About a month ago, thousands of ordinary Iranians took to the street, protesting against the Rouhani presidency and its failures. Rouhani promised a wealthier country as a result of the nuclear deal. But for many Iranians, these supposed benefits have yet to materialise. Unemployment is high, with many students graduating from university only to find there are no jobs for them, only debt. Inflation also remains stubbornly high, despite the lifting of sanctions. In response to the protests, the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has blamed Israel and the United States for stirring up trouble, refusing to take responsibility. President Rouhani has defended the right to protest, but encourages people to keep faith with the government and the detente with the West.

Iran has a long and proud history of dissent. After all, it was protests and strikes that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic, so any government crackdown reeks of hypocrisy. In recent years, protests have been concentrated in the major cities and universities, with liberal reformists protesting against government corruption and election-rigging, most notably after Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2009. But what makes these protests is how widespread they are, both geographically and demographically. One of the largest protests took place in Mashhad, a socially conservative, working class city. They have more in common with the Arab Spring than with reformist protests insofar as they seem to be motivated more by economic deprivation than opposition to authoritarianism.

The protests perfectly illustrate the two Irans. The first is the one most talked about by Trump and the neoconservatives: Iran as an Islamic theocracy, hell-bent on the destruction of Israel, the acquisition of nuclear weapons and domination over the Middle East. A country with no freedom, and thus a perfect illustration of the evils of Islamism and its radical leftist ideological origins. The neoconservative critique of Iran is limited by American support for Saudi Arabia, which is even more authoritarian and corrupt than Iran. Rather, Iran is condemned because it is a geopolitical adversary and a threat to US-Saudi hegemony. It’s worth noting that most people affected by Trump’s travel ban are Iranian.

But just because the neoconservatives are wrong, doesn’t make the Iranian government right. Too much power is concentrated in the hands of the Supreme Leader. The Revolutionary Guard acts as a state within a state, controlling vast assets and commanding considerable political influence. The President, while benefiting from a popular mandate, is increasingly unable to reform against the wishes of a conservative establishment. Following the Iran-Iraq war, Iran has undergone a peculiar brand of neoliberal economic reforms, whereby tariffs and subsidies are cut, and state-owned assets are privatised. The effects of this are mixed: industry is more efficient and long-term GDP growth trends are good, but living conditions have worsened, wage increases have been eroded by inflation, and the privatisations smack of cronyism.

The other Iran is the one less talked about by Western media outlets. This is the Iran of relatively secular, reform-minded or apolitical people who simply want a better life for themselves. They do not share the regime’s obsession with opposing America and Saudi Arabia, preferring closer ties with the West. They want less money spent abroad and more invested at home. For these people, freedom and prosperity are more important than dogmatic adherence to Khomeini’s teachings or Islamist orthodoxy. This is the Iran than elected Rouhani, that wants change, albeit within the confines of Iran’s constitution.  The bellicose rhetoric coming from Iranian politicians is not a reflection of what most people believe, hence the protests. The lesson of Iran’s protests is that moderates in both Iran and the West must fight to strengthen ties between the two, and oppose the extreme conservatives who wish a Huntingdon-style clash of civilisations to occur. The values of the West and Iran may be distinct, but they are not irreconcilable.

International confidence in US leadership has slumped since Donald Trump moved into the White House, with America now less trusted than China in the global approval ratings. A Gallup poll of opinion in 134 countries showed a record collapse in approval for US leadership, falling from 48% under Obama to 30% after a year of Trump. It is the lowest figure recorded since Gallup began the poll series a decade ago and follows Trump’s “America first” foreign policy which has prioritised American interests ahead of international cohesion. Germany is now seen as a global leader by more people (41%), with China in second place on 31%.  (quoted by The Guardian, January 18th, 2018).

I am surprised that Trump’s figures are not lower.  What aspects of Trump’s policies and behaviour do the 30% find positive?  Certainly, Trump is busy making the US a second class power, notwithstanding the obscene amount of money spent on the rather ineffectual military.

Historically speaking, but especially since when George Bush Jr became president in 2000, British conservatives have regarded themselves as more reasonable than their American cousins. Unlike the Republicans, British conservatives have no desire to allow mass gun ownership. They firmly believe in universal healthcare, even if they want the private sector to play a role in delivering it. For the most part, they accept the science of climate change, even if some are sceptical of government initiatives in the name of environmentalism. The British conservative movement is also much less religious, and so social conservatism is less pronounced, and a belief in creationism is held only by a very small minority.

When Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president in 2015, the contrast between British and American conservatives could not have been greater. Trump epitomised the popular stereotype of American conservatives amongst British people: brash, rude, arrogant, totally self-confident, crudely xenophobic. Conversely, Britain was led by a Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron- an Old Etonian with impeccable manners and charm, even if he was never wildly popular. Cameron was a moderating force within the Conservative Party, whereas Trump indulged all of the Republicans’ worst instincts.

But since Brexit, and particularly since Trump’s inauguration, I would argue that British conservatives aren’t necessarily more reasonable than their American counterparts. The obvious example is that many British conservatives have defended Trump. UKIP, a nationalist party that played a crucial role in winning the EU referendum for Leave, overtly supported him. Some conservatives have made needlessly ambiguous signals as to how they feel about Trump. Many argue that Trump is good for Brexit Britain, since he is more likely to give the UK a trade deal than Hillary Clinton. But Theresa May and the Conservative Party’s sucking up to Trump has backfired. Trump is extremely unlikely to sign a free trade deal with the UK. When the Democrats return to power, they will prioritise a trade deal with an anti-Trump EU, which is a much larger market than the somewhat pro-Trump UK. Not only was trying to establish a close relationship immoral, it was also counterproductive.

British conservatives have also abandoned moderation in regards to Brexit. Most of the parliamentary Conservative Party supported Remain. When Leave won, they rightly said they would respect the result. But since then, they have embarked on a strategy of ruin. They triggered Article 50 in the belief that a process clearly designed to favour the EU could yield a good outcome for the UK. Article 50 was triggered prematurely- the process should not have started until the government was united and clear as to what precise sort of Brexit it wanted. Theresa May has ruled out staying in the Single Market and Customs Union, believing that a deal negotiated in a short period of time will be better for the country than an off the shelf agreement akin to Norway’s. This is foolishness of the highest order; ruling out staying in the Single Market and Customs Union means having to accept whatever the EU offers the UK, since leaving without a deal at all is just about the worst possible outcome.

Post-Brexit Britain has experienced a notable rise in extremely conservative viewpoints being made, even if all conservatives don’t necessarily share them. The right wing press has embarked on a Breitbart-style ideological crusade, branding anyone not committed to their views as ‘mutineers’, ‘traitors,’ ‘saboteurs,’ or ‘enemies of the people.’ British conservatives, to an even greater extent than American conservatives, are utterly convinced by the benefits of a dramatic reduction in legal immigration. The Prime Minister even wants to limit the number of foreign students, despite them contribution vast sums of money to the higher education sector and the wider economy, while claiming no benefits at all. Britain has taken in relatively few refugees, and the right wants the country to take in even fewer.

However, the most radical change in British conservatism has been its economic stance. Under David Cameron, the Conservative Party was committed to a European social democracy, albeit a slimmed down one for the sake of deficit reduction. But now, the idea that we should abandon social democracy altogether post-Brexit has entered the mainstream. Those on the Tory Right talk of a ‘Singapore on Thames’- a low tax, low regulation, tariff-free nirvana. But this would be an unmitigated disaster. For a start, unilaterally abolishing tariffs would decimate British agriculture, unable to compete with cheap imports from heavily subsidised large scale farms in American and Asia. It would eliminate the country’s leverage in negotiating free trade deals for the benefit of Britain’s exporters. A considerable reduction in taxes would also be a catastrophe. The deficit, already higher due to the costs of Brexit, would increase even further. Britain’s taxes are already relatively low by developed world standards, so there wouldn’t be much of an increase in foreign investment. Moreover, the accompanying spending cuts would also have an impact, from a worse education system to a lack of much-needed infrastructure spending. Finally, Britain cannot deregulate its way to growth. International corporations follow EU rules because the EU is such a large market; Britain does not have the clout to become a rule maker in world industry and trade.

