An audience photographs Donald Trump at his Presidential rally in Laconia, New Hampshire ©Michael Vadon, 16th July 2015
Read more on technology: Are only poets safe from robots?
Consider this—the ASCI Red supercomputer, developed by the US government in 1997, used a 333 megahertz processor. That meant that its central processor was capable of a frequency of 333 X 10 6 hertz. By contrast, an Apple iPhone 5, such as you may have in your pocket, contains a processor with a frequency of 1.3 gigahertz—that is, 1.3 X 10 9 hertz, or just over four times the processor speed .
Human progress is rocketing forward, lending our age a sense of great acceleration. Things happen faster now and this speeding-up of the spread of information has brought huge changes in cultural life, in commerce and also in science.
It has also coincided with a remarkable upsurge in political volatility. Consider the speed with which political views and events are transmitted by social media and the enormous speed with which political ideas—and politicians themselves—can attain prominence. There have been demagogues before. Hotheads are nothing new. The speed with which they can make their mark, however, is something unique to our own age.
Consider the growth in popularity of Donald Trump and the speed with which he came from political zero to contest the Republican nomination for the presidency. Consider also the speed with which Jeremy Corbyn who, like his predecessor Ed Miliband, rose without trace to grab the Labour leadership. Consider the speed with which Labour was wiped out in Scotland and the SNP was returned as the only political party even close to holding power. Consider the colossal speed with which Nick Clegg was shot into the political stratosphere—the Deputy Prime Ministership—and the electoral tail-spin that followed. Elsewhere, consider the sudden rise of Marine Le Pen way above the levels of popularity enjoyed by her father. Consider Podemos, and Pegida, and Golden Dawn and the rest.
These examples represent a huge variety of political views—but what they share is the speed with which their political moment has come, or gone. Politics has tended to work in cycles that are decades in length, but in some of the examples given above, sudden, radical change has come in a matter of weeks. The increased speed of the flow of information made possible by modern technology has allowed such political transformations. Like everything else, politics appears to be speeding up.
In one sense it is. But in another, it isn’t. Though there is a greater ability now to generate quick mass political interest in an idea or candidate, that does not necessarily make the “sudden” candidate the most attractive. Take for example the Scottish independence referendum, where the polls suggested that the electorate had undergone a sudden and dramatic change of opinion in favour of independence. When the votes were counted, the eventual winner, by a 10-point margin, was the status quo—Scotland wanted the union after all. The SNP’s sudden increase in popularity was real, but underlying political sentiment had not changed.
Or consider the last general election, where the Labour party was preparing for government, buoyed up by favourable polls and a strong “grassroots” campaign. Result—an 8-point victory for the status quo. Or consider Donald Trump in Iowa. Result: ten-point victory for Ted Cruz—not quite the status quo candidate, but alongside the Donald anyone begins to look like the status quo. (Trump is not out of it by a long shot.)
The point is the degree of dissonance. Modern technology seems to be producing a greater incidence of “movement”-style politics, a strain of political activity that tends to be noisy and often looks very impressive. But it is striking that despite the apparent speeding-up of politics in this way, wider opinion shifts at a much slower rate. “Movement” politics achieves its high impact on account of its medium, not its message.
Which is not very good news for Jeremy Corbyn, who has benefited a good deal from this new style of politics and who leans strongly towards urging quick, radical change. It also has significance for the Eurosceptics who are so dismissive of David Cameron’s proposed deal with the EU. The Brexiteers are loud, have wide media support and, just like their continental Eurosceptic counterparts, show all the characteristics associated with “movement” politics. But do not mistake the vehemence of the campaign for its substance—or the extent of its appeal.
Information spreads fast, but sentiment a little slower. That’s why, if there is an EU referendum this summer, you should not be surprised if it’s not close at all, and there’s yet another 10-point victory for the status quo, which in this case would be for Britain to remain “In.”
