Anyone for dominos?

I'm not quite at the point where I want to play dominos, the time may come however, and I'll probably do it on an app, because we might still all be locked down. However, I have a vague recollection you could buy a game or toy - I suspect it was a shite 1980's fads.

 

Not imagining it...

I mention it because it's what happened in America with Trump. Remember that? It feels like a dream now, a really strange dream, but it happened. There are those who think character doesn't matter. They would rather politicians were 'real' people, they feel any expectation of them being paragons of virtue is unrealistic and unfair. The problem is, we get complete arseholes in positions of power. Fair enough, they don't need to be perfect, but do they need to be quite so flawed? Would somewhere in the middle not suffice?

This is where the (soon-to-be-tortured) domino reference comes in. As far as that goes, Trump probably wasn't the first domino, but it set off a chain of events. There was a list of actions in American culminating in the invasion of the Capitol building. Over here, early on - we got Boris Johnson in number 10. Take yourself back a few years and remember how mental a prospect that was, yet here we are.
  

I'd challenge you to watch the advert above and not see an allegory for humanity. (Let the torture commence). Do you remember the record breaking domino runs on TV from the 1980's, We never saw much of the organisation, I imagine it was a pain in the hoop to set up - just like building a civilised society. Looking at the advert - as the dominos fall, the kids laugh ever-more maniacally. They're revelling in the destruction of the chain reaction they started. The work it took to set up is gone from their minds, they - we - are now in populist mode. We know what we want, and we're going to get it, and fuck the consequences.

And look how simple it was to set up - could that be a representation of voting into power people like Boris fucking Johnson? Easy to do, but not so easy to live with. Knowing once we've done it, the smallest tremor could set the whole thing off, and once it starts, there's not much to do except stand back and enjoy the spectacle - like the craze-tinged children in the ad?

The torture went well, but I think we can get more out of it.

It seems to me, each shit real world action we witness is used as a precedent to make the one that follows slightly more acceptable. America got Trump - us getting Johnson didn't seem quite so bad. BLM happened, with all the misrepresentations that came with it - women participating in a vigil for a murdered woman get roughed up and arrested by police, I think most people agree this was bad, but the bar moved with BLM, so it's not that bad. 

Illiberal laws being passed by Holyrood and Westminster? But listen, have you seen the hatred on Twitter, or the annoyance caused by protests? There's real antipathy out there, on Twitter especially, wait though, Twitter isn't real is it? Apparently it is if you have an axe to grind - but I digress.

Twitter is full of bitterness, people there are vicious and despicable. So it's fitting, if your chat at the dinner table (because it's a logical extension of the internet apparently), offends, it can be reported to the police, and they can turn up at your doorstep to investigate. Don't worry though, the bar for criminality is high - and as we can quite clearly see - never moves, plus, we have a prosecution service which is renowned for the integrity of it's actio- oh wait, no we don't.

We had the First Minister publish an entirely off-the-cuff, unscripted address to the nation when some people left the SNP in protest at the 'rampant transphobia' in the party. But nothing, not a whimper, when thousands left due to their disregard for women's safety, and a serving SNP MP received threats of a sexual nature from a member of the SNP (alleged) who has since been prosecuted. Presumably someone removed a couple of dominos - because that particular Shit Real World Action didn't set the right precedent.

Are things getting worse, or is this all part of a standard cycle? If it is a standard cycle, or a chain reaction, where or how does it end? Do we want to know?

I don't remember there being a drain at the end of the domino run, I can't help but feel - unless we find the plug - we'll end up going down it.