The Resurrection of Politics

The Brexit and Trump votes in June and November of 2016 had many things in common — their unexpected nature, the scorn poured upon the winners by educated elites, the populism of the victorious protagonists, the visceral hatred unleashed, the rather far-fetched promises of the successful campaigns, and the losers' nightmarish anticipations of what will now come to pass. But one particular feature represented in both movements was a rejection of politics. For Brexit, conventional politics was either a sell-out of sovereignty from Westminster to Brussels, or a stitch-up by the privileged London classes at the expense of the downtrodden provincial masses. For the trumpeters of Trump, Washington was a broken, wasteful, self-indulgent culture of fiddling while the economy of middle America burns, and what was required was a bonfire of the vanities of expertise, experience, and dynastic presidency.

The losers of the two votes share a twin dilemma. The first half of the dilemma is how to participate in the new politics: whether to dwell in the denial or despair of what seems a set of catastrophic decisions, or whether to be upbeat and say much remains to be seen, the known deficits are outnumbered by the unknown possibilities, and the game is very much still to be won. The second half of the dilemma is how to come to terms with the half of the population that voted for something that seemed at once unimaginable and horrifying: whether to hide in the bubble of like-minded dismay, or instead humbly to seek out, meet, and learn from people who apparently think so differently, feel so alienated, and harbour such deep anger.

The one thing no one seems prepared to do is to find any fault with democracy, which while having delivered two crushing blows to a whole swathe of those accustomed to being in the majority, has remarkably emerged unscathed. Indeed some have seen 2016 as a year of triumph for the much vaunted "little guy." In late 2016 a letter from a certain Keith Craig was published in the Financial Times, calling for a little humility from what might be termed "complacent political majoritarians." This is what it said.

Your pages overflow with predictions of disaster brought on by the Brexit/Trump axis. Leaving aside the depressing and repetitive pointlessness of this mass guesswork, its underlying assumption — that things were better when People Like Us were in charge is at best dubious, at worst delusional. Under PLU rule, we have two failed wars and the Middle East in flames, China expansion-ist, Europe enfeebled, America ineffective and Russia resurgent. At home, we have banking crises, stagnant median incomes, uncontrolled borders, record indebtedness, profiteering by the 'professional' classes, and general social polarisation. This is the Eden from which the rude and licentious electorates have expelled us?

Face it. We FT readers had our decades in charge and we blew it for everyone but us. Time for us to do what we've been telling the rest of them to do for years, and suck it up. Or go forth and earn the respect that regains power.

In other words, not only have many people in the UK and the US undergone a profound breakdown in their sense of their place in their culture, society and politics — but it's their fault.

For those who feel like strangers in their own country, and wonder if the qualities they most value in their culture are becoming a minority cause, the prophet Isaiah may be a source of insight, enlightenment and encouragement. Isaiah 11 begins with an uncompromising, blunt, almost brutal word: stump. It's a horrifying word, conjuring images of amputation, loss, ugliness, finality. You look at what's left after a tree's been chopped down and you see an empty space where once there was life; a future sawn off. But if you think about a freshly-felled tree, it's still got a vast network of roots underground. Those don't immediately cease to work just because there's not a lot left above the soil. And so there's always the possibility that a shoot will surface from out of the severed stump.

And that's what Isaiah describes. He's writing in troubled times. More than half of Israel has been invaded, dismantled, and destroyed by the Assyrians. What's left is under intense threat. Yet in the midst of despair he offers a vision of a new politics. A shoot will arise from the same family that produced David, Solomon, and the great kings of Israel.

And this will be the new kind of politics that rises from the ashes of the old. Solomon once asked God for a wise and understanding heart. This is talking about two kinds of wisdom. One's the kind that can step away, formulate ideas, and work out the theory. The other's the kind that can roll up sleeves, get in the thick of things, build alliances and make compromises. Wisdom and understanding. Then there's another pair of virtues, counsel and might. Again, it's about recognising politics needs a balance of two things, in this case, careful planning and preparation, matched with vigorous execution and follow-through. Counsel and might. Like theoretical and practical wisdom, the one is useless without the other. And then there's a third pair of virtues, knowledge and the fear of the Lord. On the one hand a sense of what's possible, what works, where your limitations are, where your strengths lie; on the other hand a sense of who God is, how small we are before God, how limitless is the grace and possibility and generosity and mercy of God. A rational recognition of human potential, and a faithful apprehension of divine wonder: knowledge and the fear of the Lord. If the first pair echo Solomon, this last pair echo David, who in his last words speaks of just rule as that which stands in fear of God.

So out of the desperation of Israel grows a new shoot from the house of David and Solomon, and this time the lessons of those two flawed leaders have been learned. Politics is now to be characterized by theoretical and practical wisdom, by careful planning and vigorous execution, by human endeavor and divine grace. But Isaiah hasn't finished his description of what makes true politics. We now get an account of what it means to be righteous. It's interesting our culture has become skeptical about any hope of being righteous. Today we only use the word in two senses: either entirely negatively, as in the highly critical...