The curse of the useful idiot

The useful idiot is one of history’s most enduring characters. He appears in every generation, every ideology and every political movement. He is not defined by what he believes, but by what he is useful for. He would be one of history’s great comic characters, if he were not so dangerous.

The useful idiot is rarely stupid. In fact, many are intelligent, articulate and often highly educated. They can be found in universities, boardrooms, political parties, activist organisations and media institutions. What distinguishes them is not a lack of intelligence but a lack of curiosity, or perhaps more accurately, a fear of curiosity.

The useful idiot fears information that might complicate his worldview. He avoids conversations that challenge his assumptions, seeking affirmation rather than understanding and certainty rather than truth.

For previous generations, education was often the process of discovering how much you didn’t know. Today, for many, education has become the process of learning which opinions are safe to hold. One produces independent thinkers, the other produces followers.

The useful idiot is not afraid of being wrong, he is afraid of discovering that his opponents might not be entirely wrong. Because that discovery threatens something far more important than an argument, it threatens belonging and belonging sits at the heart of the phenomenon.

The useful idiot wants to be accepted, needs to be one of the good ones, cries out for the approval of the crowd. Most importantly, he wants certainty. He wants a world divided neatly between good people and bad people, oppressors and oppressed, victims and villains.

Reality is rarely that simple, but the useful idiot cannot afford complexity. Complexity requires thought, thought creates doubt, doubt threatens belonging and belonging is the currency in which modern activism increasingly trades.

This is where the manipulation begins, because the useful idiot is not merely mistaken, he is being used. That is the entire point, because his value lies not in his wisdom, expertise or judgement, but in his ability to provide legitimacy.

If you wish to attack Jews, find a Jew. If you wish to attack women, find a woman. If you wish to attack gay rights, find a gay activist. If you wish to attack democracy, find a democrat.

The useful idiot becomes a human shield, a certificate of authenticity, a permission slip.

“How can this be antisemitic? We have Jews marching right along side us.”

“How can this be misogynistic? A woman agrees and stands with us.”

“How can this be homophobic? He leads us.”

The contradiction itself becomes the product, while this phenomenon has become so commonplace that it barely attracts attention. The phrase “As a Jew…” has become an entire genre of political discourse.

The purpose is rarely expertise, but absolution. The individual is not there because they understand the issue better than everyone else. They are there because they allow everyone else to stop thinking or in many cases to even start.

The useful idiot mistakes this for acceptance, it is not. Acceptance means being valued for who you are, usefulness means being valued for what you can do for someone else.

One is unconditional, the other expires.

7 October did not create the useful idiot, it revealed him. In fact, it revealed millions of them. What followed the massacre was one of the most extraordinary political realignments in modern Western history. A perfect storm emerged, with sections of the progressive left finding themselves marching in lockstep with Islamist movements. Women’s rights groups struggled to condemn the organised rape and sexual violence committed against Israeli women. LGBTQ organisations enthusiastically aligned themselves with causes whose governing philosophies would criminalise homosexuality. Human rights activists found themselves defending organisations that openly reject many of the rights they claim to champion.

The contradiction was obvious, yet millions appeared incapable of seeing it, or perhaps unwilling to. Because once belonging becomes more important than truth, reality becomes negotiable.

The useful idiot no longer asks: “What happens if these people win?” Instead he asks: “What will my tribe think if I question them?” That single shift explains much of modern activism. The useful idiot judges movements by how compassionate they sound, never by what happens when they gain power.

Which brings us to Zack Polanski.

If one were tasked with designing the perfect useful idiot in a laboratory, the result might look remarkably similar.

A gay Jewish progressive politician enthusiastically participating in political coalitions containing individuals who have celebrated 7 October, defended Hamas or aligned themselves with movements fundamentally hostile to both Jewish self-determination and LGBT equality.

The irony is almost too perfect. A Jewish homosexual campaigning alongside people whose ideological fellow travellers would have little patience for either his Jewishness or his sexuality.

Yet this contradiction is precisely what makes him valuable. His Jewishness, sexuality and politics provide legitimacy. He is useful not despite those characteristics, but because of them.

The useful idiot is always more valuable when he can be pointed at. “See? It can’t possibly be antisemitic.” “See? It can’t possibly be homophobic.” “See? One of them agrees with us.”

There is another characteristic of the useful idiot that receives far less attention though. His usefulness often increases when he suffers. The useful idiot imagines he is part of a movement, in reality, he is often the raw material from which the movement sustains itself.

