Klapterpolitik
‘A humorous, often twee, political statement made with the aim of achieving validation amongst supporters - usually registered by applause - rather than furthering the debate.’
For all the proclamations that satire is dead, every so often it comes back with a fearful vengeance to plunge its sword deep in the beating heart of a new nefarious trend. See below;
Now Angela Rayner never said this but, like all good satire, it’s absolutely believable. The pun, as tortured as the winner of ‘Most Unrepentant Spanish Heretic 1492’, put into the service of a political point that is so broad as to be barely worth making, in expectation of breathless hooting from supporters who whisper ‘what a burn!’. The problem is it’s so believable because it’s already happening. Let’s have a look at Angela Eagle’s most recent appearance at PMQs;
“…This year the Tory party has given us five education secretaries, four chancellors, three prime ministers, two leadership contests. The partridge has had to sell the pear tree to pay for the gas.”
This is something I call Klapterpolitik. This isn’t one of those hyperspecific words the Germans have that we don’t; I’ve just made it up. I have used German because it conveys its meaning much more efficiently - and sounds a lot better - than the English alternatives of ‘applause politics’ or ‘clapping politics’ do. German speaker Kristian Niemietz has suggested it should be labelled Lachplaus (from "Lachen" and "Applaus"), but I think this is just slightly too German for the layperson to grasp the meaning behind it.
I’ve previously struggled to define Klapterpolitik, but you know it when you see it. Every time a someone makes a political ‘point’ that is the equivalent of pressing a big red button that says ‘applause’ and then turns, expectantly, to the audience for their well-deserved validation, there is Klapterpolitik. This is my best definition so far;
‘A humorous, often twee, political statement made with the aim of achieving validation amongst supporters - usually registered by applause - rather than furthering the debate.’
Although the word I’ve used is German, the origins are most definitely American. It’s a distinctive regional variation (more on that in a moment) on the ‘and everybody clapped’ genre of American political nonsense; in fact, it’s not often all that distinct from the original practice.
British Klaperpolitik’s biggest regional variation is its excruciating humour and tweeness. Witness;
Matt Hancock’s record on clinical trials is a terrible choice of attack line, given that Britain led the world in both vaccine development and rollout. But that is immaterial to Burnham, because Klapterpolitik is about generating validation from existing supporters through humour. Burnham isn’t interested in making a serious point, he’s interested in the applause of the audience.
Although practice of Klapterpolitik is dominated by, it is not limited to, politicians on the left; witness the reaction to the word ‘woke’ here;
Now this is not twee but it is apparently humorous. Le Tissier’s response is outside of the natural flow of their conversation, it adds very little, but he understands that he’s going to get validation from the audience by saying ‘WOKE’. The big red button’s pull is just too strong to prevent him taking the tangent. Now compare Le Tissier’s cringeing political standup routine to an American pushing the same big red button and we can see the regional variation in Klapterpolitik;
The British strain of Klapterpolitik is so painfully, physically, viscerally cringe-induing because of our increasing national tweeness. James Marriot wrote succinctly about the ‘Imperial Triumph’ of twee during the Jubilee; ‘The organisers of the jubilee pageant understood that modern power clothes itself in twee.’
‘Twee is an aesthetic for an age uninterested in ethical complexity’ he continues, ‘which prefers good and bad as neatly separated as they are at Hogwarts.’ Klapterpolitik allows politicians to appeal to this disinterest by reducing the level of debate down to the level of ‘we GOOD, they BAD’. That’s why the political points Klapterpolitik is used to make are so broad or meaningless; it’s to lean into to a more childlike form of political debate.
Ed West goes on to further identify ‘a particular indefinable, British kind of twee, which is infuriating but hard to articulate. British Twee, or British Cringe, is not so much a definable illness as more like a cluster of symptoms.’
This is the same swamp Ben Sixsmith’s Cockwomble emerges from, and Klapterpolitik is part of this cringe milieu, the combination of the twee and the soundbite. It allows politicians across the spectrum to cater out points to their following without engaging with the complexity of the issue and to avoid furthering a debate which might involve taking, or exposing them to, difficult political questions.
Klapterpolitik is the perfect tool for those being fundamentally unserious about tough political questions, but it’s also a monstrous impoverishment of our political discourse. ‘Applause is the spur of noble minds’, said Burke, ‘the end and aim of weak ones.’ And then everyone stood and clapped.
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