Beware the partisans of punditry

That British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who heads the Labour Party, has announced his resignation put me in mind of a certain Inquirer columnist, a real bed-wetter.

No names because he is not unique, just a handy symbol for the freakish fervor of many journalistic pundits.

Almost every time, anywhere in the world, a Leftist wins an election, they drag out the quote popularized by Dr. Martin Luther King:  “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

OK — they don't use those words every time, but it's always something like that. There are many on the Loony Left, the social justice warriors. 

They celebrate a  triumph for morality and democracy.

Should a conservative win — such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (Italy’s first female PM) — it is always described as a  step toward fascism, nationalism and authoritarianism. You can count on it.

And, because I am a nonpartisan referee, I concede the Wing Nut Right columnists do the same thing. Only they say communists, Marxists, and pedophiles are taking over.

But today’s focus is not-so-Great Britain. 

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Two years ago, Labour won in a landslide, ending 14 years of Conservative rule. With that victory, the Loony Left had a massive orgasm.

Ooo, ooo, that arc is bending in the right way, toward justice, and all that.

But today, uh-oh.

“In July 2024 the Labour Party won 411 seats on 34% of ballots cast,” reports The Economist. “Today it attracts around 20% of voters, according to our poll tracker. That is the lowest for any governing party since polling began in the 1940s.”

Lowest in 80 years. It’s not easy to be that bad.

It took the Conservatives (known as Tories) 14 years to screw the pooch and get driven from power. It  took Labour two years to get rocked. How’s that for progress?

It is axiomatic that the longer any party is in power, the more likely it will fall into the hubristic trap of corruption.

It was put into words in 1887 by British politician Lord Acton, who said, “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

True then, true now.

Any student of history, especially American history, knows that public favor is a pendulum that swings from Left to Right, or Right to Left (just to give each side equal attention).

Just this century you can see the swing: Republican George W. Bush was elected in 2000, replacing Democrat Bill Clinton, who replaced Republican George H.W. Bush. 

Bush the Younger was succeeded by Democrat Barack Obama, who was succeeded by Republican Donald J. Trump, who was ousted by Democrat Joe Biden, who handed it back to Republican Trump.

It’s like a political Ping Pong match. It’s easy to see the U.S. is a centrist nation that leans Left, then Right, and back again.

The last time a party held the Presidency for three terms was 1988, when Bush won an election on Ronald Reagan’s coattails.

In democracies, the evidence shows that one political party’s capture of the electorate usually is time-stamped. There are occasional exceptions, but the rule remains generally true.

So whenever you read a pundit who is exploding with partisan fervor, remember that whatever is being cheered as a harbinber, probably won’t last.