Theresa May’s ‘Jingoistic’ Election

Theresa May has decided to hold a snap general election in June. As much as I am worried that this election has a high chance of wiping out the Labour party, the most distasteful part of this whole election is the manner in which she has called it, and the authoritarian justifications Theresa May has given for holding it: parliamentary opposition to Brexit. I will start by looking at her speech, drawing out two interrelated problems: the way that opposition or dissent is presented as threatening to national security; and secondly the appeal to unity. I will then take these points further by looking Mary Chapin Carpenter’s song: “On With The Song” to explore how dissent and unity are not oppositions and in the silencing of dissent to preserve a false perception of unity only sows resentment and does not build any real resilience necessary for communities and people to live and come together positively.

So I'll start with the speech Theresa May gave on Tuesday 18^th April. May gives the following reasons for holding a general election:

"If we do not hold a general election now their political game-playing will continue, and the negotiations with the European Union will reach their most difficult stage in the run-up to the next scheduled election.

Division in Westminster will risk our ability to make a success of Brexit and it will cause damaging uncertainty and instability to the country.”

By ‘political game-playing’ May is referring to basic parliamentary scrutiny and debate. She criticises the Labour party who ‘has threatened to vote against the deal we reach with the European Union'. As the opposition and as elected representatives, Labour have the right to vote against any deal with the European Union. In fact, in light of the war on terror that is about protecting the free world and democracy, the right to dissent, to disagree, to criticise and to oppose is part of living in a free, liberal democracy (Katz, 2008: 157). Further, was the vote to leave not also a vote for democracy? Her use of the word ‘threatened’ also works to associate labour as a threat to national security and stability. Throughout the speech, May makes various references to this threat: ‘I am not prepared to let them endanger the security of millions of working people across this country’ and links all other parties opposing the governments’ kind of Brexit with being ‘unstable.’ Further, the problem for May with dissent is disunity as she describes ‘division in Wesminster’ as risking the success of Brexit. In this speech, May also makes the claim that ‘the country is coming together, but Westminster is not.’ I do not know what she is basing this claim that the country’s divisions are healing on. Theresa May has certainly not done anything to heal them, aside from recycling a pleasant sounding, but rather vacuous speech about the ‘Just About Managing’ over the past year. Dissent and parliamentary opposition is here a threat to May and the Conservative’s (false) sense of unity. 

What has influenced my thinking behind this, as with many things in life, has been my 13 or so years long relationship with country music. Theresa May’s rhetoric bares striking resemblances to the country radio’s backlash to the Dixie Chicks’ criticisms of President Bush and the Iraq war. For those unaware of the incident, the Dixie Chicks’ criticism of the president led to the band being denounced at traitors, boycotted by country radio, labeled ‘Sadam’s Angels’ and the band were subject to death threats. One person commented ‘freedom of speech is fine. As long as you don’t do it in public.’ The Dixie Chick’s dissent, then, was treated as a threat to the country’s stability and national security. The aggression with which the band’s detractors attempted to silence them demonstrates the US approach to bulldozing over difference in order to preserve a façade of unity. The irony was lost on many of the detractors, as with May and the hard brexiteers, that freedom and democracy was the whole point of the war on terror and Brexit in the first place.

So now to Mary Chapin Carpenter, a singer-songwriter from Princeton, New Jersey whose music is often classified as country, although her discography and sound borrows from rock and folk. She achieved commercial and critical success in the 1990s with the albums Come on Come on (1992) and Stones in the Road (1994). However her later albums were less commercial, such as the one I take the song from The Calling (2007).

Carpenter’s song ‘On With The Song’ was written in response to the conservative backlash to the Dixie Chicks.  The song references the backlash in the lyrics:

            “This isn’t for the ones with their radio signal

              Calling for bonfires and boycotts, they rave.”

