A bad Brand of politics

Russell Brand, crazy antics and comedic popularity aside, is dangerous.

For months now Brand has been hailed as the long-awaited champion of the people. In the UK, he says, an underclass is being exploited and under-served by a government whose only true motives are to aid their fellow Etonian elites, and neglecting the working classes who have to, as Martin Lewis of the Moneysavingexpert website says, “choose between heating and eating”. What he says is arguably true. There is, without a shadow of a doubt, a huge disparity between the population and its government. While those on benefits are to be squeezed by caps on welfare likely to be enforced, Cameron and Osborne fight to make sure that bankers continue to receive their exorbitant bonuses.

When all his whining is said and done Brand’s manifesto is utter folly.

Brand’s political ranting has gone viral; his interview with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight, for instance, has reached nearly ten million views on YouTube. And the younger generation loves it. We adore his anarchic hedonism, thrillingly proclaimed through his combination of fancy language (“I don’t understand what that word means, so he must be talking real sense!”) and explosive humour. Yes, it is refreshing to finally have someone publicly speak out against the establishment, but when all his whining is said and done, his actual ‘manifesto’ is utter folly.

The core of his argument is that we shouldn’t bother to vote. He himself has never voted and says it would be a triumph if we did the same, believing that if we vote we’re merely encouraging a continuation of political and corporate exploitation. When I first discovered his political opinions, I was completely won over.

It was not until later that I realised the extremely damaging effects he could have on people like myself, who next year, will be first-time voters. He says we are “disenfranchised, disillusioned [and] despondent”, but refusing to vote will not alleviate the situation whatsoever. If we don’t vote in the general election in 2015 we will disenfranchise ourselves, and in doing so we won’t have a leg to stand on when we complain about the government disregarding our interests. It is that which would encourage political exploitation.

Voting for our leaders is what democracy is all about, and to callously cast that aside is to ignore democracy altogether – the very thing we want to defend. Brand is completely delusional if he thinks that our current system of voting doesn’t bring about change and only perpetuates the problems he discusses. Voting brings monumental change. For instance, if we elect Labour next year, we will see gas and electricity prices frozen until 2017. This coalition has made huge deficit cuts and legalized gay marriage. If Americans hadn’t elected Obama, they wouldn’t have seen the reforms which will finally make decent healthcare available to the millions without health insurance.

Russell Brand says we are “disenfranchised, disillusioned [and] despondent”, but refusing to vote will not alleviate the situation whatsoever.

Brand considers himself to be the voice of the younger generation, but his voice is ridiculous. In his interview with Paxman, he said with great pride and ego “I’m here just to draw attention to a few ideas. I just want to have a little bit of a laugh.” How can we place faith in this ‘revolutionary messiah’ if his political cry is a self-confessed comedic stunt?

Just because we revile the incessant barrage of cardboard cut-out politicians churning out dreary speeches, that doesn’t mean we should jump on the Brandwagon by proxy, just because he, by contrast, runs around swearing and laughing, regurgitating a thesaurus as he goes.

Celebrities have as much right as anyone to speak out about politics, but whether you like it or not, facetiousness does not belong in the political sphere. Take Angelina Jolie, who collaborated with William Hague to launch a declaration by the G8 to prevent sexual violence towards women and children in war. She took action in a dignified manner and did not, as with Brand, spout vague, airy-fairy notions of destroying the establishment to create a world utopian society.

What Russell Brand has thankfully done is introduce the younger generation to politics and provided us with the feeling that we have the right to speak up for ourselves. But by setting himself up as a role model for young voters, he has made us believe that voting is “tacit complicity” with the current system, and that in order to enact change, we should toss our suffrage in the bin – only to later discover that we’ve ruined our chances of changing anything at all. Whatever truths he may speak; his influence over the youth of today should be quickly dismantled.

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Header Image courtesy of wikicommons