January 25, 2021

By Thomas Klikauer and Nadine Campbell

It is most likely that even with the official demise of Donald Trump, deep ideological divisions in the USA will remain. This could be despite Joe Biden's best efforts in the coming months, if not years. What might be called a shared vision and the trust in a common good is increasing in short supply. Throughout the year 2021, there is a very good chance that right-wing populism could remain successful in the USA. It has been said that making predictions is difficult, especially when it concerns the future. Yet, there is ample evidence that right-wing populism and even right-wing extremism will not disappear into thin air.

US novelist and writer Richard Ford – usually a very good seismographer of the US, its middle-class, manhood, etc. – paints a menacing picture of the USA's current state. Recently, Ford did so in the wake of the right-wing storm on Capitol Hill in Washington DC on the 6th of January 2021. Despite selling itself as the beacon of democracy, the pictures of the failed coup d'etat went around the world encouraging ideas like the US Banana Republic. Not since 1898, when white supremacists overthrew a US government had the USA seen something comparable. Even before the 6th of January, some have argued that Donald Trump is a neo-fascist. Even though putting migrant children into cages does not make a Kinder KZ. Notwithstanding, Trump follows the nine known fascist ideals:

1.     a strong disdain for human rights;

2.     rampant anti-intellectualism;

3.     populism's celebration of white nationalism;

4.     a cult of white male leadership;

5.     protecting corporate power;

6.     the elevation of pejorative emotion over critical insight;

7.     rampant cronyism;

8.     a disdain for dissent and intellectuals, and

9.     an explicit endorsement of violence against political enemies.

Until the 20th of January 2021, an insane president was ruling a country where almost half of the population believes in conspiracy theories like babies are eaten in the basement of a Pizzeria in Washington DC – the infamous Pizzagate. With the rise of the Coronavirus pandemic, even more, conspiracy theories are pushed in right-wing echo-chambers and – until Donald Trump's demise – by an elected government. Internet misinformation (wrong information) and disinformation (deliberately and knowingly spreading wrong information) constitute what Oxford University recently and correctly called computational propaganda.

Even in a post-Trump era, the USA is still dangerously close to sinking even deeper into irrationality and paranoia. It is very conceivable that Joe Biden's national unification rhetoric of reconciliation will bounce off many people like an egg in a Teflon pan. North American racists and conspiracy believers – making up half of the Republican electorate – are most highly receptive to ideological and conspiratorial offers from the extreme right. A discourse, many in the Republican party's somewhat more moderate Bush wing might not be so inclined – one would hope.

Meanwhile, many inside and outside the USA remain hopeful that Biden can indeed end a Trump-style policy of ideological hostility that is fast tearing apart the United States. Others might hope his policies will dry up the murky swamp of right-wing populism. Today, there are two common patterns capable of explaining why right-wing populism has a resonating space. On the one hand, there is a cultural-ideological explanation while on the other hand, there is an economic explanation.

In a cultural-ideological reading of right-wing populism, Italo-neo-fascists like Salvini and his US counterpart Trump may well represent a hysterical reaction of white men to a world in which equal rights are perceived as a threat to their white male privileges. The core troops of this sort of right-wing populism are white men. A whopping 58% of white men voted for Trump in 2020. This alone should make us Go Bonobos in 2021 as Susan Block called it recently. Beyond that, although radical, heretical, and even outright blasphemous, her suggestion is a more thoughtful one. It might even secure human survival.

There is much evidence favouring understanding today's right-wing populism as an aggressively and semi-nostalgic reaction to the recent achievements of feminism, diverse culture, political correctness, BLM, multiculturalism, gay rights, etc. However, this does not explain why more Latinos and white lower-class women voted for Trump in 2020 compared to 2016.

Moral Self-Exaltation

The cultural-ideological reading of right-wing populism can lead to a kind of complacency. Progressives and liberals embody progress and enlightenment in the imaginary world of right-wing populism. Set against them and social advancement, right-wing populists portray themselves as morally superior, defending a romantic hallucination of a conservative society based on male patriarchal privileges. Yet, their moralising self-exaltation is part of the problem rather than the solution.

In addition, one wonders: what follows from this? Turning back women's emancipation is no longer a viable option – not even for right-wing populism in the USA. Thus, in this interpretation, one barely gets handwringing in the firm consciousness of belonging to what right-wing populism perceives as the good cause.

On the other hand, right-wing populism can also be interpreted as a distorted echo of growing injustice. The gap between rich and poor is constantly growing in OECD countries. From the UK Labour party to the French Socialists to the US Democrats, many ex-workers' parties have turned to the neo-liberal paradigm defending and supporting the neoliberal elite. Meanwhile, they have largely forgotten their old core clientele. In many places, right-wing populists have, at least temporarily, succeeded in presenting themselves as the new workers' parties.

