One of the most telling scenes on film appeared in the 1972 movie Cabaret. It is deceptively simple: a teenager stands on a podium and begins to sing a seemingly innocuous song.

The lyrics draw several romantic pictures: the sun in the meadow, a stag running in the forest and blossoms embracing bees. Then the song takes on a more menacing tone: “but somewhere, a glory awaits unseen, tomorrow belongs to me.” The crowd is entranced and joins in the singing while the youthful singer raises his hand in a Nazi salute: “Now fatherland, fatherland, show us the sign your children have waited to see. The morning will come when the world is mine. Tomorrow belongs to me.”

Musical theatre has rarely offered any prodding political insight. Nonetheless, this segment from Cabaret shows that the twin phenomena of modern politics – wokeness and populism – have more in common than each side would be comfortable to admit.

At face value, this might seem like a segment which shows the dangers of populism – the rousing rhetoric, the allusions to the fatherland and the promise of restored greatness are all features of populism. Yet, we can also glimpse elements of woke culture – the utopic descriptions, the desire to usher in a sedate new world and the ‘cult of youth’ which seeks to discredit what came before and to shape what is to come with no reference to the past.

‘Woke politics’ initially referred to addressing those issues concerning social and racial inequality. It has now taken on a new significance. It has led to extreme forms of political correctness which fuel a call-out culture characterised by ‘no-platforming’, censorship and virtue signalling.

Barack Obama once spoke on the dangers of this behaviour: “If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself... that’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”

‘Populism’ can equally be exclusionary. It often pits an excluded population against the established elites, thus offering simple solutions for complex problems such as youth unemployment, social exclusion, migration and social discontent. It exploits anger when institutions seem not to be doing their job; it feeds off the disillusionment of those who feel that they have been left behind.

One of the most important books published in 2020, Morality, by the former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, draws upon these two themes and argues that there is a link between both populism and the phenomenon of wokeness.

They are “both extreme. Both divide the world into good and evil, black and white with no shades of grey. Both see themselves as the oppressed and their opponents as the oppressors. They see no saving grace in the other side.”

Both feel that resources are distributed unevenly – some benefit, while others are systematically left out. Populists may want to restore a mythical golden age; woke politics intends to usher in a utopic new era. Both populism and woke politics are disenchanted with the establishment and yet, paradoxically, they want to become part of the establishment they claim to despise.

Populists want to de-legitimise other voices, claiming that they alone speak on behalf of the people. Photo: Shutterstock.com- André DeBattista

Both use similar argumentative structures. Populists want to de-legitimise other voices, claiming that they alone speak on behalf of the people. Woke politics strives to do the same; those who hold different attitudes or standpoints are denounced and excluded – ‘cancelled’ to use the popular terminology. This attitude has, unfortunately, infiltrated every aspect of public life – including universities which functioned as the last bastion of free speech and critical thought.

Earlier this year, the world mourned the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – the iconic Supreme Court judge who was famous for both her liberal views and her deep friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia was recognised for his conservative views as well as his dissenting opinions which, eloquently and coherently, challenged some prevailing progressive standpoints. When Scalia died in 2016, Ginsburg delivered a eulogy at his memorial. Their deep friendship was immortalised in an opera.

Similarly, we still admire the civility that had been demonstrated by Senator John McCain during the 2008 US presidential election when he stood as the Republican nominee against Obama. He publicly called out those who showed discourtesy towards his opponent. A glance at the current US presidential election campaign shows that such civility is hard to come by.

It is most unfortunate that, in Malta, such civility is almost unheard of.

Sacks’ book tries to address some of these issues.

Firstly, with regard to populism and wokeness, we need to rediscover that politics is not about “the psychology of self-esteem or the allocation of blame”. He writes: “When these boundaries are blurred, the result is deeply damaging to the good group relations on which an ethnically and religiously diverse society depend.”

Secondly, he attributes these divisive attitudes to the loss of the sense of moral community, “that allowed people to feel that, though their political views might be opposed, nonetheless, they were part of the same nation, heirs to its history, sharing its fate, responsible for one another, engaged collectively in pursuit of the common good”.

Naturally, this did not stop politics from being abrasive and aggressive at times “but it did mean that people recognised the humanity of their opponents, listened to them and recognised that other viewpoints had integrity”.

It is the latter which is sorely lacking in contemporary politics. Unfortunately, woke culture is not an antidote to populism but, instead, adds more fuel to the fire. Perhaps, it might soon be too late to reverse the trend. At the close of the aforementioned cinematic scene, Brian asks Max a question which is surprisingly relevant today: “do you still think you can control them now?”

The answer to that is too chilling to contemplate.