On the morning of April 23, 2017, as the polls opened in the ninth arrondissement of Paris, an old man with a cane positioned himself in front of a bright yellow mailbox and began to scrape. After a few minutes, he sauntered away toward the markets of the rue des Martyrs, leaving a torn and scratched relic of the modified hammer-and-sickle logo of the hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, La France Insoumise (“Rebellious” or, literally, “Unsubmissive France”).
The old man, evidently no fan of Mélenchon’s anticapitalist, anti-NATO, pro-Russian rhetoric, had reason to worry. In neighborhoods like this, the epicenter of Paris hipsterdom, Mélenchon polled well. Everyone from student protesters to academics and the well-to-do scions of one of the city’s wealthiest families told me they were voting for the ex-communist firebrand. (...)
Le Pen and Mélenchon together drew nearly 50 percent of the youth vote in the first round, splitting the 18-34 age bracket evenly. Unlike in Britain’s Brexit referendum, the young did not support the status quo; they voted for extremists who want to leave the EU.
Those who believe millennials are immune to authoritarian ideas are mistaken. Using data from the World Values Survey, the political scientists Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk have painted a worrying picture. As the French election demonstrated, belief in core tenets of liberal democracy is in decline, especially among those born after 1980. Their findings challenge the idea that after achieving a certain level of prosperity and political liberty, countries that have become democratic do not turn back.
In America, 72 percent of respondents born before World War II deemed it absolutely essential to live in a democracy; only 30 percent of millennials agreed. The figures were similar in Holland. The number of Americans favoring a strong leader unrestrained by elections or parliaments has increased from 24 to 32 percent since 1995. More alarmingly, the number of Americans who believe that military rule would be good or very good has risen from 6 to 17 percent over the same period. The young and wealthy were most hostile to democratic norms, with fully 35 percent of young people with a high income regarding army rule as a good thing. Mainstream political science, confident in decades of received wisdom about democratic “consolidation” and stability, seemed to be ignoring a disturbing shift in public opinion.
There could come a day when, even in wealthy Western nations, liberal democracy ceases to be the only game in town. And when that day comes, those who once embraced democracy could begin to entertain other options. Even Ronald Inglehart, the celebrated eighty-three-year-old political scientist who developed his theory of democratic consolidation more than four decades ago, has conceded that falling incomes, rising inequality, and the abject dysfunction of many governments—especially America’s—have led to declining support for democracy. If such trends continue, he wrote in response to Foa and Mounk, “then the long-run outlook for democracy is indeed bleak.” Part of voters’ disillusionment stems from the political establishment’s failure to confront very real tensions and failures of integration, opening the door for a web-savvy army of right-wing propagandists who put forth arguments that are both offensive and easily digestible.
Others have been more nuanced. Christopher Caldwell’s provocative 2009 book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, stood out from the chorus of shrill, alarmist writers who warned that mass migration posed a fundamental threat to European culture and stability. His was a serious and carefully argued book. The central question he posed was, “Can Europe be the same with different people in it?” He held that the erosion of old Christian values and a strong sense of national pride in much of Western Europe weakened the cultural identity of countries to the point that they were no match for the all-encompassing identity offered by Islam.
This account seemed prescient when it was published, but it was premature. The rhetoric of anti-immigration parties and right-wing propagandists has propelled the rise of a powerful countervailing form of extremism: white identity politics. In France, this movement was not strong enough to put Marine Le Pen in power, but it did garner over one-third of valid votes cast in France’s presidential runoff. And like fundamentalist Muslims, white nationalists idealize a pure, imagined past. Both extremist visions feed off one another, and they have the power to tear Europe apart.
The nagging question today is which Europe will ultimately win. In the wake of Macron’s victory in the French election, it is tempting to think that the plague of populist nationalism has been banished. That would be naive.
Within minutes of Macron’s win on May 7, 2017, the triumphalism began across the world. Macron defeats radicalism, proclaimed Spain’s El País. France stems tide of populist revolution, Britain’s Independent cheered. White nationalism gets thumped, declared David Leonhardt in The New York Times the next morning. The euphoria that greeted Macron’s victory is understandable but dangerous. Le Pen’s FN won over 10.5 million votes, double the number her father received in 2002, drawing in supporters from both the far left and center right. She ran a serious and competent campaign, unlike other far-right figures. As with Holland, where Geert Wilders’s weaker-than-expected showing in the March 2017 election was interpreted as a signal that populism’s march had been halted, there is no cause for celebration, as the strong showing of Austria’s right-wing populist Freedom Party in Sunday’s election proved.
Wilders performed poorly because the few times he did campaign, he was surrounded by a phalanx of armed guards in small villages filled with supporters. Le Pen, by contrast, stumped all across the country and braved crowds throwing eggs at her in staunchly anti-FN Brittany. She even tried to upstage Macron in his hometown, Amiens, where he waded into a hostile crowd of striking Whirlpool workers and, rather than pandering, told them he wouldn’t make any “airy promises” to avert the closure of their factory. When Le Pen heard he was going to visit, she descended on the site with her entourage first, seeking to bolster her credentials with workers whom she knew would not be receptive to Macron’s free-market message. It was a bold move akin to Trump’s visit to an Indiana air conditioner factory a few weeks after the election, where he sought to show that he was already saving American jobs.
