FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Right-wing populists expose and exaggerate the cracks in a crisis-torn society, but fail to address them in any coherent and systematic way.
I thought of an orange-skinned former trash talk show host who lives in a luxury seaside estate. He has a history of making racist and Islamophobic comments, of blaming asylum seekers for bringing disease to the country and of insulting the "invisible metropolitan elite".
He joined a right-wing political party and remodeled it in his own image, presenting himself as the antidote to politics — as usual, stirring up culture wars and using the platform to boost his ego. I am of course describing former British politician Robert Kilroy-Silk.
After being sacked from his job as a presenter by the BBC following racist comments in the Sunday Express in 2004, he joined Ukip (the forerunner of Nigel Farage's UK Reform Party), energizing it and captivating the media with controversies of the cultural war against the EU, immigrants and "political stability".
But when Ukip could no longer sustain his ego, he broke away and started his own political party in 2005, Veritas (popularly called Vanitas), which quickly crashed and burned.
Although more moderate, the same for Silvio Berlusconi, media owner and culture warrior, who as a politician made extreme efforts to hide his baldness. He became the demagogic, right-wing Italian prime minister, seeking (successfully) to return to power after being ousted from office following a long series of sexual, financial and criminal scandals.
Like those of Donald Trump, his loyal supporters somehow managed to overlook his moral repugnance, childish attention-seeking and love affair with Vladimir Putin and saw him as the savior who would make Italy great again.
Of course, there are differences between these people, but every time one of these characters appears, we are displeased by them. We react as if we are dealing with something new and seem to have no idea how to respond. But there are patterns to the emergence of far-right demagogues: patterns that repeat themselves with remarkable fidelity. By learning and understanding them, we can better protect ourselves.
I spent part of the summer reading Arno Mayer, the great historian who died in 2023. His book The Dynamics of Counterrevolution in Europe, 1870-1956, published in 1971, could have been written about any of the right-wing populists we face. today: Trump, Farage, Viktor Orbán, Benjamin Netanyahu, Narendra Modi, the leaders of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, the National Rally in France, the Brothers of Italy and – most recently – Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson.
Mayer's descriptions of the demagogues of his period are extremely popular. These leaders created the impression "that they seek fundamental changes in government, society and community". But in reality, because they relied on the patronage of the "incumbent elite" to gain power (think, today, of media moguls like Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk and Paul Marshall, and various billionaire financiers), they did not they demanded big changes. In fact, they ensured that these were supported. "They should insult the current elites and institutions without ruling out cooperation with them." So their project "is much more militant in rhetoric, style and behavior than in political, social and economic content".
For this reason, Mayer explains how right-wing populists expose and exaggerate the fissures in a crisis-torn society, but fail to "address them in any coherent and systematic way."
They direct popular anger away from real elites and toward imaginary conspiracies and minorities. They variously blame these minorities (be they Jews, Muslims, asylum seekers, immigrants, blacks) for their feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness, giving them immediate targets on which to vent their frustrations and hatreds.
The false firebrands, Mayer notes, also unleashed "rampant broadsides against science" (think climate science denial, to which almost all of today's right-wing demagogues subscribe), and against innovation, modernism, and cosmopolitanism. They combined "the praise of traditional attitudes and patterns of behavior with the charge that these are being corrupted, subverted and polluted by conspiratorial agents and influences".
The demagogues of Mayer's era deliberately took an "ambiguous stance" when people who might have been inspired by their claims committed acts of violence—inflaming the attacks and distancing themselves from them. This may bring back memories of Donald Trump during the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Modi during the anti-Muslim pogroms and Farage's video made after the Southport murders, which is seen by many as responsible for last month's racist riots.
But there is a big difference. In Mayer's era, the development of what he called "crisis strata" of disillusioned and angry people to whom demagogues turned was the result of destructive war or state collapse. Agitators were able to appeal to both angry working-class men and restless elites by invoking the specter of leftist revolution. None of these conditions apply today in countries like ours. So how does the current crop of populists succeed? I think they are responding to a crisis caused by another force: 45 years of neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism simultaneously promises the world and robs it. It shows us that if you work hard enough, you too can be an alpha. But it also creates the conditions that ensure that no matter how hard you work, you are likely to remain dependent and exploited. It has enabled the formation of a new rentier class, which owns essential assets and ruthlessly exploits the young and the poorest. Young people enter a world of promise - only to find that all the golden doors are locked and someone else has the key.
It is in the wide gap between the promises of neoliberalism and their fulfillment that frustration, humiliation and the desire for revenge grow: the same emotions that followed military defeat or state collapse in Mayer's time. These impulses are then exploited by conflict entrepreneurs. Today, some of these entrepreneurs participate in the post; others, using opportunities not available in previous eras, monetize outrage, making a fortune through their social media.
Understanding the tradition these demagogues follow, which long predates the rise of fascism in the 20th century, should help us develop a more effective response to them. We begin to see this in Kamala Harris' intelligent campaign, which, unlike Joe Biden's, has begun to come down heavily on Trump and Vance, drawing attention to their creepy intrusions into people's private lives and attacks on their basic freedoms. If we want to predict and stop the authoritarian rule of the extreme right, we must seek to understand their terrifying persistence./ Adapted "Pamphlet" from "The Guardian"
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