siria's review
4.0
In Heroic Failure, Fintan O'Toole undertakes a kind of cultural history of Brexit, arguing that the roots of this ongoing fiasco are far more complex and thoroughly embedded in the English national psyche than has generally been appreciated. I use the term 'English' here deliberately, since O'Toole argues that Brexit is essentially an English phenomenon. It's driven by a thwarted sense of English superiority in a post-Empire age and by the increasing failure of 'English' to remain an easy default synonym for 'British' in an age of devolved government, and shaped by a masochistic tendency to cling to the idea of failure and defeat as romantic proof of character.
In his introduction, O'Toole writes that he intends Heroic Failure to be neither unfriendly, gleeful, or superior in his look at what "zero-sum nationalism", as he terms it, has done to British politics and to English society. Yet I confess, as a fellow Irish person, to feeling more than a bit of schadenfreude while reading. What I'm saying is: come for the cultural analysis, stay for the surgical dissection of the feckless, racist Boris Johnson and his cronies.
In his introduction, O'Toole writes that he intends Heroic Failure to be neither unfriendly, gleeful, or superior in his look at what "zero-sum nationalism", as he terms it, has done to British politics and to English society. Yet I confess, as a fellow Irish person, to feeling more than a bit of schadenfreude while reading. What I'm saying is: come for the cultural analysis, stay for the surgical dissection of the feckless, racist Boris Johnson and his cronies.
drifterontherun's review
4.0
This is a great primer on Brexit for those who may not know very much about it. By "those", I mean me.
While I've tried my best to keep up with what's been happening with our neighbors across the pond, the view from the New World has of late been obscured by our own social and political crisis, for which I blame ... English nationalism.
Did I say English? I meant American. Although anyone who reads Fintan O'Toole's "Heroic Failure" will likely be struck by the astonishing similarity between the two.
America and England have always been rather similar but they have perhaps never been more alike than they were in the run-up to 2016's twin tragedies. The result of the Brexit referendum eerily mirrored that of Trump's electoral college victory and it seems the figures behind both — Boris, Nigel, and Co. in the UK and Bannon and Trump in the U.S. — were united in their certainty that their movements would fail.
You're likely to recall in the months leading up to the U.S. Presidential election Donald Trump's message to his supporters, repeated at every rally, that the election was rigged. Does that sound like a man confident of victory?
Similarly, in the still-early days of the Brexit campaign, Boris Johnson called then-Prime Minister David Cameron to inform him he was supporting the "Leave" side. Boris then added, as if to give Cameron some measure of solace, that he firmly expected Leave to be "crushed".
I think it's safe to say that both sides weren't just operating what they viewed to be long-shot insurgency campaigns but campaigns that they believed, and maybe even hoped, would fail. To lose would, after all, be "heroic", in that truly English fashion that has seen failures like Sirs John Franklin, John Moore, Gordon of Khartoum, and "The Light Brigade" memorialized in poetry and pillars of stone. The English tradition of stoicism in the face of defeat appears, in England anyway, superior to actual victory — especially when that victory is a political one accompanied by responsibility.
That's why when Donald Trump goes on about hating "losers" and people who "were captured", you shouldn't believe him. What Trump and his ilk desire above all are to be victims, martyrs to a greater cause. Of course, in Trump's case, there is no cause he finds greater than himself, which is why I take the rumors of his wanting to lose in order to secure a more lucrative contract with NBC for future seasons of "The Apprentice" to be all-too-believable.
One thing that Trump voters did have over Brexit voters, which O'Toole writes on here, is the ability to elect a man who would actually be able to deliver the promised pain to their enemies, as well as to themselves.
Brexit voters had no such luck. They got as PM a woman who openly campaigned to remain and who ultimately never delivered the promised pain of Brexit (though, it seems to me, not for lack of trying). Nevermind that enacting Brexit — the realities of which seems a different thing to different people — is far more complicated than merely electing an authoritarian figure.
Boris, Nigel, and Co. made all kinds of promises on what an actual "Brexit" would mean, but what does it actually mean? Nobody seems sure because, nearly three years after the vote, nothing has happened yet aside from Britain's joining the world stage along with America.
The world stage of mockery, that is.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) we have company, as right-wing movements across the globe have meant that political masochism is far from a solely Anglo-American phenomenon.
When and how will it all end?
The light at the end of the tunnel appears to be more visible for those of us in America since ousting Trump in 2020 would be something of a cure to what ails us (although rising inequality and systemic injustice — ironically, the two very things that allowed for the election of a grotesque Republican billionaire in the first place — will prove far more difficult to solve).
The solution for our friends in the UK appears far less certain.
Certain Remainers (or "Remoaners", as they are derisively called), have pinned their hopes on a second Brexit referendum. I'm highly skeptical that throwing out the results of a democratic vote in favor of a second vote simply because you didn't like the results of the first would solve the problem (indeed, it would likely create far more).
