Is this really the legacy of the early 21st Century?

When did politics change?

I would say there has been an ongoing change. In politics and political styles since the late 1980s.

The seismic change to what we have today. Started in the last election cycles on 15/16.

A diet of fake news and celebrity politics. It’s the biggest change I have seen in my lifetime.

The big question I have on our shifting political culture is this:

Do we want fake news, celebrity culture, and divisiveness to be the legacy of the early 21st Century?

I don’t want to offend the politicians of the past and accuse them of always telling the truth and playing fair.

But what we didn’t see was the grandstanding and celebrity culture. That has invaded politics in the last 3–4 years.

Fake news has also contributed to this change and has a part to play. There is no center ground in politics right now. Everything has moved back to party lines. You are either on the left or the right.

The result?

Division, hatred, and a rise in tensions across society. I thought we had learned a lot of those lessons 50 or so years ago?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all going bad. Some good conversations are going on around how we move forward.

At the same time though politics has become a war against the media narrative. At the same time, an all-out war between the right and the left has broken out.

It’s hard to see meaningful action coming from the government on some of the biggest issues we face today.

Everyone is too busy fighting themselves and the media.

At the moment this is the legacy we are in danger of leaving.

Where do we go from here?

That’s a good question, and in part, it will depend on how we all vote in the next election cycles.

We want to see change. It was clear in the last election cycle, we just didn’t quite get the change we wanted.

That makes sense, radical change often takes a generation when it comes to politics.

This then is the step in the middle. What comes next will be decided by the people.

What we need in the meantime is a step away from fake news and our politicians to move away from celebrity. Just concentrate on the task in hand.

If we can see that happen then the legacy we leave from the first 2 decades of the 21st Century might be different.