Even in Paris, where Le Pen’s posters were routinely defaced with the word “SATAN,” there was no unanimity about how to fight her. Unlike in 2002, the front républicain that had battered Le Pen the elder did not materialize this time. Macron’s victory, with 66 percent of the vote, was a convincing one, but it was nowhere near Jacques Chirac’s 82 percent score—a testament to what Marine Le Pen has achieved. After the FN’s loss, Le Pen gave a concession speech that sounded more like a campaign rally for the upcoming legislative elections. If the FN finally abandons its name and the baggage that comes with it, new leaders, like Le Pen’s young and telegenic niece, Marion-Maréchal, may be able to de-demonize the party in a way that Marine could not.
Too many people on the European left scoff at nationalism, mistaking their own distaste for evidence that the phenomenon no longer exists or is somehow illegitimate. If 2016 and 2017 have proven anything, it is that this sort of visceral nationalism, or loyalty to one’s in-group, still exists and is not going away. Those who dismiss this sort of national sentiment as backward and immature do so at their own peril.
What the globalists of the transnational elite miss is that not everyone has the luxury of leaving. Those who don’t have the education and skills to travel abroad often resent those who do. To compensate, they identify strongly with the place they come from and support politicians who promise to protect them from both genuine and imaginary threats. They do not have the luxury of voting with their feet, but their protest is felt at the polls.
To dismiss the populist impulse as something completely alien is to miss the point and to preemptively lose the political debate. With or without actual control of the government, they have proved they can exert influence and shape debates without ever wielding formal power.
The first step in any coherent political project to counter right-wing populists is to reject the fear that fuels their popularity and resist the temptation to adopt their policies. Very few leaders have done this. In Holland and Denmark, the center right and the social-democratic left have largely caved and adopted planks from the populists’ platform. The left has lost much of its old base by appearing to care only about free trade, technological progress, and limitless diversity. This scares many people who used to vote for the Democratic Party, British Labour, or European Social Democrats.
Nativist politicians like Trump or Holland’s Geert Wilders are not particularly concerned with bread-and-butter issues, and their economic policies aren’t terribly helpful to workers and the poor. But because there is often no class-based counterargument coming from the left, it is easy for right-wing populists to seize that political terrain; it is an open space. Once the old economic battle lines disappear, realignment becomes very easy. The challenge for today’s left is to acknowledge these voters’ fears and offer policies that help address their grievances without making the sort of moral concessions that lead toward reactionary illiberal policies.
by Sasha Polakow-Suransky, NYRB | Read more:
Image: Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters
The old man, evidently no fan of Mélenchon’s anticapitalist, anti-NATO, pro-Russian rhetoric, had reason to worry. In neighborhoods like this, the epicenter of Paris hipsterdom, Mélenchon polled well. Everyone from student protesters to academics and the well-to-do scions of one of the city’s wealthiest families told me they were voting for the ex-communist firebrand. (...)
Le Pen and Mélenchon together drew nearly 50 percent of the youth vote in the first round, splitting the 18-34 age bracket evenly. Unlike in Britain’s Brexit referendum, the young did not support the status quo; they voted for extremists who want to leave the EU.
Those who believe millennials are immune to authoritarian ideas are mistaken. Using data from the World Values Survey, the political scientists Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk have painted a worrying picture. As the French election demonstrated, belief in core tenets of liberal democracy is in decline, especially among those born after 1980. Their findings challenge the idea that after achieving a certain level of prosperity and political liberty, countries that have become democratic do not turn back.In America, 72 percent of respondents born before World War II deemed it absolutely essential to live in a democracy; only 30 percent of millennials agreed. The figures were similar in Holland. The number of Americans favoring a strong leader unrestrained by elections or parliaments has increased from 24 to 32 percent since 1995. More alarmingly, the number of Americans who believe that military rule would be good or very good has risen from 6 to 17 percent over the same period. The young and wealthy were most hostile to democratic norms, with fully 35 percent of young people with a high income regarding army rule as a good thing. Mainstream political science, confident in decades of received wisdom about democratic “consolidation” and stability, seemed to be ignoring a disturbing shift in public opinion.
There could come a day when, even in wealthy Western nations, liberal democracy ceases to be the only game in town. And when that day comes, those who once embraced democracy could begin to entertain other options. Even Ronald Inglehart, the celebrated eighty-three-year-old political scientist who developed his theory of democratic consolidation more than four decades ago, has conceded that falling incomes, rising inequality, and the abject dysfunction of many governments—especially America’s—have led to declining support for democracy. If such trends continue, he wrote in response to Foa and Mounk, “then the long-run outlook for democracy is indeed bleak.” Part of voters’ disillusionment stems from the political establishment’s failure to confront very real tensions and failures of integration, opening the door for a web-savvy army of right-wing propagandists who put forth arguments that are both offensive and easily digestible.