The answer, then, as far as I can see it, would be trying to negotiate the best Brexit deal possible, given the circumstances. With the team likely to be heading that effort, this appears most unlikely. But who knows? Every step in this process so far has been impossible to predict.
The other crucial thing that must change in both our countries — and indeed in countries around the world that have seen the rise of the Far Right — is that the opposition has to be smarter. That means not nominating someone like Hillary Clinton who clearly doesn't know how to relate or even speak to ordinary people, and it probably means not making the decision to even hold a referendum on Brexit in the first place (which David Cameron did to try and assuage a troublesome part of his Conservative base).
I doubt I'll ever read another book solely on Brexit and, since Fintan O'Toole has done such a great job here, I doubt I'll ever need to. Instead, I'll be busy keeping my fingers crossed that we all get out of this alive.
While I've tried my best to keep up with what's been happening with our neighbors across the pond, the view from the New World has of late been obscured by our own social and political crisis, for which I blame ... English nationalism.
Did I say English? I meant American. Although anyone who reads Fintan O'Toole's "Heroic Failure" will likely be struck by the astonishing similarity between the two.
America and England have always been rather similar but they have perhaps never been more alike than they were in the run-up to 2016's twin tragedies. The result of the Brexit referendum eerily mirrored that of Trump's electoral college victory and it seems the figures behind both — Boris, Nigel, and Co. in the UK and Bannon and Trump in the U.S. — were united in their certainty that their movements would fail.
You're likely to recall in the months leading up to the U.S. Presidential election Donald Trump's message to his supporters, repeated at every rally, that the election was rigged. Does that sound like a man confident of victory?
Similarly, in the still-early days of the Brexit campaign, Boris Johnson called then-Prime Minister David Cameron to inform him he was supporting the "Leave" side. Boris then added, as if to give Cameron some measure of solace, that he firmly expected Leave to be "crushed".
I think it's safe to say that both sides weren't just operating what they viewed to be long-shot insurgency campaigns but campaigns that they believed, and maybe even hoped, would fail. To lose would, after all, be "heroic", in that truly English fashion that has seen failures like Sirs John Franklin, John Moore, Gordon of Khartoum, and "The Light Brigade" memorialized in poetry and pillars of stone. The English tradition of stoicism in the face of defeat appears, in England anyway, superior to actual victory — especially when that victory is a political one accompanied by responsibility.
That's why when Donald Trump goes on about hating "losers" and people who "were captured", you shouldn't believe him. What Trump and his ilk desire above all are to be victims, martyrs to a greater cause. Of course, in Trump's case, there is no cause he finds greater than himself, which is why I take the rumors of his wanting to lose in order to secure a more lucrative contract with NBC for future seasons of "The Apprentice" to be all-too-believable.
One thing that Trump voters did have over Brexit voters, which O'Toole writes on here, is the ability to elect a man who would actually be able to deliver the promised pain to their enemies, as well as to themselves.
Brexit voters had no such luck. They got as PM a woman who openly campaigned to remain and who ultimately never delivered the promised pain of Brexit (though, it seems to me, not for lack of trying). Nevermind that enacting Brexit — the realities of which seems a different thing to different people — is far more complicated than merely electing an authoritarian figure.
Boris, Nigel, and Co. made all kinds of promises on what an actual "Brexit" would mean, but what does it actually mean? Nobody seems sure because, nearly three years after the vote, nothing has happened yet aside from Britain's joining the world stage along with America.
The world stage of mockery, that is.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) we have company, as right-wing movements across the globe have meant that political masochism is far from a solely Anglo-American phenomenon.
When and how will it all end?
The light at the end of the tunnel appears to be more visible for those of us in America since ousting Trump in 2020 would be something of a cure to what ails us (although rising inequality and systemic injustice — ironically, the two very things that allowed for the election of a grotesque Republican billionaire in the first place — will prove far more difficult to solve).
The solution for our friends in the UK appears far less certain.
Certain Remainers (or "Remoaners", as they are derisively called), have pinned their hopes on a second Brexit referendum. I'm highly skeptical that throwing out the results of a democratic vote in favor of a second vote simply because you didn't like the results of the first would solve the problem (indeed, it would likely create far more).
The answer, then, as far as I can see it, would be trying to negotiate the best Brexit deal possible, given the circumstances. With the team likely to be heading that effort, this appears most unlikely. But who knows? Every step in this process so far has been impossible to predict.
The other crucial thing that must change in both our countries — and indeed in countries around the world that have seen the rise of the Far Right — is that the opposition has to be smarter. That means not nominating someone like Hillary Clinton who clearly doesn't know how to relate or even speak to ordinary people, and it probably means not making the decision to even hold a referendum on Brexit in the first place (which David Cameron did to try and assuage a troublesome part of his Conservative base).
I doubt I'll ever read another book solely on Brexit and, since Fintan O'Toole has done such a great job here, I doubt I'll ever need to. Instead, I'll be busy keeping my fingers crossed that we all get out of this alive.
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