The Liberal Establisment's Construction Of A Cult

You've all heard it before - "Corbynism is a CULT!", "The cult of Corbyn strikes again!". We've all been called cultists, zealots or acolytes at some point. It's a boorish and trite accusation that has followed mass political movements for change throughout history. I want to explore where these accusations come from and why they are made, and hopefully dismantle the narrative well enough for others to be able to defend themselves in the face of these ridiculous claims.  

Back in 2015, a certain back-bencher with 30 years of experience behind him was nominated in the Labour Party leadership contest after Ed Miliband's disastrous result in the general election. The aforementioned back-bencher was nominated purely on a diversity ticket, a crusty old "Bennite" socialist, a dinosaur living out of his time in the modern land of Blair's Third Way politics.

That backbencher was Jeremy Corbyn. He was nominated simply to maintain the illusion that the Labour Party was a politically diverse, big-tent party in which anyone may participate and have a chance at becoming the leader. He was the first socialist nominated, I believe, for quite some time.

Corbyn was never meant to win the leadership, merely maintain the pretence of political diversity as I mentioned previously, but his politics and outlook, an inspiring vision of what our society could be, proved to be immensely popular with the trade unions and the membership.

Despite the party machinery wheeling out figureheads such as Blair, Campbell, and Brown to denounce Corbyn as a disaster and as being unelectable, Corbyn won with 59.5% of the vote. The timely presentation of the aforementioned establishment stalwarts had only one purpose - to communicate with the authority afforded to them from previously being in government the catastrophe in waiting. 

But it was all lie. There was absolutely no way they could know for sure how well a socialist government would govern, or how good Corbyn would be as Prime Minister. But that didn't matter. By speaking with the authority they commanded as government alumni, they laid the groundwork for what was to come next.

In a way, they created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The commitment to Clause IV threatened the private sector

Constructing A Cult

Upon hearing of Jeremy Corbyn and his brand of politics which were also shared by long-time comrades such as John McDonnell, members flocked to the party in their thousands. Literally hundreds of thousands. Corbyn and his comrades had all sorts of beautiful ideas that they could put into practice, many of which have been put into practice with great success in other social-democratic nations. The future suddenly looked brighter than it ever had.

But there was a problem. These ideas, these politics were contrary to the established order in the UK, an order that must be preserved at any cost.

"Aha!" said the liberal establishment, "Thousands of people flocking to a figurehead, what does that remind you of?"

To any right-headed person who is not dogged by the cultural pessimism constantly excreted by the media hate-machine and tossed at us to see what sticks, like shit thrown against a wall, it looks very much like the mobilisation of passion. The passion of hundreds of thousands of bright-eyed people from all walks of life who finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel.

To the aforementioned media hate-machine, its rabid owners, and the liberal establishment lackeys, it looks like, rather it is, twisted and distorted to look like a cult of personality.

Who was it that was infamous for their cult of personality? Stalin, of course! He was a socialist!

To the liberal establishment, socialism always looks like "Stalinism". The liberals dare not look any further than the image they conjure up lest they have the totality of their own worldview pulled into question, something that the idealism inherent to liberalism actively prevents.

Stalin is outdated and lacks nuance, though. Many socialists actively distance themselves from him, so creating a cult in his image is not going to work. What is needed is a new embodiment of the wrong-think that liberals can ascribe to socialism. Why not use the man himself?

The liberal establishment dare not discuss honestly and in detail, the politics of Corbyn's mild brand of socialism, doing so would fracture the delicate, newly formed construct of a cult that they have placed him within, and indeed fracture their own world. Instead, they sought to frame socialism through the lens of liberalism, centrism, and "moderation", framing it as something unusual and peculiar, an aberration, an abomination even.

And it is only a cult that seems peculiar against the backdrop of the "moderate", normative world. Only a cult would dare to do something as off the wall as, I don't know, housing the homeless by expropriating empty properties or feeding children at school. How radical!

"Wait a second, cults are also radical! Don't you see? It must be a cult! These Corb... Corbynites... Corbynistas!"

It's frighteningly easy to portray a new social and political phenomenon as a cult, even if it isn't really new. It helped of course that Corbyn wilfully stepped outside liberalism's predetermined lines of conduct - he spoke of wealth distribution, anti-fascism, peace in Ireland, peace between Israel and Palestine, and recognised the rights of self-determination for many peoples the world over. Extracted out of these seemingly innocent and righteous positions was vicious smear after smear, and the media-hate machine was only too happy to oblige as long as the bottom-line was fulfilled.

As it turned out, only one accusation actually stuck, one vastly more loathsome than any other because it weaponised and essentialised the identity of a historically subjugated group, turning them into a political cudgel.

Nevertheless, the cult was branded Corbynism and in turn, was branded with all the necessary trademarks a cult should bear: A figurehead, a mass following, the so-called cultists, denouncement from establishment figures, and "radical" ideas that we were told could never really work and are in fact are dangerous. Anyone who dared to engage in this new, radical brand of politics was cast as a cultist, an acolyte, a Corbynista.  

