Blame Newt

The blame for today’s polarised world is most oftenlaid at the door of President Trump. He is credited with climbing to power onthe back of colourfully-worded hate politics and of providing the inspirationfor Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummins, Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Germany’sAlternative for Deutschland.

But who inspired Trump? The answer is the formerSpeaker of the US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich was—still is—a staunchly conservativeRepublican from the deep south state of Georgia who entered the political arenain the 1970s when southern Democrats were shifting to the liberal left in avain effort to retain power in the South in the aftermath of the civil rightscampaign. Gingrich believed that the answer to the loss to the conservativeswas to replace it with a radicalised and more conservative Republican Party.

Key to his goal was gaining Republican control ofthe House of Representatives. It was a difficult task because the Democrats hadheld the majority in the lower house of Congress since 1956. By the 1994mid-terms, Gingrich had climbed through the congressional party ranks to becomeHouse Minority Whip and a power within the Republicans. And then, only sixweeks before polling day, he launched a far-right manifesto entitled “Contractwith America.”

The manifesto was a success. The Republicans woncontrol of the House. But the tactics used to win that control were asimportant—if not more so—than the party policies. Before Gingrich theconventional political wisdom was that in the two-party system the route topolitical success was through the capture of the political centre ground.

Gingrich argued that the Republican base could beexpanded by focusing on capturing the far right of the political spectrum. Toachieve this he introduced a new emotive political lexicon. Whenever discussingrival Democrats, Republican politicians would pepper their speeches with negatively-chargedwords such as radical, sick, traitors, betray, lie and decay.Positively-charged words such as courageous, brave, wise and principled andopportunity were used to describe anything involving the Republican Party.Gingrich’s lexicon became official party policy and was circulated in 1990 byGOPAC, the Republican Party’s training organisation for elected officials,under the title “Language, a Key Mechanism of Control.”

Another of Gingrich’s contributions was “wedgeissues.” These are carefully selected emotive subjects which can be boiled downto a simplified sound bite which appeals to an easily identifiable demographic.The purpose of a wedge issue is to force your opponents into an opposingposition, leaving the voters to choose between what is portrayed as twoextremes in  which just as many will vote against as for a policy.Successful wedge issue topics in America include race, immigration, crime,national security, abortion, gay rights and religion. In recent years in the UKthey included many of the same subjects with the addition of Brexit.  

Gingrich’s success paid dividends. He was namedTime Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1994 and elected Speaker of the House.Unfortunately for Newt, his tenure at the top of the greasy political poll wascut short. Eighty-four ethics charges were filed against Gingrich during histerm as Speaker. One of them stuck—a claim for tax-exempt status for a collegecourse run for political purposes. As a result, the House officiallyreprimanded its Speaker for the first time in history.

Gingrich was Speaker during the Monica Lewinskyaffair and the driving force behind President Clinton’s impeachment in theHouse. But while Gingrich was attacking presidential morals, he was himself inthe middle of an extra-marital affair with a Congressional staffer 23 yearsyounger than him.

The Republicans retained their majority in the 1998elections, but lost four seats. The unexpectedly poor showing combined withcriticism of Gingrich’s low life and divisive tactics to force his resignationfrom Congress. But the Georgia Republican’s career was far from over. In 2012he came close to winning the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. In2016, he decided against running, but was an early supporter of Donald Trumpand acted as a consultant on his campaign. He was reported to have been on ashortlist of three for the job of Trump’s running mate, but by then was moreinterested in his lucrative career as a writer, broadcaster and highly-paidafter dinner speaker.

Donald Trump has used the tactics pioneered byGingrich to great effect in adjusting the American system of checks andbalances to the advantage of the presidency. Gingrich’s political strategy wasalso carefully studied in Britain and reached its fruition with the 2016 Brexitreferendum and the post-referendum battle. The long and acrimonious debateraised disturbing underlying attitudes on immigration, race and nationalidentity. It has also weakened parliament’s power to act as a check on thepowers of an executive prime minister.

This week, the Cambridge University-based Centrefor the Future of Democracy reported that 60.3 percent of the Britishelectorate were unhappy with their political system. The researchers said thatthere was a global trend of falling trust in the ability of democratic politicsto deliver good government—in the US and everywhere else in the world wherethey have adopted the Anglo-Saxon political model. Totalitarian countries—suchas Russia and China—and countries which describe themselves as “Illiberalmanaged democracies”—such as Hungary and Turkey—are actively using thedissatisfaction and polarisation in Britain and America to argue thatparliamentary democracy is the politics of the past.

Political journalist Tom Arms is a regular contributor.