The lesson that the opponents of Anwar should take from the recently concluded US elections is that if you want to win an election, you better start thinking about being a working-class hero.
Forget the lawyers, the elites, the priests, the moneyed class, the bureaucrats or the academics that you used to rely on in the paast. It might have been the case that their views were important once, but listening to them now will get you nowhere today.
A generation or two ago, the working class might have genuinely respected the upper classes. We might actually have believed that the lawyers, priests, bureaucrats and intellectuals knew what they were talking about and had good intentions towards us , and thus it was in our best interest that we take into account their views and opinions.
Today, it is a whole different story altogether.
Part of the reason why the working class no longer esteems the upper classes is because the information age has levelled the difference between the working class and the upper classes. A generation or two ago, the distinction between a working class person and someone in a different class – like a teacher or a lawyer – was clear and palpable. Today, the difference between a working class and a lecturer or a lawyer is so fuzzy, that much of what the other classes can do can also be done by the working class with the aid of of Google or ChatGPT.
Another reason why the working class no longer esteems the upper classes is because unbridled capitalism has lowered the quality and value of the upper classes. These days, even the village idiot can be upper class if they can pay for a university degree or a title. Most of the upper classes today also do not exhibit any distinction other than what their position brings them. If a minister or a boss was not a minister or a boss, no one would even care about what they have to say about anything. None of us would, because we will see no inherent value or merit in their views or opinions. If welisten to them at all, it is only because the access to power and money that they possess through their position as judges or ministers or bosses compels us to listen to them. Without that access, we will have no reason to respect their views, judgments, advice or opinion at all.
Today, not only do the working class not see the upper classes as a part of the solution, but we also see them as a part of the problem.
The working class today no longer feels that the upper classes wish to exert control on society in order to improve society in a more efficient manner. These days, we don’t think that the upper classes even know how to improve society. We just think that they want to exert control on society simply because 1) they enjoy exerting control on society and 2) because they wish to exploit the working class.
It is because the working class see the upper classes as a problem, that none of us could care less if our champion is a convicted felon. Trump is one. Anwar is another one. But nobody in the working class cares about it because we see being a convicted felon as a price that anyone who wishes to champion the working class will have to pay in order to do what they have to do.
In the eyes of the working class, a working class hero will likely be a convicted felon because to be a working class hero, you will have to confront the higher classes, and if you confront the higher classes, they will find all your faults and label you as sexist, racist, traitor, rapist, corrupt or whatnot, before trying to throw you in jail or even try to assassinate you.
Because of that, once the working class sees somebody as a working class hero, you can sling as much mud on them as you want, but the loyalty and support of the working class towards their champion will not waver.
The mood of the working class, not only in America, but also in Malaysia, is that of frustration and restlessness. It is the nature of the working class to want things to get done. Once upon a time ago, we believed that listening to the lawyers and the bureaucrats and priests is necessary to get things done properly, but today, that is not what we believe anymore.
Today, we think that listening to the bureaucrats and priests and intellectuals, will not only result in nothing getting done, it is equivalent to us sabotaging ourselves. If we listen to what the bureaucrats and priests and intellectuals say, we feel that it is equal to us aiding them to oppress and exploit ourselves.
When we look around today , we see so many things that are undone and falling apart, and the only thing that is stopping us from getting them done or fixing them, is the upper classes, who are using the power and the money in their control, to control us and prevent us from getting anything done.
Once a working-class hero like Trump or Anwar manages to claw their way to the top however, we will no longer be unencumbered by upper classes.
A lawyer or an academic can only say that we can’t do this or that because it is against that law or this law, for so long as the lawyer or academic has the position and power to make that law. Once the position and power to make the law is in the working-class hero’s hand, we won’t have to care about what the lawyer or the academic thinks anymore.
Mark my word, with Trump’s ascension to power, the republican phase of the American experiment is likely over. Now that the American working class have their champion at the top, they are not going to ever let him fall down. In the next four years, Trump is going to rule America more like an emperor than a president, and if he succeeds to forward the working class’s cause, after his four years is over, the working class will likely help him demolish the democratic processes in the country, and install him as an emperor or dictator for life.
The same is going to happen here in Malaysia too, if Anwar stays true to championing the rights and interest of the working class, as he has so far done.
The other classes might complain that Anwar is going against what he promised, by centralising power in his hand, but to the working class, so long as Anwar increases our wages and social protection, for all intent and purpose, we feel that he is fulfilling his promises, and if the upper classes don’t see it that way, then it is they who are the problem, not Anwar.
The working class will not take offense to the likes of Anwar or Trump centralising power in their hand for as long as they champion the working class cause. As a matter of fact, if these working class heroes continue to forward the working class cause, the working class will even aid them in centralising power in their hands.
From the working class point of view, having a powerful working class hero at the top is the only way that we will be able to forward our interest and confront the excesses of the other classes.
In America, the die is likely already cast. Trump is going to rule America for as long as he wishes with the aid of the working class, but in Malaysia, the matter is still not set on the stone just yet.
Anwar has only recently been championing the interest of the working class, so it is not impossible for the opposition to forward a candidate that will be a champion of the working class in the near future.
They don’t have long to do it however, because the working class are a loyal lot. Once Anwar does more to champion the working-class’s cause and establishes himself as a bona fide working class hero, the working class will not entertain anybody else from usurping his position as the ultimate working class hero for as long as he chooses to be our champion and hero, even if the opposition manages to put forth a candidate that is akin to Mandela, Lincoln and Gandhi rolled in one, as his challenger, later on.
I daresay that if Anwar manages to raise the minimum wage by RM 2000, which he can certainly do in the span of another year, the opposition might as well disband and bend the knees to Anwar, because to topple him, they will have to pass the working class first.
There is a saying, attributed to Alexander the Great: "I'm not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I'm afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”
The other classes might have long deemed the working class to be sheeps, but that is only because it has never seen us being led by a lion.
Once we have a lion at the top, and you try to try us because you think you will only be contending with sheeps, imagine the surprise in your face, when you hear us roar.
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