This is a cult? Really?

Scratching The Surface

Whenever you scratch the veneer of liberalism, you always get a peek at the delusion and hysteria that lurks beneath; anything that exists outside of the liberal framework of society is unworkable radicalism and so therefore more liberalism is the only answer. 

This isn't because the small-headed establishment think-tanks have actually thought it through or reasoned and deduced the internal logic of said radical ideas, you understand, but because other, senior establishment figureheads have said so, and the paternalism intrinsic to the liberal establishment always knows best, right?

So why would they say so? To maintain the status quo, to protect their own status and the status of middle-class liberals, who also happen to concur, even though that status wasn't actually under threat

And herein we find the reason for constructing a cult in the name of Corbyn:

Cults are bad, the followers are weak-minded and they always have disastrous consequences. It's also a very convenient way to dismiss the ideas and arguments of your political adversaries out of hand. It's nothing but a massively drawn-out ad hominem. 

The nature of ad hominem is to attack the character of a person rather than the position they are maintaining. If you attack the person, you don't have to discuss the politics. And if you do for some reason have to discuss the politics, frame them as being unworkable radicalisms by dishonestly viewing them through the lens of the establishment ideology, liberalism and capitalism.

By anchoring all discussion of socialism to Corbyn himself, even going as far as to turn him into the embodiment of socialism, that of our passions, our future society, and then calling into question the character and nature of Corbyn, the character and nature of the movement itself are cast deep into the tar-sodden lakes of suspicion, and any attempt at retrieving either warrants them being feathered. 

Hence, a successful attack on either socialism or Corbyn is an attack on the other, and there is nothing easier to attack than a man.

Breaking It Down

It is precisely the tendency of all mass movements to make the friend-enemy distinction overt and to mobilise the passions of thousands of people. Any movement that makes clear its intentions to change the establishment also makes itself an enemy of the establishment.

"Corbynism" is the establishment's construction of an enemy, a cult, made up in the image of Jeremy Corbyn and embodying socialist politics so it becomes easy to dismiss socialism out of hand by attacking the man rather than the politics.

The need to continually defend Corbyn’s moral status from those ‘enemies’ who would ‘smear’ is a reflexive response to the need to defend the moral status of socialists and it acts as the negative force that binds the movement together.

It also serves to protect the liberal world-view. Without this constructed "cult" to dismiss, liberals would have to directly address the awkward questions posited to them by the politics and economics of "Corbynism", i.e socialism. It would necessitate a change in their own world-view, a change so fundamental to its own integrity that they almost reflexively dismiss any wisdom or insight it might carry.

This is the sole reason for the constant smears, lies, and distortions. Every trick in the book has been thrown at our movement and at Corbyn himself for being symbolic of it. Every defence of Corbyn in the face of these smears is perceived by the liberal/capitalist establishment as that of a cult defending its own right to existence. The idea that the movement itself is uniquely cult-like is easily dismantled by pointing out again that the tendency of mass movements is that of rallying around a figurehead or a leader; that in itself is not evidence of a cult. If it were the case, all political parties with tendencies that differ from the mainstream consensus could broadly, if dishonestly, be defined as cults.

I shouldn't even need to go into the very apparent dissimilarities between socialism as a movement and an actual cult to debunk this, the above should be more than enough. I mean, cult activity is secretive and carried out behind closed doors, for one. Labour with Corbyn at the helm regularly attracted thousands of ordinary people to open, outdoor rallies and conferences. It's such a bizarre comparison that's made only for lack of arguments and the ability to think or examine critically the nonsense spewed forth from the backside of the media-hate machine. The inability of many to not see through obvious distortions manufactured lies and conspiracies is in itself quite troubling.

A deeper truth here is that none of this is unusual, the demonisation of Jeremy Corbyn and socialism in this way is not a unique phenomenon. Constructing a straw-man cult to attack rather than arguing politics is a common tactic amongst the liberal establishment. 

All of this effort to cast one man as the personification of evil itself and socialism as the cloak it wears. All of this to protect the likes of Thatcher, Blair and Brown, and every subsequent government that has failed to serve the people. The liberal establishment even went as far as protecting the Tories because of a shared interest in maintaining capitalism as it is.

Final Thoughts

What was it that Thatcher, of all people, said?

“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”

And that's just it, there are no arguments left, no further justifications for capitalism. It continues to lumber on in a constant state of zombification, unsure of where to go or what to do, all it knows is consumption. It is either ideological dogma or sheer ignorance that allows it the liberty of existing in undeath, neither living nor dying.

I'm almost positive that I'll get called a cultist for this, but a decent, well-intentioned anti-racist once said this, and it's a profoundly relevant quote to finish this article with: 

"There is no such thing as Corbynism. There is socialism and social justice."