All over the world, we can see tendencies towards authoritarianism, illiberal movements, the rise of strongmen and the subversion of democratic institutions within democratic countries. But why would citizens blessed with freedom and prosperity be willing give up these hard-won accomplishments? Why is right-wing populism on the rise in virtually all western civilized countries? Why are there whole chunks of society seemingly immune to reason or basic requirements like informed participation in democratic processes? Are these just conspiracy theorists, not to be taken seriously? Both the multi-nationality of these tendencies as well as their respective magnitude suggest otherwise. So what are the reasons that constitute this trend we have been experiencing for the last ten to fifteen years?
After WWII, it seemed like a large part of the world was united in peace, individual freedom and democracy. Moreover, these values were exported all over the world, and after the fall of the Soviet Union, it seemed like the democratization of the whole world was the inevitable destiny of all mankind. Yet, for quite a while now, we have seen a worrisome trend in many democracies, that is endangering democracy as a form of government, often enough in countries where we thought of it as robust and well-established. All over the place, radical movements, parties and populists sprang up: in the US, Hungary, Poland, Holland, France, and many other western-style democracies.
There seems to be some uniform elements in all these movements: they are mostly nationalist, anti-immigration, anti-globalist, radical in one or more ways, often do the speak out loudly against margin groups like LGBTQ, and are quite as often associated with some form of the Christian Church, like the Evangelicals in the US, or the ultra-nationalist catholics in Poland. Also, they mostly give their radicalism some sort of ostentatiously benign messaging: they often disguise themselves as concerned, conservative citizens, merely speaking out for traditional values (whatever they might be), stress the importance of the traditional family as the undeniable, necessary atom of good social structure, and pretend to make a claim for freedom, which is virtually always only self-serving: they represent their freedom, but want to take away freedoms from the LGBTQ-groups like same-sex-marriages, or from women, may it concern their right for abortion or that they want to redefine their role in society altogether.
I, for one, am both surprised and horrified by these right-wing movements. In the past, I disregarded them, as blips and shreds of a by-gone era. But now, it is undeniably true that large portions of societies in democratic countries have been subsumed by this trend. Hence, I feel propelled to look for the reasons behind it, but not without a certain uneasy feeling when doing so – because an intuition grabs hold of me, that there might be something more sinister, evil behind what meets the eye – something more profoundly wrong to be found when analyzed correctly. After some reading and reflection, I found a few I believe major reasons, which I will describe in a short and hopefully concise manner here:
Capitalism is leaving people behind
Throughout the history of democracy, the times when it was endangered the most where those of economic stress – to put it bluntly, when people are not able to address their basic needs, they do not only revolt themselves, but tend to be much more open towards radicals and strongmen than during times of prosperity and wealth. That is as much a historically proven point as it is understandable – once you do not have enough money to buy food, you will successively adopt more and more radical strategies to improve your situation. Hence, it is just basic human nature that drives that trend to authoritarianism or radicalism. The most prominent example is the one of Nazi Germany: under the weight of the heavy reparations to be paid under the treaty of Versailles that had officially ended World War I, and fueled by an international economic crisis, people looked for alternatives on the political spectrum and were henceforth seduced and manipulated by extremists who promised them better times. The first argument is always the one of nationalism, which is a straightforward as possible: if you are not doing well as an individual, you are much more likely to focus solely on your needs and desires. This strategy translates directly to the state level: in times of economic turmoil nationalism usually takes a huge uptake. And frankly, a lot of people around the world, especially in the US, feel like they are in an ecumenically stressful place right now: capitalism has rarely produced anything for the common good in the last few decades, but only concentrated immense wealth in the hands of the few, instead of spreading it out over the masses. The gap between rich and poor has ben widening drastically for the last thirty-something years, ever more people were left behind, with often the most basic necessities left unfulfilled, like access to affordable health care, or other fundamental goods. Especially in the US, too many people are excluded from what used to be called the American dream, which is successively turning into a nightmare for ever more people. It is hence the primary reason, the breeding ground for populists to rise, who seem to provide easy answers to complex systems like the economy is, by slogans of nationalism like “America first”. They exploit the unfulfilled needs and the hardship many Americans have experienced and still are experiencing, by funneling discontent and anger solely for their political gain – but, once elected, either have no strategy in place to deal with the issues, lack the will to put those in place, or even do the opposite, like Trump, who only strengthened the capitalist system of unfairness.