A rather pleasing aspect of this narrative of justice suggests practical conclusions, unlike the cultural-ideological understanding. In this scenario, progressives can return to their core competencies like global solidarity, social justice, human progress, and environmentalism. However, it would be perilous to believe that the right-wing populist ghosts will disappear if progressives resolutely rely on redistribution and anti-elitism alone.

Emotions and Irrationality

Despite the best effort of the demagogues of what is euphemistically labelled rational choice theory, today's supporters of right-wing populism are not rational choice voters. Their material interests do not guide them. Instead, Trumpism and its ideologically twisted crypto-idealism feed off emotions and irrationality. It is fostering Nietzsche's resentment and the spirit of revenge. It is emotion – not rational.

In addition, the success of Trump and other right-wing populists is more than just an expression of a revolt of – as Hilary Clinton once called them – a basket of deplorables. In the 2020 US election, people earning less than $50,000 a year were more likely to vote for Biden (55%) than Trump (44%). In short, both interpretations – cultural-ideological and economic – explain some aspects of right-wing populism. Yet, both also have obvious gaps and shortcomings.

The depressing and distressing attractiveness of right-wing populism can be understood as a  twisted version of justice's distributive narrative. But two other elements are added: education and dignity. One can outline a kind of movement that was and is the background for Trump's politics of resentment. In the USA, the belief that education alone can get you to the top is still unbroken. In one speech, President Obama, for example, used the ideological phrase – You can make it if you try – a whopping 140 times. It feeds on the hallucination of the American way even though British epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson's empirical evidence led to the conclusion, if you want to live the American dream, go to Denmark.

Apart from ideology and dreaming, reality shows that an educational aristocracy has established itself in the USA. It literally buys access to Harvard and Yale for the next generation of the new elite. Simultaneously, corporate media hammer the elite university's status and inspire people to aspire to a place they factually cannot access.

To this new elite, education is the ticket for success and privilege that the rich continue to enjoy. Meanwhile, in the lower fifth of society, one can hope for a lottery win (without having any real statistical chance) rather than becoming an Ivy League student. There is no market for the Ivy League – hence the free-market ideology.

Markets and Justice

Even self-announced mini-liberals like Hillary Clinton have – very occasionally – spoken out against market-based justice challenging une idée fixe that everyone, regardless of skin colour, class, religion or sexual preference, could rise to the top. In this vision, everyone gets what they deserve. Performance, success, and justice fall onto everyone equally – a nice liberal hallucination is fostered daily.

Meanwhile, in regional areas, for the older middle classes, who have never seen a university from the inside, this sounds like pure mockery. In this seemingly equal performance utopia, they remain marginal. In today's digital, globalised capitalism, things are going downhill rather rapidly for them. It does so monetarily, culturally and politically.

Even if the American society was social-upwardly permeable and upward mobility were not sealed off by the elite, the idea that everyone is entirely to blame for their success and failure remains oppressive. Beyond that, it humiliates those who are below. All hierarchies do that whether its university rankings or through performance management.

For Trump, those below are important. It became apparent when he said, 'I love the poorly educated' perhaps because they are easy to manipulate through his Twitter propaganda. Donald Trump does not even need Poison Ivy. With that, Trump almost instinctively hit the vulnerable while contradicting the Democrats' narrative.

Donald Trump used the inequality between the super-rich and the average citizen whose real wages have been falling in the last thirty years for his political advancement. According to a survey by the US Federal Reserve, almost half of US citizens are unable to raise $400 in an emergency. This is the pool, Donald Trump and adjacent right-wing populism seeks to access.

Growing Despair

One might point to another striking development that indicates a growing desperation in the middle of society. A fall of life expectancy – which was rising for decades in the United States –has been falling for three years. The decline was particularly sharply for men living in regional areas.

Restoring the lost dignity of work and jobs sacrificed to the immorality of neoliberalism's effectiveness and the hallucination of a free market can be the starting point of a democratic political project. This is not the project of middle-of-the-road Democrats but a strong conviction and dedication to communitarianism. The political philosophy of communitarianism is not remote to the idea of freedom. It is part of a strategy of many progressives in Europe.

Of course, this always demands a somewhat utopian mindset while putting existing communities at the centre. It is highly sceptical of neoliberalism's faked promises of free-market globalisation. It distrusts the ravenous logic of the market, and it refuses to sing along to the hymn of liberalism's equal opportunity which – in reality – cements inequality and annihilates social mobility.

Even more important, this should be linked to a Green New Deal. This includes plans to increase unemployment benefits and the minimum wage, invest in ailing public infrastructure, stabilising the health care system and creating climate-friendly jobs. One might argue that Biden is far too close to Wall Street as the Clintons. Time will tell if Biden Democrats will be able to draw the inevitable conclusion of all this: Biden Democrats will have to abandon their time-honoured alliance with Wall Street.

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The above article is written with UK spelling.