His arrest becomes a rallying cry. His suspension becomes a fundraising email. His dismissal becomes evidence of persecution. His imprisonment becomes a recruitment tool. The movement consumes his sacrifice and converts it into energy. So while the individual pays the price, the organisation collects the dividend.

A successful activist is useful, a victim is invaluable.

This is why so many movements celebrate their martyrs more enthusiastically than their successes. The imprisoned activist, expelled student, arrested protester, cancelled academic. Their suffering becomes political capital, their sacrifice becomes a marketing strategy.

The useful idiot mistakes this process for solidarity; often it is simply extraction. His sacrifice is not an unfortunate consequence of the movement, it is one of its most valuable assets and because he has been taught that suffering is proof of commitment, he becomes even more loyal. The more he loses, the more convinced he becomes. The more he sacrifices, the more righteous he feels. The more he is punished, the more certain he becomes that he is on the correct side of history.

The movement understands this instinctively, the useful idiot rarely does.

Which brings us to Owen Jones.

His experience after attending Buttmitzvah, a queer Jewish club night in London, was a small but perfect illustration of the larger phenomenon.

For years, Jones has displayed impeccable anti-Zionist credentials. He has adopted the language, embraced the causes and attacked the approved targets with a relentless obsession rarely matched. Yet attendance at a Jewish celebration was enough for some to turn on him.

His reaction was revealing, one of confusion, disappointment and a sense of betrayal, but of course there should have been no surprise. The useful idiot often discovers too late that the crowd applauding him never truly accepted him, they simply found him useful.

The lesson Jones encountered in miniature is the same lesson history repeatedly teaches in full. The useful idiot imagines loyalty will eventually be reciprocated, history suggests otherwise. Because the useful idiot is never a partner, he is a tool. Today he is useful for attacking someone else, tomorrow he becomes expendable, he goes back to being the target.

History has met the useful idiot before.

It met him in the Western intellectuals who romanticised Stalin while millions disappeared into gulags. It met him in the secular revolutionaries who marched beside the Islamists in Tehran, convinced they were building the same future. It met him in the idealistic students of Mao’s Cultural Revolution who enthusiastically tore down the old world before the revolution turned its attention towards them.

The flags were different, the slogans were different, the outcome was remarkably similar. The useful idiot is always convinced that he is helping to build a better world. The tragedy is that he rarely stops to ask what the people he is empowering intend to build once they win.

Which is why what happened in Dearborn, Michigan, matters.

For years, many on the progressive left convinced themselves that all minority groups naturally shared the same values and aspirations. Then questions involving sexuality, education, religion and free expression emerged. Suddenly groups that had marched together discovered that they envisioned entirely different societies.

The coalition worked perfectly while it was symbolic, it became much harder when political reality arrived.

Dearborn is not the exception, it is the direction of travel. It is what happens when slogans encounter power, when an alliance built entirely around opposition is forced to answer a much harder question:

What exactly are you trying to build?

That question is coming to Britain too, because there is a profound difference between standing together against something and agreeing on what should replace it.

The useful idiot never understands this distinction. He assumes everyone shares his values, that everyone wants the same future, that loyalty will eventually be rewarded. Instead, he discovers that usefulness has an expiry date.

7 October did not create the useful idiot, it exposed him. It revealed how many people had become so desperate to belong that they stopped asking the most important political question of all: “What happens if these people win?”

It revealed a generation willing to judge movements by how compassionate they sound rather than by the societies they seek to build. A generation prepared to excuse misogyny, homophobia, authoritarianism and violence, provided they arrived wrapped in the correct slogans.

Some will eventually recognise the contradiction, many will not. History suggests that by the time they do, it is often too late. Because the useful idiot is rarely the final victim of the forces he empowers, he is simply the first.

The freedoms he helps erode, the truths he helps suppress and the institutions he helps weaken do not disappear with him. They become the inheritance of the generation that follows, and that is the real danger. Not the damage the useful idiot does to himself, but the damage he enables others to do once he has helped them get where they wanted to go.

7 October should have been a warning, instead, for many, it became a test. A test of whether belonging mattered more than truth, whether slogans mattered more than reality, whether acceptance mattered more than principle. Too many failed.

The tragedy is not that they may one day discover they were being used. The tragedy is that by the time they do, the price will be paid by people far beyond themselves.

History has never been shaped solely by fanatics. More often, it is shaped by ordinary people who convinced themselves that asking difficult questions was less important than being accepted by the crowd.

The useful idiot is rarely the destination, he is the bridge.

The tragedy is that our society is crossing it with him.