Pendulum swinging away from the right?

IT has been a difficult few years for anyone who holds cautiously progressive beliefs, for anyone who believes that considered liberalism and broad, but qualified, tolerance are empowering for mankind. It is as if the optimistic energy generated by the possibility that we might be better — or reach higher ground, as the old hymn-makers described it — was drained away by a resurgence of older, darker values. The election of Donald Trump to the US presidency was an incomprehensible and sad rejection of the values that, in the very loosest terms, celebrate that old, honourable aspiration — liberté, égalité, fraternité.

Mr Trump is excoriated — rightly — on many levels, especially on climate change. His drill-baby-drill views have one virtue, though: They force us to consider our response to the catastrophe which is, like it or not, head-in-the-sand inadequate. But like all demagogues, he, and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, are part of a never-ending cycle. The pendulum swings from one extreme to the other, from the left to the right, from the liberal to the illiberal. And, this week, it may just be possible to begin to imagine that, on a number of fronts, that pendulum is approaching the turning point on its arch towards forces indifferent, if not opposed, to liberté, égalité, fraternité. The defeat of the odious throwback, the Trump-endorsed Roy Moore, in Alabama, must be a cause for celebration — even if 63% of white women who voted backed him. Despite Steve Bannon’s disingenuous cheerleading, Moore was a racist too far even for the avowedly Republican Alabama. ‘Hallelujah!’, as the old hymn-makers might put it.

The narrow House of Commons defeat of Theresa May’s government, over who in Britain, the executive or the parliament, will have the last word on Brexit, is a first cousin of the defeat inflicted on Roy Moore. After all, his homophobic, Old Testament worldview marks him down as potentially an exemplary DUP member and Tory supporter. It may be wishful thinking to suggest that the vote was an enough-is-enough moment, but it is not too fanciful to hope that it may indicate the Brexit tide at least retains the capacity to turn, even though EU leaders yesterday approved moving on to the second stage of negotiations. On the second day of a summit in Brussels, leaders said that “sufficient progress” had been made, after a deal on citizens’ rights, the Irish border, and Britain’s outstanding payments.

Ireland also has reasons to think the pendulum might swing away from the old certainties. This week’s recommendation from the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment confirms that, in time, everything changes.

Albeit on a different plane, those shifting sands almost pale in comparison to yesterday’s announcement from Ryanair that it would, despite years of hostile opposition to the idea, apparently recognise pilots’ unions. This is to avert a Christmas strike. Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has, for decades, relentlessly opposed unions and refused, often in the crudest terms, to recognise them. Yesterday’s bending of the knee shows that, with organisation, determination, leverage, and timing, the ideas of liberté, égalité, fraternité are achievable.