People seem to get tired of political discourse
Democratic systems are set up to work slowly. There is debates, there is conferences, there are expert hearings, there is discussion, there is the law-making process, and with it the lobbying for one side or the other. All of these things take time. But this is time well spent – we want to be sure we got it right before we sign something into law. That is as easy as I can catch the essence of democracy. Citizens, representatives, and law-makers need to be informed before they can form an opinion, a conviction or a resolution towards a certain topic. This is one of the most essential elements of democracy: there always needs to be debate, whether it will lead to a balanced compromise or an informed decision. Our law-makers cannot be experts on any topic, so they need time, and should take time, to come to be best-informed decision possible. Yet, some people seem to have a blatant disregard or ignorance towards this vitally important democratic process. Instead of debating, even fighting on the issues, they seem to withdraw, and rather talk to individuals who are already in the same camp as they are, agree with them, no matter if they are holding on to a prejudice, an ill-informed conviction, or some outright stupidity. Instead of engaging with their opponents, which can lead to unfruitful clash of opinions, they rather withdraw to the comfort and the social warmth of the group which is already in congruence with what they think, whether it be a certain issue or a whole ideology. People close themselves off from the exhaustiveness of debates, from hearing other sides or viewpoints, from considering alternatives, from balancing out their views – all of which are vital elements in the process of opinion-forming in a democratic way. Instead of reaching for compromise, we find radicalization, the ever widening gap between rightists and leftists, and more and more withdrawal into one group or the other.
Lack of a common enemy
In the Oliver Stone movie JFK, a mysterious informant who calls himself Mr. X puts forward an interesting statement: “The constitutive principle of a state is: we are going to war.” I think there is some truth to that: after the Soviet Union had collapsed, and the cold war was over, there was no more common enemy that people could rally against. But nothing rallies people up, binds them together like a common enemy. So basically, they look for a substitute, and imagine one – in the gestalt of their political opponent. I am writing “opponent” here, because that should be the term used for the other side of where one stands politically. Yet, in our time, “enemy” is the more apt notion: the gaps have widened, they are now deep and far like canyons between the political left and right. The late … once said that he remembered a time not so long ago, where Republicans and Democrats would work together in the Capitol. Now, it seems the positions are so far apart, because the Republicans have adopted crazy and quixotic concepts and positions, like still believing the last presidential election was stolen, or adapting some or most of the ridiculous QAnon conspiracy theory.
There is another movie I would like to quote here: David Fincher’s Fight Club, in which the main protagonist states: “We are the second born in history, we are a generation of men lost. We have no great war to fight, no great depression – our great depression is our lives …” So maybe it is that simple: we have failed, as a society, to give men purpose in life, important goals to work for, essential fights to fight. And now, it seems, men are picking their own fights, even if it means bringing up arms against each other. Quite possibly, this element of the rise of authoritarianism is a particularly male one. Or maybe the reason goes beyond gender, as Tom Nichols puts it in his book “Our Own Worst Enemy”:
„But why are people who are already free, and who are by any relative measure materially and politically better off than those in more repressive states, attacking their own systems of government? The answers are as disturbing as they are counterintuitive: We are losing because we won. We are suffering because we are successful. We are unhappy because we have what we want.“
Maybe we, and I mean humanity as species, need a great depression, a war to fight, hardship to endure. Or maybe we are just a destructive species. I will leave that point for greater minds than mine to decide.
The position and attitude of the radical right is self-contradictory
It seems to me that a lot of people who position themselves at the far-right or even extreme-right spectrum have neither fully comprehended their own attitude and/or are completely oblivious about the long stretches of history that were needed for humanity to reach the state of peace, freedom and prosperity it has enjoyed throughout the time since WWII had ended. If you seriously want to represent the claims of the far right, you do not understand that your position is self-contradictory. For example, you exercise your right to free speech when doing so – but you are not aware that you only have that right since you live in a place that allows it. In another example, the far right assume they have the right to protest, organize as a movement, hold rallies and so on. Again, they just assume that right, while being completely oblivious about the fact that these are essential democratic rights, which are by no means a given. Organizing like the far right do in parties and movements would not be even allowed in many countries, as in China, for example. Therefore, the radical right assumes and uses democratic rights while at the same time using those rights to deny others the same rights – LGBTQ-people, for example. They choose a lifestyle, a political attitude, while not granting others the same right. Lincoln once famously said, that no man deserves freedom who does not grant it to another man. But even without the history lesson, it is obvious enough that the far right just assumes that their position is more justified than those of others – again, a completely baseless and false assumption. The fact that they are allowed to proclaim that position makes them all Hippocrates, because they actively deny others what they are assuming to be naturally gifted to themselves.
Being oblivious about history
Point D was not so much a reason for the far right to have emerged, but an observation of their contradictory position. Yet, this observation fuels the following, which I think is one of the reasons behind the rise of hate-filled populism: being completely oblivious about history. It seems to me like all of the people who put up a stand for radically right-wing concepts or ideas seem to forget that most of us did not have to fight for our many freedoms, did not have to survive times of war get to peace, and did not have to endure extreme material hardship to slowly build up prosperity. From a historic point of view, all these things are relatively new, and none of them are a given. Literally millions of people had to suffer and die during World War II. 70 million – the number is impossible to comprehend – had to die, so we can enjoy peace in our time. People of today act like things like peace, freedom and relative material safety (meaning you do not have to starve) are hard-won accomplishments of human civilization, and are noone’s birth right.
