Vinay Kumaran

The right wing in politics is in the ascendant all over the world. In India, it is represented by the BJP and Modi, in the US by the Republican Party and Trump and in the UK by the Tories and Brexit. Erdogan in Turkey is another example. The right wing is comprised of otherwise normal people. Many of them are intelligent and have done well in their professions. They tend to be less educated, more religious and older than the left wing but that's a statistical measure. There are representatives from all ages and all levels of education. There is an excellent book by Jonathan Haidt called "The Righteous Mind" which attempts to analyse how the right wingers think and is well worth a read. It is obviously futile to dismiss right wing politics as 'short-sighted', 'self-serving' and 'cruel'. That strategy does not work and the fact is that they are in the ascendant. It is important to understand how they think so that a viable way forward can be fou...

As I watched the news today, looking at footage of 44 ill-educated people who had been sequestered at a resort to prevent them from being bought and persuaded to support another party, as I noted that an emotionally labile, narcissistic bigot with an ill-informed disrespect for science wants to promote coal mining on protected lands, it seems clear that democracy is not working. In theory, democracy seems like the best form of government we have tried so far. Certainly it is better than being subject to the despotic notions of a dictator or a monarch. However, the only aspect of democracy which seems to be working is the ability to remove from power a particularly disastrous government. Ideally, we would elect competent people who are honest and have a good working knowledge of economics, politics and history. Unfortunately, it is clear that what wins elections is not the ability to lead but the ability to fool people. It seems increasingly incidental that leaders like Nehru, Ob...