These lines refer to former fans of the Dixie Chicks burning their CDs and country radio boycotting their songs. There are also indirect references to George Bush and the Iraq war, criticizing Bush for going to war and his arrogance in this:

            “This isn’t for the man who can’t count the bodies

              Can’t comfort the families, can’t say when he’s wrong.”

The majority of the song, however contains little direct references to the either the Dixie Chicks or George Bush. Instead the song explores more deeply the dynamic of the situation. Carpenter has said ‘topical songwriting is a real gift, and it’s hard not to be pedantic and show up with the sledgehammer message. Songs that do that, I’m kind of allergic to.’ In this vain, the song is still political, but refuses to be a ‘sledgehammer message.’

The song is concerned with exploring ideas of unity and dissent and how unity is something that should not be forced onto people in a way that bulldozes over differences. The song opens with the lines:

            “This isn’t for the ones who blindly follow

              Jingoistic bumper stickers telling you

  To love it or leave it and you'd better love Jesus

  And get out of the way of the Red, White and Blue.”

This opening verse sets up a militarized ‘jingoistic’ nationalistic setting where dissent and disagreement are seen as threats to the nation as they get in the way of the path that the nation needs to take. This has striking similarities to the way in which Theresa May is going about Brexit. Approaching the negotiations in a negative distrustful way, for example refusing to guarantee the status of EU nationals in the UK and refusing, publically at least, to give any leeway around how the UK leaves the EU, the UK must leave both the Customs Union and the Single Market. Furthermore, anyone slightly ambivalent or worried about the impact of Brexit is told to ‘love it or leave it’ or be dismissed as simply ‘Project Fear’ for suggesting that there may be some hard times ahead. In this ideological optimism, this false display of unity, ‘the truth goes missing’ and we lose valuable insights. We would be able to benefit from these, if only the prime minister would work more collaboratively and try to build consensus across difference, rather than trying to bulldoze her way over everyone.

The tempo of the song becomes faster and the sound more uplifting as the song reaches a chorus where Carpenter turns to the people who the song is for. The earlier stanzas were slower rejecting the false unity that the Republicans were demanding, the slower tempo and steady vocal reflecting resolve and stoicism. The chorus celebrates dissent and people who ‘stand their ground’:

            “No, this is for the ones who stand their ground

  When the lines in the sand get deeper

  When the whole world seems to be upside down

  And the shots being taken get cheaper, cheaper.”

The lines seem to accept that the odds are stacked against them and the fight will be difficult: ‘the lines in the sand get deeper.’ Whilst they ‘stand their ground’ against the Iraq war or hard brexit, Carpenter also seems to be suggesting that it is not just these political issues that need resisting, but the manner in which the Republicans and Conservatives are conducting politics. Where politics is just a game of cheap shots to discredit their opponents and where any form of opposition is a 'threat', a true form of resistance is to reject the methods of division and disgust, and instead work across difference and bring about compromise.

So back to where this blog started, Theresa May’s approach to this general election is no responsible way to run a country. The response to a divided country, as revealed by the Brexit referendum is not to pretend that ‘the country is coming together’. We need to be open and acknowledge that not everyone is happy with Brexit, and further, whatever solution we come to, resolution and positive change will not 'mean that everyone is happy' (Schulman, 2016: 22). Best to be frank about this now and try to work across these differences, rather than make empty speeches about unity and the country coming together and label anyone who disagrees with you as enemies of the people. 

Sources:

Andes, Tom. 2012.  "The Rumpus interview with Mary Chapin Carpenter" The Rumpus. Available at: http://therumpus.net/2012/08/the-rumpus-interview-with-mary-chapin-carpenter/ [Accessed 21 April 2017]. 

Katz, C. 2008. “The Eternal Irony of the Community”: Prophecy, Patriotism, and the Dixie Chicks. Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. [Online] 26(4), Summer 2008, pp. 139-160. Available at DOI: 10.1353/sho.0.0192 [Accessed 12 March 2016].

Kopple, B., Peck, C. 2006. Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing. New York: Cabin Creek Films.

Schulman, S. 2016. Conflict is not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.