directly to the president, unlike counterparts in other states and territories. Trump said on Monday he was deploying 800 National Guard troops to Washington. Can Trump 'federalize' DC? It is highly unlikely. To exert full federal control of D.C., Trump would need Congress to repeal the Home Rule Act. Such a repeal would require 60 votes in the U.S. Senate, where Trump's Republican Party has a 53-47 advantage. Democrats have been supportive of home rule for DC and are not expected to cross party lines to endorse Trump's vision. But there are ways Trump can exert more influence over the district without fully taking it over. Trump in recent months has directed federal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI to increase the police presence in Washington. Trump has broad authority to reallocate FBI personnel, and in recent months, FBI agents around the country have been given temporary assignments to help with immigration enforcement. Trump also signed an executive order in March to make D.C. "safe and beautiful," establishing a task force to increase police presence in public areas, maximize immigration enforcement, and expedite concealed carry licenses. Trump has said homeless people must move out of Washington, without offering specifics of a plan to accomplish this. "I'm going to make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before," Trump said on Truth Social. "The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital." The federal government owns much of Washington's parkland, so the Trump administration has legal authority to clear homeless encampments in those areas, like President Joe Biden did while in office. But the federal government cannot force people to move out of the city because they lack shelter, legal experts said.


The Guardian
28 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Hurry, hurry, hurry! It's Trump's great Ukraine giveaway. Bargains galore, if your name is Vladimir Putin
Good to have it confirmed that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will be taking about Ukraine behind its back on Friday in Alaska, as the US president rambled through a press conference on Monday in which he explained that Putin 'wasn't going to mess with me' and that Ukraine was going to have to accept new borders. And listen – you'll agree that territorial pronouncements mean so much more coming from a guy whose staff once shamelessly redrew a hurricane impact map to stop him looking stoopid. It's a true honour for the Ukrainians to see their country effectively carved up by someone who would prefer to post-rationalise any old crap with a Sharpie than admit he doesn't have the first clue about it and cares even less. Leave it to the tasteful visionary behind the Gaza Riviera to categorise what he's doing as trying to get back some of Ukraine's 'oceanfront property'. 'In real estate we call it oceanfront property,' Trump said on Monday, demystifying this term of high art for non-developers who haven't contrived to bankrupt several Atlantic City casinos. 'That's always the most valuable property.' Thanks, Mister Mogul! It is assumed that the stretch of high-end primo coastline Trump was referring to included Mariupol, the utterly ruined port in which many thousands of civilians perished during the Russian siege. In international law we call it a possible war crime; in real estate we call it … what? Strategic pre-construction? Spa-chitecture? Certainly, how we put things is a matter of concern to this supremely sensitive president, who can find words very hurty, particularly when allied to optional concepts such as truth or the law. 'I was a little bothered by the fact Zelensky was saying, 'I have to get constitutional approval,'' he whined on Monday of the Ukrainian leader's desire to put any peace deal to the Ukrainian people via a referendum. 'He's got approval to go into war and kill everybody?' Again, whether Ukraine 'go[ing] into war' is a fair categorisation of its being invaded by Russia is not something that bothers the Sharpie king of the White House. As for the precise nature of the forthcoming cartography, Trump spent quite a lot of time talking suspiciously nebulously about 'land swapping'. Can you swap things on behalf of someone who doesn't want to swap them, and without them being present at the table? If so, I would like someone to swap me one of Trump's second-tier golf courses, and would expect him to be very relaxed about it. He'll just have to take my word that it's in the wider interests of everybody. In terms of what he deems to be the interests of interested parties, there has been some strong suggestion in recent days that the Trump administration thinks it would be a win for Ukraine to abandon the bits of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are not even occupied by Russia, with only a ceasefire and the promise of some future better deal to show for it. Which would certainly be the absolute wrongest reading of a land deal since the New York Tribune called the Alaska purchase a folly and a waste of money. In fact, it would explain Putin's willingness to travel to that very territory to hold Friday's peace talks instead of doing it on neutral turf – you can probably afford to concede on the meeting location if everything else is likely to be such a complete gift to you. The Russian president might even bring along another hideously flattering portrait of Trump as an ice-breaking present, having already commissioned one as a personal gift earlier this year, which was passed on to Trump via his special envoy Steve Witkoff. Witkoff said it was a 'beautiful portrait' and that the president was 'clearly touched by it'. And so to the buildup to Friday. We'll have to see how excited Trump gets about the chance to join some sort of German-organised conference call with European leaders on Wednesday. For the US president, the negotiating table is a place that seats only two people, one of which should always be him. For Putin, many fear through bitter experience, the negotiating table is a place where you simply obfuscate and buy time to regroup before renewing aggression. Rather like Holly Golightly at the window of Tiffany's, nothing very bad can happen to Putin in Alaska. Merely turning up avoids the threatened sanctions. If, as seems likely, Trump decides he should be appeased with some land, any Ukrainian refusal to rubber-stamp this would leave him frustrated with and lashing out at Zelenskyy, not Putin. (Give the orange guy his peace deal and then his peace prize, dammit! He's getting bored out here.) And if a ceasefire is somehow agreed, it would surely, on the form book, be regarded by Putin merely as a strategic buying of time. The Russian leader is obsessed with Ukraine in a way the Trump administration seems incapable of, or indifferent to, grasping. Look, maybe geopolitics really will turn out to be just a simpler version of commercial real estate. Maybe someone who has lost almost as many fortunes as he has gained in that particular trade really will turn out to be a maverick master whose refresh-the-parts traditional diplomacy can't reach. Maybe! But the sheer lack of jeopardy for Putin in Alaska feels far more significant than the mood music. The best-case scenario is that Europe and Ukraine prepare themselves for the artlessness of the deal. The worst-case scenario is a darker pathway altogether – and one we seem increasingly likely to stumble on to. Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist


