SOMETIMES, I think the job of an honest journalist is to walk behind the elephants of public opinion with a broom and a shovel, clearing up the dung. No one on the elephant, enjoying the exciting sway and lurch of the howdah, will take much notice. But those who use the road will be grateful.
Now that the American Senator J. D. Vance is in the news for a sort of joke he made a fortnight ago — that Britain under Sir Keir Starmer would be “the first truly Islamist country to get a nuclear weapon” — it is worth paying attention to the reporters who actually followed the Muslim vote.
At first sight, the diary in the London Review of Books would seem to support Mr Vance: Dani Garavelli described a candidate for Glasgow South West, standing outside a mosque one Friday afternoon as the congregation left: “He had two separate bundles of leaflets: one aimed at the general population, the other at Muslims. The all-purpose leaflet was about the cost of living crisis, pension inequality affecting women born in the 1950s, the infected blood scandal: issues Stephens had campaigned on. The Muslim leaflet was all about Gaza, immigration and Islamophobia.” But Mr Stephens was standing for the SNP, not Labour, who won the seat anyway.
Over at Prospect, Imaan Irfan had a piece pointing out some of the contradictions and complexities of the vote. There is no doubt that the Muslim vote now matters, toppling one prospective Labour minister and frightening many others: “Muslim voters have now proven they can’t be taken for granted, with some historically safe seats for Labour becoming marginals in the next election, and majorities slashed for key figures like [Wes] Streeting, Jess Phillips and Rushanara Ali. Support for Labour in Keir Starmer’s own constituency has also nearly halved since 2019, with an 18 per cent swing to Jewish activist and TMV-endorsed candidate Andrew Feinstein.”
But, the piece continues, “strong feelings around Gaza — and the sense that both parties are complicit in the humanitarian catastrophe there — played a powerful role in unifying opposition votes. But commentators have disingenuously framed this as a religious issue, rather than a humanitarian one. They have also ignored the fact that successful candidates campaigned on local issues, attracting broad support beyond local Muslim voters.”
This analysis is strengthened by the defeat of George Galloway, who has never given sufficient attention to the problems of his constituents.
But what Mr Vance was really picking up was a Reform talking point about Sadiq Khan: as Calvin Robinson said in conversation on his streaming show with Tommy Robinson, “Mahommedans have the major cities and we’re out in the sticks.”
This is a mapping of American political patterns on to British life, which is quite as destructive and undemocratic as those of the Indian subcontinent could be. They are undemocratic in the particular sense that they lead people to vote on issues over which our representatives will always be powerless — whether Gaza or the pathologies of the Trumpist movement — and to ignore the problems that we might reasonably expect a government to solve: if you want to save democracy, don’t vote for world peace: vote for working sewers and affordable dentists.
But, of course, The Times and The Guardian both went big with Mr Vance’s remarks, because they induce a pleasurable outrage in the reader. There are just too many elephants, and too few of us with shovels.
OVER at Harper’s Magazine, Sam Kestenbaum had a long story about exorcism in the age of YouTube. It’s a long read, but worth it, and free over the internet if you register.
Kestenbaum signed up, as a journalist, to be part of the crew for a roadshow run by “The Demon Slayers”, a loose grouping of American Charismatic Evangelicals: “Theirs is spiritual warfare with the algorithm in mind, exorcisms that come with online subscription plans and TikTok and Facebook schematics, whose videos carry click-worthy titles like: ‘She Was TORMENTED By DEMONIC WITCHCRAFT SPIRITS!,’ ‘Can Demons READ OUR THOUGHTS?,’ and ‘DEMONS leaving people on a ZOOM call. Check it out!’ These media ministers livestream and cross-post, they produce movies, write how-to books, go on national tours.”
This is a really impressive piece of reporting, neither horrified nor patronising, and full of sharp observations. My favourite was when the performers are working up the crowd. They taunt them with being “religious” — which everyone indignantly denies. “Religion” is a toxic brand even among the most fervent believers now.
And this passage is just perfect: “An old woman thrashes and claws at the floor. Her face contorts in a snarl. One church staffer presses a Bible to her forehead while another daubs her stomach with a pocket-size vial of holy oil.
“Two volunteers huddle for a diagnosis. ‘Is it Leviathan?’ one asks another.
“‘Python,’ the second responds.
“The first nods, all business, then turns to the distressed woman. ‘Unhinge your fangs from her, in Jesus’ name! And take your venom with you, in Jesus’ name!’
“Fluttering above the sweat-filled scrum is a video drone. It drops down for a closer shot.”