These are the times that try men’s souls

Something is afoot. Recently, the economist Guy Standing invoked Thomas Paine’s old adage, that we are living in times that try men’s souls. Standing’s reference to Paine’ revolutionary statement of Christmas 1776 was offered as a way of potentially understanding just how important what is currently happening, worldwide, is. That statement of Paine’s was made as the United States of America was being formed. Guy Standing quotes those words today as the cohesion, and the power, of the USA appears to be failing rapidly. A United States once again dominated by men, but today it appears to be less and less dominant, less respected, more often ridiculed, and also increasingly feared.

Thomas Paine was one of America’s founding fathers. The men currently in charge over the water in the land he and others re-christened could, in future, be seen as those who most helped accelerate the demise of the USA as a superpower. The USA was a place that until so recently has held so much influence over the rest of the world and so greatly influenced public policies in states like Britain, especially in the last half century.

Standing makes great play of American tech-billionaire Peter Theil’s 2009 article ‘The education of a libertarian’ and the huge influence Theil has had over who is now at the top of American politics, including Theil’s advocacy for the current Vice President. Theil illustrates the kind of views held by many of the billionaires who stood behind Trump when he was elected. Standing uses the 2009 article to show that these people see democracy as being incompatible with freedom; believing that people who receive welfare payments and/or women (in general) are prone to more often vote for income and wealth redistribution and to have greater support for public services. The solution suggested is not to allow them, and perhaps others, or anyone, to vote in future. Standing also quotes Theil writing “…that ‘competition is for losers’, which is why he favoured monopolies. He was anti-free trade, advocated a dismantling of the federal bureaucracy, and for good measure, opposed multiculturalism in universities and all forms of ‘affirmative action’.” [1]

Writing from Los Angeles, one journalist recently told me that in the UK she thought that: ‘Labour are completely failing to meet the moment. I almost spit out my lunch yesterday when I saw their plan for change nonsense. Charts/ statistics/ wonkish and total lack of passion or overarching vision. The Right will clean up unless they [Labour] drastically change course. Immigration is amplified by the erosion of quality of life and easily exploited as a threat to already dislocated and struggling people. … something the Left is ignoring – is the Trans issue. This has a slightly different texture in the US but as the Supreme Court case this week shows, the Right have also tapped into deep concern about the push for children being given puberty blockers etc… and the (also irrational) defence of males in women’s and girls’ sport as a ‘Left gone mad’. It’s working. The Right know they have a strong case on this one. Farage as you know, mirrors Trump in that he is a media concoction. Without its help initially he’d be a side show. They cultivated a monster and the closed world of London media/political and think tank class remain detached from reality. Democrats here are making the same mistakes. Both parties need a bruiser and a gifted storyteller to stand a chance. If they haven’t got an inspiring narrative allied with policies that shift the dial they’re fucked. … In the US taxing the super-rich is popular – and at least Dems talked about that. Labour is afraid of their own shadow. Plus, if they don’t immediately ban all and any foreign contributions to elections, they are enablers, pure and simple. Sorry for the rant. The whole thing is terrifying.’ [2]

Starmer meets Trump

It is mostly women who are speaking out from within the ruling Labour party in the UK. Rosie Duffield’s resignation letter from the Labour Party, explained in the autumn of 2024: ‘Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous. I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear. How dare you take our longed-for victory, the electorate’s sacred and precious trust, and throw it back in their individual faces and the faces of dedicated and hardworking Labour MPs?! The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party. Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp – this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour Prime Minister. Forcing a vote to make many older people iller and colder while you and your favourite colleagues enjoy free family trips to events most people would have to save hard for – why are you not showing even the slightest bit of embarrassment or remorse?’ [3]

When government minster Anneliese Dodds resigned in February 2025 she wrote: ‘These are unprecedented times, when strategic decisions for the sake of our country’s security cannot be ducked. … You have maintained that you want to continue support for Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine; for vaccination; for climate; and for rules-based systems. Yet it will be impossible to maintain these priorities given the depth of the cut … the reality is that this decision is already being portrayed as following in President Trump’s slipstream of cuts to USAID.” [4]

In other words, when resigning, Dodds was asking why the Prime Minster of the UK was following the lead of the President of the USA so closely. This hits hard because although Trump may be popular among some in the USA few people in Britain can understand why. As was explained repeatedly in many recent viral posts: “So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.” [5]

Of course, there are a tiny number of people and organisations in Britain who do support want Trump’s administration are doing in the USA and dream of that being introduced in the UK. Take, for example the Adam Smith Institute which gives awards to young writers (almost always men) to pen articles, which the institute then publishes with titles such as ‘Britain needs more slums’. In which those in favour of the kind of deregulation going on in the USA explain their thinking: ‘The market desperately wants to provide houses people can live in at prices they can afford – but in the eyes of local authorities these houses are too small, or too tall, or the ceilings are too low, or the windows not energy efficient enough. Sweeping deregulation is the only way to provide Britain with the slums it is crying out for.’ [6]

I normally include a graph or two in these articles so here are two – simply taken from Wikipedia, because some kind anonymous soul has done the hard work and done it well.[7] The first shows all polls in the UK since the General Election last year. Together, the Conservatives and Reform polls combined are roughly twice those of Labour. The second graph shows something similar for Scotland; but that there, the SNP provides an alternative to this that is growing in strength, and Labour have plummeted more quickly in popularity from 35% to 18%.

Recent UK opinion polls according to Wikipedia, July 2024 – April 2025

In 1935 Sinclair Lewis published the USA best-seller ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ warning Americans through the story of a presidential who ‘who promises poor, angry voters that he will make America proud and prosperous once more, but takes the country down a far darker path.’[8] It is now happening there. It could happen here. It is unlikely to happen in Scotland. What happens in future to the public sectors depends on politics most of all.

Recent opinion polls in Scotland according to Wikipedia, July 2024 – February 2025

References
1. https://labourhub.org.uk/2025/04/10/the-left-must-embrace-the-precariat/
2. Whose name I keep anonymous as these are not safe times to name everyone.
3. https://news.sky.com/story/rosie-duffields-resignation-letter-in-full-13224368
4. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/anneliese-dodds-quits-resignation-letter-b2706631.html
5. https://thenewgeneration.blog/2025/01/25/why-do-some-british-people-not-like-donald-trump/
6. https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/planning-transport/britain-needs-more-slums
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
8. https://www.openculture.com/2018/07/penguin-classics-back-cover-blurb-sinclair-lewis-1935-novel-cant-happen.html#google_vignette

For where this article was originally published and a PDF click here.