Blatant stupidity
I am not enjoying myself as I am writing this – I wish for some people to be more educated as they are, and wish their parents had put as much stress on good education as mine did. I once heard a friend of mine who is from China say that “western democracies were paralyzed by idiots with a vote.” While China has no desirable social structure itself at all, I think he does have a point. There is simply too many people who do not invest enough time to educate themselves about complex, yet extremely important issues, like the dynamics of the global economy and the main features of capitalism, for example. I am merely being honest when I say that hence, to me, their opinions count less. If a person projects their anger on feeling left behind, or not earning enough on immigrants or homosexual people, I just cannot help myself but disrespect that person. I personally believe that this reaction is justified, too. Maybe someday someone with higher moral clarity than I will tell me different, but until then I hold on to the belief that often enough people shout out opinions and feelings on matters they do not the least understand. And since I am a person who at least tries to only judge matters I have thought my way through or got educated by a book, I can never bring myself to respect prejudice, ignorance and stupidity.
The omnipresence of social media
I do not think I have to elaborate very much here … there is a good documentary on Netflix, called The Social Dilemma, that sufficiently illustrates the point. In summary – !!! spoiler alert!!! – it proves that anger, hate and lies spread faster and wider than anything else on a social network, and that Facebook’s and Twitter’s algorithms make it even worse, by enhancing the spread of what keeps users engaged the most: by showing comments and posts of anger, hate and lies. Here’s a link to the trailer on youtube.
What the documentary does not quite grasp is the historically unique character of social networks. Facebook and its likes have only been around briefly in human history – and offer up radically new perspectives and possibilities. Never before could human beings engage in discussion, even if they are thousands of miles apart, and never before was the possible reach of a single message basically infinite. Maybe … and this is a big maybe … social networks are too new to pass final judgment on them. Maybe they need to grow up, like so many things before them needed to. Maybe, in the future, lawmakers will find ways to limit the detrimental effects of social networks. Maybe, in the future, the engineers of networks will find ways to regulate themselves better. At least, not all hope is lost for social networks. But for now, they exhibit socially toxic attributes – and I am not solely talking about Facebook. Instagram is just as bad, with whole generations of teenagers disturbed in their growing up stage through the physical ideals they are swamped with on Instagram.
This is also why I – for the most part – do not use any sort of social network. It is not the sole reason: I just prefer the personal touch of meeting people face to face. This project has a twitter account, but it is not like we are posting twenty times a day – only sufficiently relevant messages are put there, so we are using Twitter as a kind of pinboard for important news around planAlpha.
Trumpism
I think it was during the Obama presidency when the GOP realized they had grown sort of unelectable to the average American. In their need and desolation, they turned to two things: first, ever more radicalism in their positions, but also the trend to puffing up non-issues like gender-identity mainly on their primary medium, FOX News, which only served the purpose of covering up the fact that they had no real political agenda, no topic-oriented issues, no solutions for problems to offer in the political discourse. Republicans just want to get elected – by whatever means necessary. The second issue reminds me of the scene in the Dark Knight, where Alfred warns Batman that the mafia, in their times of need, tuned to a man they did not fully understand – the Joker. I do not think the GOP comprehended in the slightest what would happen once they allowed Trump to take the wheel. Within a few years, he transformed the party to his liking – and for the worse. Now, anyone who is not in line with Trump is called a Rino, and quickly becomes an outsider in his or her party. One by one, all Republicans have bowed before Trump, to the point that today, Trump effectively is the Republican Party. That is how fascism started in Germany: the growing, all encompassing cult around one individual – the savior and master. Once the Republicans were a party with a clear agenda and political profile – now they have succumbed to Trumpism almost entirely. Once again: that is how totalitarianism started, in too many historical instances.
In summary, we are looking at a complex, multidimensionally caused phenomenon. There are many other influences that play a role here, like populist leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, or especially Donald Trump have moved previously socially unacceptable concepts and language from the fringe to the mainstream – like specifically inciting political violence, for example in Trumps case. But most of these issues are those who either are follow up phenomena, or events and persons that stoke and stabilize an already existing trend – Trump could have never have happened if there had not been the political framework, i.e. the Republican Party, and a socially relevant movement that had formed prior to him. I think the above reasons are more fundamental ones in that way.
There is another nice quote from the book previously mentioned and recommended below, by which I would like to finish this essay:
„I suggest that we think about whether Americans and other citizens of the advanced democracies have become victims of the command—this time issued from within ourselves, rather than by an alien commander—to “Do as you please.” The past forty years in most of the developed world have been decades of unequaled peace and prosperity. In the twenty-first century, income inequality has skyrocketed, but arguments about income differences are arguments primarily about justice, not standards of living; modern Americans of all classes and other citizens of the wealthy democracies are now plagued by self-destructive consumption and sky-high levels of expectation. Do we even realize it?“
Recommendation:
If you would like to read more on the rise of authoritarianism, I recommend Tom Nichols’ Our Own Worst Enemy. He explains the topic both concisely and precisely, approaches it from various points of view: historically and sociologically, as well as psychologically, which makes the book a great read.
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