‘THE WORSE it gets the better it gets’ is an idiom used by revolutionaries as diverse as the Soviet Communist Lenin and American Founding Father John Adams in anticipation of revolution in the light of deteriorating socio-economic conditions. Although it is difficult to assess whether the Western world is on a revolutionary trajectory, it is clear that conditions for unrest are mounting: growing economic hardship, huge fiscal crises, onerous tax burdens, cultural and civilisational atrophy, societal breakdown, political ineptitude and much more. It may be disconcerting that political discourse should once again resound with talk of revolutionary upheaval, given the lessons of history. Yet should we be filled with despair and hopelessness? I think not, for to do so would be to raise the white flag.
The idea behind our introductory idiom of course has much broader and older pedigree than the musings of revolutionaries. It is indeed one of life’s truths and manifests itself in various forms – ‘it’s always darkest before the dawn’, ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ – and is also a recurring biblical theme, reflected in the virtues of Hope and Faith in God’s Providence.
Yet notwithstanding appeals to Heaven, viewing the future in this way is not what some may consider quixotic optimism but is in fact a realistic consideration based on facts. Things are certainly bad and getting worse, yet the forces that stand in the defence of the ‘ancien regimes’ are not White Russian Generals, Royalist French Commanders or generals of the British Crown directing vast armies, but weak and politically inept politicians representing intellectually bankrupt systems which are dependent increasingly on political gerrymandering and coercion for sustenance. Although riots and protests have now become almost a daily occurrence across the Western world, they are not yet signs of impending revolutions because widespread belief in the democratic process still prevails. This is the major difference from the revolutionary tumults of the past, which were always preceded by popular demands for democratic representation. Governments could of course annul the democratic process on some concocted pretext of national security which would take us into different territory, but we are some way away from that, though, as noted below, not that far in some instances. As such, with Western democratic systems still intact, there is every chance of reversing the civilisational malaise that afflicts our societies.
Vital in this process is adopting a correct strategy which involves three key aspects.
The first is to acknowledge that matters will get worse, perhaps much worse, than they are at present. Taxes will continue to rise, freedoms will be revoked, imprisonments for minor offences will increase, and mass uncontrolled immigration will continue. However, for all the inherent misfortune of all this, it is crucial to recognise it as a political good as it wholly exposes to a mass audience the impending calamity which furtive incremental deceit could not possibly do. Mobilisation of counter forces in the form of voters, campaigners, speakers, protesters is thus much easier to do – the worse the better!
The second is to visualise a better future that can be realistically achieved: one of peaceful streets, reasonable taxation, efficient public services, an impartial judiciary, a cohesive national identity and sound border control, with the firm knowledge that these are not extreme desires but principles that form the foundation of dignified human life.
The third is simply to persevere, which won’t be easy but will be made easier through the recognition of the above two. There will be tests and disappointments – Brexit wasn’t built in a day – but belief in the righteousness of the cause in the face of the immorality and bankruptcy of the opposition, and the knowledge of ultimate victory, will suffice to sustain the struggle.
This should be further encouraged by the understanding that the power elite which seeks to preserve the status quo has very little left in its armoury. In Britain, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government, having acquired in 2024 its huge parliamentary majority on the lowest share of the vote of any winning party on record, has proceeded to implement a radical agenda that has alienated even the small base it had at the election. In the view of successive opinion polls, it’s a strategy that has doomed it to almost certain electoral oblivion, as the 14-year Tory strategy doomed the Conservatives. Raising taxes exponentially, presiding over unprecedented uncontrolled immigration and crafting a two-tier justice system which imprisons tweeters for years on end and intimidates journalists for ‘non-crime hate crimes’ while overlooking violent crime and rape gangs is just part of an agenda that has outraged a nation which is rejecting it en masse at the ballot box. As the prospects of significant improvement in any sphere over the next few years looks grim, electoral gerrymandering appears to be the only way out, with the government hoping that extending the franchise to schoolchildren indoctrinated with leftist ideology will save its skin in its existential fight with Nigel Farage’s Reform.
Similar desperation is evident in Donald Tusk’s government in Poland in the wake of the victory of the opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki against the liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski in the country’s presidential election. After pursuing a campaign full of dirty tricks and constitutionally dubious initiatives, and failing to get a recount of votes on fictitious accusations of mass fraud, Tusk continues to refuse to accept the result, and is now bullying the Speaker of the Lower House and leader of a junior coalition party, Szymon Hołownia, into not convening the joint assembly of the two Houses of Parliament to swear in the new president, as is constitutionally required. Hołownia, to his credit, has refused to participate in what he called a coup d’état, reminding Tusk that his behaviour carried with it the prospect of lengthy incarceration. Through his actions, Tusk has managed to alienate the majority of the public. All this is happening amidst a backdrop of a growing migration crisis by which German authorities are illegally off-loading their unwanted migrants at Polish border checkpoints in collusion with the Tusk government, which reinstated border controls only after citizens’ groups mobilised to confront the German police and highlight the ensuing crisis. This move, however, is more theatre than substance, accompanied by a ban of any private filming of the checkpoints. The flow of illegal migrants continues, provoking increasing outrage in Polish society which fears the type of crime waves and social instability seen in Western capitals. It has already sampled this when, for instance, a young girl was raped and stabbed, having first had her eyes gouged out with a screwdriver, by a 19-year old Venezuelan illegal migrant who now faces a murder charge after the girl’s death in hospital. The government has few answers as it continues to do Germany’s bidding, attacking all those who oppose its actions as ‘far right’ and ‘racists’. In a throwback to Communist times, Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski called on two bishops who expressed concerns about Polish borders to ‘cast off their skirts and join the opposition’ if they wanted to engage in politics.
These events of course are endemic across the Western world. In the US, Trump Derangement Syndrome sought to annul the election of Donald Trump and when that failed, it engaged in lawfare to undermine him with a string of fabricated accusations. Lawfare has similarly been waged in France against Marine Le Pen who in March was found guilty of misappropriation of EU funds and banned from political office for five years. The case has raised significant concerns about the independence of the judiciary, especially as the ban has made her illegible to stand in the presidential elections in 2027 which many believed she was set to win in a country riven with ethnic strife and economic turmoil. In Romania, a couple of days before the second round of presidential elections in December 2024, the Constitutional Court scrapped the run-off on the pretext of Russian assistance for the leading candidate, Calin Georgescu, labelled far-right by the EU establishment, who stood a good chance of winning. In Germany the political establishment has been trying to find a way to ban the main opposition party, the AfD, which it considers far-right for opposing mass immigration.
The power elites are in a trap from which there is no escape. The erosion of democratic norms and the use of lawfare against opponents does not indicate strength but rather desperation of those who fear losing power to increasingly disillusioned populations. Such actions increase popular disillusionment, which is fuelled further by economic turmoil and the calamities of mass migration, forcing rulers to resort to more of the same. And so the vicious circle turns. Exclusion of patriotic pupils from school by leftist teachers, unjust police intrusion, uninvestigated crime, the migrant crisis, economic ineptitude and so on may be infuriating, but these issues serve to embolden a growing number of people who otherwise would have remained politically passive. The Trump victories in the US have already indicated what can be achieved with firm determination. It certainly takes effort to weather the storm, but the worse, the better.
