20 people I admire (XI): Dylan Moran

Who: Irish comedian and actor.

Why? Moran has an uncanny way of making observational, everyday comedy funny and original. In contrast to many other comedians, he doesn't rely very heavily on punchlines or politics, which is also a nice palate cleanser, but that doesn't mean his comedy can't be dark or serious. He just always sprinkles it with so much light-hearted perspective that it manages to be both incisive and light-footed.

What resonates with me? Moran was brought to my attention because I have a friend who was reminded of me when watching his character Bernard Black in the show 'Black Books', a chain-smoking, alcoholic and cheerfully misanthropic book shop owner with zero interest in keeping his business afloat. While I am none of these things, it's fair to admit that there is more Bernard Black in me than in most other people I know.

Best bit? There are many stand-out pieces, but I particularly enjoy his takedowns of the English as emotionally repressed people, with a "face where you can't tell whether they've just gotten married or just died."

Next up: Naomi Watts, Australian actress.

It wasn't the working class

It seems to have become depressingly routine to describe the loss of Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump in the US Presidential election of 2016 as something inevitable, although it was anything but when the votes had not yet been cast. Trump's surprise win elicted a broad range of responses on the left, most of them sadly predictable.

If only if they'd chosen Bernie Sanders. If only we'd have spent more time connecting with the white working class. What if Joe Biden had run?

The truth of the matter is that while Trump carried a white majority, by far the biggest majority he carried was among the upper class, not the working class. And he lost the popular vote by almost three million votes.

Jacobin, a class-struggle stalwart with Marxist roots, panned a widely shared New Yorker cartoon that compared Donald Trump's election to a random passenger on a plane shouting he should be the pilot. The article claims it's emblematic of snooty liberal elitism that fails to factor in so many contextual issues that lead to this happening in the first place.

While the piece does a fair job at disassembling the cosiness of smug, vaguely left-of-centre liberalism, I think it's myopic in not metioning the tide of sheer hatred that carried much of Trump's campaign. Also, for its scoffing at liberal elites, I wonder how many blue-collar people actually read Jacobin.

The plane metaphor is too simplistic to put Trump in perspective, but so is Jacobin's expansion of it. His election is not a repudiation of liberal ideas - rather, he slunk through an incredibly narrow window of opportunity to almost fail into victory.

Democracy is in danger in all of the West, and establishment candidates are not the answer to the rising wave of racism and bigotry. Racism and bigotry that have been enabled by weak media institutions that favour ratings over actual reporting, and have been systematically gaslighted for years by reactionaries into giving them a platform for their fact-free bullshit.

One of the left's glaring errors, for just as many years, has been trying to reason their way into regressive people's hearts, or simply co-opting a softer version of their right-wing ideologies. Now, as Jeb Lund said, we can only hope that Trump and his ilk will fall apart so spectacularly that it shocks the system into provoking people who will work for actual change.

20 people I admire (X): David Mitchell

(Okay, so when I started this series in 2015, I figured it would take me a year, but now we're early 2017 and I've just reached half of my list. Sorry for that!) 

Who: British novelist.

Why? Mitchell is a broadly ambitious writer who can get under the skin of his characters and portray them as actual human beings rather than props for a plot or an idea, which is always a hallmark of a great writer. He also doesn’t shy away from doing proper background research, and if you inhabit a world as big as the Anglosphere, it’s not evident to immerse yourself in the nuances of say, Japanese and Dutch culture. But Mitchell is keenly aware of these rich tapestries while never losing his very modern wit and sense of style.

What resonates with me? First off, the boldness with which he approaches fantasy elements within his novels that inhabit the same universe. Second, how his style and shift between genre tropes from different genres, and go from folksy to deadly serious to bleakly comical, all without making it seem effortless. Third, while his vision is often dark à la Margaret Atwood, his novels often make a stand for the value of humanity and being humane, no matter how hopeless it might seem in the face of such overwhelming evil.

Best bit? Particularly his closing speech at the end of ‘Cloud Atlas’, which constitutes a wild and sometimes confusing travel through several historical and future eras, but is tied together near the end with a strong sense of closure and a knock-out message as a palate cleanser for all that went before – or is to come – an exercise in ironic drama.

Next up: Dylan Moran, Irish comedian and actor