BBC News
28 minutes ago
- BBC News
Trump defend decision to send 800 National Guard troops to Washington DC to take over police department
President Donald Trump don announce say im dey send 800 National Guard troops to Washington DC wey im dey take control of di city police force. Di US president say im dey crackdown on crime and di situation of homelessness for di city. Trump bin declare "public safety emergency" on Monday wen im deploy di 800 troops to support hundreds of federal law enforcement officers wey dem bin send dia over di weekend. "E don become situation of complete lawlessness," im tell reporters for di White House. Di Mayor of di city Muriel Bowser bin reject di claim by di president about crime – even though di rate bin rise for 2023, statistics don show say di rates don dey fall since den. Violent crime for di city also don reduce to 30-year low. "I don announce dis historic action to rescue di capital of our kontri from crime, bloodshed, filth and even worse," Trump tok during di news conference wia di US Attorney general Pam Bondi bin dey stand by im side. She go lead di City police force while e dey under federal control. "Dis na liberation day for DC, and we go take our capital back," im tok. Trump tok say "violent gangs and blood-thirsty criminals, drug pipo and homeless pipo bin take ova Washington DC." Data from di Metropolitan Police Department of di city show say homicides drop by 32% between 2023 and 2024, and now e don reach dia lowest level since 2019. Data don show say di crime rates don drop by 12%. Mayor Bowser wey be Democrat don tok say crime don shoot up for 2023, wey bin dey like di national trend, but im rule out any tori wey claim say di city dey for crimewave. "We no dey see di rise for crime," she don tok MSNBC on Sunday. "Di president dey very aware of our efforts." Dem bin ask di deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller about wetin im tink about di white house comment say Washington dey more violent than Baghdad, Bowser say "to dey compare place wia war don dey, na false." Out of di 800 National guard troops wey dem go activate, between 100-200 go dey support law enforcement at any time, di army tok for statement. Defence secretary Pete Hegseth say di national guardsmen go reach di city by end of di week. Trump don also tok say im go put di police department for di city under di direct control federal control, using di District of Columbia Home Rule Act. Former president Richard Nixxon bin create dis law to allow residents of Washington wey be di only US city wey neva part of di 50 states – to elect city council and dia mayor. But dat plan also bin get caveat wey don dey allow di president to take control of di police for di city if "special emergency conditions don happun." If di president bin wan take control for more than 48 hours, dem gat to provide written notice to congress. Na so if dem provide dat notice, dem neva fit keep control of di police for more than 30 days. Dem bin ask di city mayor on Sunday about di possibility say di president go take control of di city, mayor Bowser explain say "di tin dey inside di law wey go allow dat, but dis tins and conditions neva dey for dis city right now." She tok say she dey concerned about di National Guard wey dey enforce local laws. Later for Monday, Bower address one press conference wia she don tok say di president order "dey unsettling and unprecedented." She add say Trump bin dey see di city somehow "wit im experience during di covid pandemic for im first term", dat approach dey affect how im dey see di city. Di mayor tok say "we don quickly put dis law wey don clear violent offenders from our streets. We don see di crime numbers reduce sake of dis efforts." Apart from crime, Trump also bin speak during di press conference, about homelessness for Washington DC. "We don dey scatter di slums," im tok without details. Im say dem go carry homeless pipo comot di place to anoda place; but im neva tok wia. Trump bin add say "every tin gat to be perfect" when ogbonge foreign leaders and pipo visit di city. Local groups wey dey work wit di homeless pipo for di capital tok di BBC say dem don see progress. Di president and chief executive of So Others Might Eat (SOME) – one group wey don dey give food to people for di city wit housing, clothing and other social services, tok say homelessness don drop by almost 20% for pipo for Washington DC for 2025 compared to five years ago. Ralph Boyd also bin tok say Trump im proposal to move pipo out of di city neva be long-term solution. Meanwhile outside di White House, protesters wey dey concerned about Trump im actions, bin gather and chant "hands off DC" "protect home rule." "Trump no dey care about di safety of DC, im dey care about control." Di president im actions bin follow series of posts for social media for di last days wia im don criticize how dem dey run Washington DC. Trump also don complain about one former staff of di Department of govment efficiency (Doge) wey dem don attack for di city last week. During di Monday press conference, Trump tok say "roaming thugs" don beat di employee; wia dem leave am for pool of blood. Im also tok about oda govment staff and elected officials wey don suffer attacks, including one democratic lawmaker and intern. "Dis na threat to America," Trump tok. Di first time Trump bin send di National Guard na for June wia im order 2,000 of di guards To Los Angeles to deal wit kasala ova undocumented migrants and odas. Di last time dem deploy di National Guard to Washington na in response to di Capitol riot for 2021. Wit additional reporting from Madeline Halpert