There is a reason why bodygate won’t harm Johnson and that’s because they don’t care! Rather more than that, it’s not just an absence of empathy (though the Tory voters consistently fail to demonstrate any of that), it’s because of authoritarianism. Authoritarian mindsets exist in nominal democracies just as democratic or anarchistic mindsets exist in authoritarian regimes. Authoritarians don’t just crave authority or power for themselves, they also like to see it happen. In particular, they like to see it happen to people who deserve it. And people who deserve it, in this mindset, are those that it happens to! As long as it doesn’t happen to ‘us’, in which case it’s someone else’s fault. Your neighbour died with covid? He probably wasn’t wearing a mask or following the rules, stupid man. Your dad dies with covid, he was failed by the NHS. Authoritarians like to see bad things happen to other people so that they feel reassured that there is punishment for transgressions against authority. Of course, these transgressions include but are not limited to: questioning authority; breaking any rule whatsoever (rules they break themselves are stupid rules imposed by ‘evil’ people and so are fine to break); not being suitably grateful for being allowed to be alive at all; being sick or poor or disabled or otherwise having some sort of victim status (health and wealth go to the deserving, so the sick or poor must have done something to deserve it), etc. A year into the pandemic we have seen the dead transformed in authoritarian culture from undeserving martyrs killed by a failing social care system because young people don’t pay enough taxes to support our aging population, to the price we must pay for our economy to be open. After all, say the authoritarians, there are rules in place to allow things to work, you’ll only die if you don’t follow the rules.
One of the key elements of authoritarianism is arbitrariness – it is not a scientific position, it just requires there to be an authority. It is a survival technique formed in childhood to surviving bullying parents who couldn’t accept disagreement. They have learnt to love the boot, to not question when explanations or requirements change without notice or rationality. To question authority is to question their sense of self, the whole order of the universe, and this cannot be! It cannot be because to question yourself is to lead you into dark places; my parents hurt me and hurting people isn’t love – hurting people is bad; I hurt people and I am bad. Time and time again in mental health services we see people who do awful, unforgivable things to themselves and other people in order to not have to examine their own feelings and upbringing – letting thousands die in order to open up an economy for the benefit of the authoritarian is nothing at all.
-Jung Jeezy