Now I’m not saying that all British conservatives are closet Trumpists who support a hard Brexit, massively reduced immigration and neoliberalism on steroids. My point is that those once-fringe ideas are now accepted as perfectly normal, and are barely challenged by Britain’s moderate conservatives. Like the Republicans, the Conservatives are putting party unity above the country’s interests. They are going ahead with a poorly thought out Brexit strategy, and won’t challenge the Tory Right, because to do otherwise would throw the party into civil war. There are some notable exceptions, such as Anna Soubry, Kenneth Clarke, Nicky Morgan and Dominic Grieve. But for the most part, moderate conservatives have given up fighting. They may live to regret their silence, as a party dominated by the Tory Right is one more likely to lose to Labour.

For more information, I would read this excellent column: https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/michael-gove-conservative-collapse/.

Part 1 of a series on the failures of the world’s moderate conservatives. I’ll be covering Britain tomorrow, so look out for that.

It’s a massive understatement to say we aren’t big fans of Donald Trump here on the Epicurus Blog. Everything from his bigotry, to his vulgarity, his dishonesty, as well as what little he has of a coherent ideology- all of it is utterly repulsive. Yet it would be a grave mistake to assume that Trump is an anomaly: that the Trump phenomenon has no structural causes, and therefore all problems associated with him will be gone.

To a small extent, the Trump presidency was made possible by the failures of Democrats. Hillary Clinton was an unusually weak and unpopular nominee; centrist Democrats, who are normally quite astute, ought to have known better. Since Trump entered the Republican primary, Democrats largely refused to take him seriously. And so rather than addressing ordinary Americans’ concerns with globalisation, the rise of China, deindustrialisation and immigration, Democrats chose the easy route- brand Trump a bigot, and hope he will then go away. Clinton’s faux pas on many Trump supporters being “deplorables” added to the popular perception of her as an arrogant elitist. In a nation deeply discontented with the status quo, Democrats ought to have channeled Obama’s zeal for comprehensive reforms, engaging with the issues that mattered to Trump voters. It’s no surprise that districts that went from voting for Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 were considerably poorer than the national average.

But the bulk of the blame for the Trump presidency lies not with the Democrats, but with the Republicans and the wider conservative movement. Part of this is a failed anti-Trump strategy. Non-Trump Republicans should have united behind a candidate. Instead, their support splintered amongst several candidates, on the assumption that the Trump candidacy was a silly PR stunt that would soon disintegrate before the primaries. Like the Democrats, the Republicans failed to engage with the policy areas Trump was talking about. The non-Trump Republican strategy on policy was to spew out the same old Reaganite neoliberal truisms like ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’, hoping that endless repetition of Republican orthodoxies would see off Trump’s appeal.

Singing the praises of economic liberalism and constitutionally limited government was always going to be far less appealing than Trump’s promises. Mostly because of the ideological disconnect between the Republican elite and Republican voters. The former adhere to a very consistent form of conservatism, influenced by Barry Goldwater, William Buckley, and of course, Ronald Reagan. On economic issues, they are staunch free marketeers. On foreign policy, they are neoconservative interventionists. None of these positions are actually held by the Republican base, hence their willingness to support Trump. Most Republicans are far more protectionist and isolationist than the Republican establishment would have you believe. So the reason for Trump’s popularity amongst the conservative grassroots was non-Trump Republicans failed to make the case for their own ideas, which were never popular to begin with.

Having revealed the Republican Party’s internal contradictions, Trump has irrevocably transformed the party. Regardless of Trump’s future electoral success, his successor is likely to hold roughly the same beliefs, just without Trump’s rough edges. The Republican establishment knows this, so they have co-operated with Trump for their own gain. On the one hand, they have failed to provide any serious opposition to any of Trump’s policies, and they have consistently played down Trump’s scandals in an extremely partisan and hypocritical fashion. But on the other hand, they are trying to appeal to swing voters by portraying themselves as ‘moderate.’ The truth is that moderate conservatism has become an oxymoron. There is nothing moderate about using an extreme President for personal gain, or on behalf of wealthy donors. This is cowardice, pure and simple. Non-Trump Republicans know Trump’s beliefs are irreconcilable with their own. But they also know they need the votes of avid Trump fans, refusing to publicly admit that Reaganite conservatism now has far less appeal than Trump’s nationalism. Don’t feel sorry for the so-called ‘moderate’ Republicans. They have brought this mess upon themselves, and by tying themselves so closely to Trump, they will be punished in future elections as the Trump presidency degenerates.