The Conservatives Rely on Hate, Fear and Vapid Slogans

With their powerful establishment-media the Conservatives have made many, many shameful attempts to assassinate the characters of Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell. They have incited fear in the public that these people are terrorist sympathisers. They have distorted footage of Corbyn, lied about Abbott and painted all these figures as evil hateful villains who couldn't possibly run our country. These are sick, regressive and shameful tactics. The accusation that these figures are terrorist sympathisers is ironic, funny and infuriating because it is Theresa May and her government that arms, supports and does deals with terrorists.

The amount of times the Conservatives attacked Corbyn in their 2017 election campaign was pretty shocking. Repeating statements like "can you imagine Jeremy Corbyn running our country?" "Jeremy Corbyn would wreck our economy" "Jeremy Corbyn is a terrorist sympathiser." Here they feed and rely on an inaccurate and distorted media-impression of Corbyn that sees him as incompetent, unrealistic and dangerous. There is no evidence to back this impression up.

The Conservatives' vapid slogans are pretty hilarious and various (but also kind of scary) and deserve a whole article or essay devoted to them alone. Such slogans are cooked up by Lynton Crosby and other Conservative PR people and are probably required to be used a certain number of times in debates and interviews. To keep it brief, let's look at "magic money tree". Magic money tree was used to belittle Labour and the spending in their manifesto. It is passed off as an economic insight when really it has no meaning. It is used because it is easy for many people to absorb and repeat. It is funny that Labour's manifesto was fully costed, unlike the Conservatives'. It is also funny that the Conservatives don't seem to care about tax avoidance with the mega-rich and can always find money when it comes to military intervention and renewing Trident. The most recent example of extreme hypocrisy in this case is that the Conservatives have conveniently located their magic money tree, finding £1.5 billion to do a deal with a bigoted Northern Ireland party associated with terrorism.

There are a number of reasons why the Conservatives rely on hate, fear and vapid slogans.

One is that, as a party, they have few positive policies themselves. Many of the core policies from their 2017 manifesto have been abandoned, in terms of the triple lock on pensions, dementia tax, fox hunting, school meals and grammar schools.

Two is that they are too incompetent and insensitive to appeal to the wider population in a meaningful and positive way.  Thus, in order to garner votes, they must ruthlessly attack a person's character and deceive and manipulate the public.

Three is that, by inciting fear, they make people scared of meaningful change or transformation. Corbyn and his party symbolise meaningful change in a number of areas. The Conservatives exploited this, saying that he will destroy our country or wreak havoc on the economy.

Four is that they infantilise and destabilise the population so that they can manipulate them with vapid slogans. By inciting fear and hate the Conservatives encourage people to be very single-minded and insecure. When a person is scared or insecure they don't think intelligently or rationally and are thus susceptible to vapid slogans.

Five is that when a vapid slogan is repeated enough times in the popular press, like a mantra, it gains validity in people's minds.

Though I believe their effect is waning, we can't ignore that 13.6 million voted Conservative in the general election. We need to keep sharing our views as much as possible. We can't forget what the Conservatives have done and we can't neglect what they continue to do.