Others have been more nuanced. Christopher Caldwell’s provocative 2009 book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, stood out from the chorus of shrill, alarmist writers who warned that mass migration posed a fundamental threat to European culture and stability. His was a serious and carefully argued book. The central question he posed was, “Can Europe be the same with different people in it?” He held that the erosion of old Christian values and a strong sense of national pride in much of Western Europe weakened the cultural identity of countries to the point that they were no match for the all-encompassing identity offered by Islam.
This account seemed prescient when it was published, but it was premature. The rhetoric of anti-immigration parties and right-wing propagandists has propelled the rise of a powerful countervailing form of extremism: white identity politics. In France, this movement was not strong enough to put Marine Le Pen in power, but it did garner over one-third of valid votes cast in France’s presidential runoff. And like fundamentalist Muslims, white nationalists idealize a pure, imagined past. Both extremist visions feed off one another, and they have the power to tear Europe apart.
The nagging question today is which Europe will ultimately win. In the wake of Macron’s victory in the French election, it is tempting to think that the plague of populist nationalism has been banished. That would be naive.
Within minutes of Macron’s win on May 7, 2017, the triumphalism began across the world. Macron defeats radicalism, proclaimed Spain’s El País. France stems tide of populist revolution, Britain’s Independent cheered. White nationalism gets thumped, declared David Leonhardt in The New York Times the next morning. The euphoria that greeted Macron’s victory is understandable but dangerous. Le Pen’s FN won over 10.5 million votes, double the number her father received in 2002, drawing in supporters from both the far left and center right. She ran a serious and competent campaign, unlike other far-right figures. As with Holland, where Geert Wilders’s weaker-than-expected showing in the March 2017 election was interpreted as a signal that populism’s march had been halted, there is no cause for celebration, as the strong showing of Austria’s right-wing populist Freedom Party in Sunday’s election proved.
Wilders performed poorly because the few times he did campaign, he was surrounded by a phalanx of armed guards in small villages filled with supporters. Le Pen, by contrast, stumped all across the country and braved crowds throwing eggs at her in staunchly anti-FN Brittany. She even tried to upstage Macron in his hometown, Amiens, where he waded into a hostile crowd of striking Whirlpool workers and, rather than pandering, told them he wouldn’t make any “airy promises” to avert the closure of their factory. When Le Pen heard he was going to visit, she descended on the site with her entourage first, seeking to bolster her credentials with workers whom she knew would not be receptive to Macron’s free-market message. It was a bold move akin to Trump’s visit to an Indiana air conditioner factory a few weeks after the election, where he sought to show that he was already saving American jobs.
Even in Paris, where Le Pen’s posters were routinely defaced with the word “SATAN,” there was no unanimity about how to fight her. Unlike in 2002, the front républicain that had battered Le Pen the elder did not materialize this time. Macron’s victory, with 66 percent of the vote, was a convincing one, but it was nowhere near Jacques Chirac’s 82 percent score—a testament to what Marine Le Pen has achieved. After the FN’s loss, Le Pen gave a concession speech that sounded more like a campaign rally for the upcoming legislative elections. If the FN finally abandons its name and the baggage that comes with it, new leaders, like Le Pen’s young and telegenic niece, Marion-Maréchal, may be able to de-demonize the party in a way that Marine could not.
Too many people on the European left scoff at nationalism, mistaking their own distaste for evidence that the phenomenon no longer exists or is somehow illegitimate. If 2016 and 2017 have proven anything, it is that this sort of visceral nationalism, or loyalty to one’s in-group, still exists and is not going away. Those who dismiss this sort of national sentiment as backward and immature do so at their own peril.
What the globalists of the transnational elite miss is that not everyone has the luxury of leaving. Those who don’t have the education and skills to travel abroad often resent those who do. To compensate, they identify strongly with the place they come from and support politicians who promise to protect them from both genuine and imaginary threats. They do not have the luxury of voting with their feet, but their protest is felt at the polls.
To dismiss the populist impulse as something completely alien is to miss the point and to preemptively lose the political debate. With or without actual control of the government, they have proved they can exert influence and shape debates without ever wielding formal power.
The first step in any coherent political project to counter right-wing populists is to reject the fear that fuels their popularity and resist the temptation to adopt their policies. Very few leaders have done this. In Holland and Denmark, the center right and the social-democratic left have largely caved and adopted planks from the populists’ platform. The left has lost much of its old base by appearing to care only about free trade, technological progress, and limitless diversity. This scares many people who used to vote for the Democratic Party, British Labour, or European Social Democrats.
Nativist politicians like Trump or Holland’s Geert Wilders are not particularly concerned with bread-and-butter issues, and their economic policies aren’t terribly helpful to workers and the poor. But because there is often no class-based counterargument coming from the left, it is easy for right-wing populists to seize that political terrain; it is an open space. Once the old economic battle lines disappear, realignment becomes very easy. The challenge for today’s left is to acknowledge these voters’ fears and offer policies that help address their grievances without making the sort of moral concessions that lead toward reactionary illiberal policies.
by Sasha Polakow-Suransky, NYRB | Read more:
Image: Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters
