People say it's because they offer easy targets and solutions for people to take their frustrations out on but why does "it's the immigrants" work better than "it's the bankers" for example? Do Farage, Trump and co succeed because of media backing or is there something deeper at work that makes it easy for working class people to believe those who clearly don't have their interests at heart?
Why do right-wing populists succeed?
- Thread starter nightowl
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ska invita
back on the other side
I wouldn't single out the working class for succumbing to this, it's effective across the class spectrum
Silas Loom
Advanced. Forthright. Signifficant.
People see immigrants. They don’t see bankers. Very difficult to inspire anger at abstracts.
ska invita
back on the other side
Then again some of the strongest anti migrant feeling is in places where there aren't any migrants
ska invita
back on the other side
It's a good question .... I think a lot comes down to capitalist realism/complicity with the structure, and how it's replicated and internalised.
mojo pixy
שיר חדש
We could equally ask, why do so many of us eat and drink crap that gives us cancer, hardens our arteries, rots our teeth and makes us feel bad. It's not because crisps are cheaper than apples, there's something perverse in us that impels us to act against our own interests, repeatedly.
I'd love to think that whoever figures out the answer would be elected for ever, but experience suggests they'd actually be ridiculed and condemned by all and sundry.
I'd love to think that whoever figures out the answer would be elected for ever, but experience suggests they'd actually be ridiculed and condemned by all and sundry.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Define success
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
Oh but they do target the bankers as well. Publicly, at least. Even if they're funded by them. And don't underestimate how many people still see bankers==Jews.
Putting aside the easy 'Farage has stood for Parliament so many times and not got in' line, I don't think the impact he and his kind have had on British politics can be denied.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Perhaps you might offer a definition of what you consider success
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Left-wing populists are very thin on the ground, and even if they were more numerous in party political terms, they wouldn't get much of a hearing in the media. Whereas the same media has some kind of morbid fascination with right-wing populists, who always get a sympathetic hearing. Farage is never off the telly.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Because an uncomfortable truth is that an awful lot of people are rather racist, and the right are more than happy to use that.
I think I just did.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
They use more direct language part of it? A lot of left wing analysis uses terms like hegemony and bourgeoisie. which are accurate but are going to stop a lot of people there I think.
The terms anarchist and communist are generally pejorative, too, so those left wingers almost need to start off saying why they're not that sort of communist. Fascists don't get an altogether good press, either, but they tend not to describe themselves as such. In the US similarly there's loads of positive sounding organizations that are front groups for the far right.
And yep it's all magnified by press and corners of social media.
The terms anarchist and communist are generally pejorative, too, so those left wingers almost need to start off saying why they're not that sort of communist. Fascists don't get an altogether good press, either, but they tend not to describe themselves as such. In the US similarly there's loads of positive sounding organizations that are front groups for the far right.
And yep it's all magnified by press and corners of social media.
ska invita
back on the other side
i wouldn't put it down to just pure racism..."social conservativism" is broader than that, and the far-right are adept at pulling on different strings of that...guitar (not sure what the metaphor here is
)I think this is a big factor and too often the attempts to seem normal (lol) are painful
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
Attacking someone for being "not like us" is generally a lot less complex than attacking an all-encompassing social and economic system. Also, punching down is easier than punching up.
ska invita
back on the other side
something has been lost though...i grew up in a time when estate agents were hate figures.... and hating bankers was okay for a couple of years.... people are broadly more cynical about the establishment than they used to be i think, but the left doesnt fill the narrative of conclusions to draw well enough. I still think in britain common sense left ideas are far more pervasive than it seems
InArduisFouette
Active Member
Bread and circuses ,
offering 'easy' solutions to problems by punching down at all ready marginalised groups
offering 'easy' solutions to problems by punching down at all ready marginalised groups
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Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
and then the media tells people they are left wing ideas and they change their minds
mojo pixy
שיר חדש
More specifically I think, we each individually aspire for ourselves and our kids to be prosperous - wealthy, even. We don't aspire to be (or for them to be) immigrants, or to rely on the kindness of strangers. So collectively, one becomes admirable, the other taboo or even contemptible.
I think it's always been so. There's hardly ever been a time or place where it's good to be a new immigrant, hardly ever a time or place where it's bad to be rich.
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
That's a poor analogy - we eat and drink things that are bad for us because they taste nice and make us happy.
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
Yep, and that's the dominant culture, the hegemony, in a nutshell. The same reason millions buy lottery tickets (with no chance of winning) but don't buy the Big Issue (with every chance of helping someone else).
But the language, for the Left, is a problem. Always has been.
We don't need to talk about Trotsky. Or Proudhon. Or whoever. We need to talk about Kevin.
Silas Loom
Advanced. Forthright. Signifficant.
Our taste for fat and sugar is a perverse consequence of prior evolutionary advantage for hunter-gatherers threatened by resource scarcity. Unfortunately, the same might be true of xenophobia, so the analogy could succeed.
mojo pixy
שיר חדש
Yes, populists make us feel special, make us feel they understand us and care about what we need, that they'll offer us support and protection and keep bad people out of our neighbourhood. But they actually harm our social health by provoking conflict instead of solidarity, promoting clumping rather than flowing, and hardening of attitudes instead of making them more flexible.
And I now consider this analogy well and truly rinsed
InArduisFouette
Active Member
which comes round to Blair and 'mondeo man' ...
and much as Corbyn's ideologicla position has merit , the faithful do not win you elections , it's 'mondeo man' / 'Kevin' , whatever you want to call them ... people who are not tribally wedded to one party or another and think they are voting froma rational and considered position ...
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
Hmm. I never meant to be compared to Blair there.
I'm not saying abandon class politics, AT ALL. I'm saying there's a way of explaining why Sir Richard Ponsonby-Smythe isn't like you, Kevin. My sister hates the ruling class with a vengeance but has never read Marx in her life. It is possible to explain Left politics without going into abstract theorizing or deep academic analysis. And that, surely, is how populism must be built. Rather than alienating half your target base by blaming them for becoming non-working class because they fell for Thatcher's property owning schtick.
I'm not saying abandon class politics, AT ALL. I'm saying there's a way of explaining why Sir Richard Ponsonby-Smythe isn't like you, Kevin. My sister hates the ruling class with a vengeance but has never read Marx in her life. It is possible to explain Left politics without going into abstract theorizing or deep academic analysis. And that, surely, is how populism must be built. Rather than alienating half your target base by blaming them for becoming non-working class because they fell for Thatcher's property owning schtick.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
bellaozzydog
rolling turds in glitter
Manufacturing consent innit
That’s it really
We are all simple predictable creatures with very hackable software
And the average citizen doesn’t read books of any note. Just how they want us
That’s it really
We are all simple predictable creatures with very hackable software
And the average citizen doesn’t read books of any note. Just how they want us
petee
no gods, no malarkey
in the states too, the best example being, i think,
Alaska Permanent Fund - Wikipedia
and there's the trumpers who want "socialists" to "keep you hands off my medicare."
just to remind, sanders would have gotten the nomination if it hadn't been detoured onto idpol territory and could have beaten trump imho. (and trump lost that vote too.)
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
in the states too, the best example being, i think,
when it was pointed out to sarah palin (who'd had no hesitation in exploiting it for her own electoral good) during the presidential campaign that this was socialism of a sort, she laughed but didn't answer.Alaska Permanent Fund - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
and there's the trumpers who want "socialists" to "keep you hands off my medicare."
just to remind, sanders would have gotten the nomination if it hadn't been detoured onto idpol territory and could have beaten trump imho. (and trump lost that vote too.)
Would this be an example of what US psephologists call a misinformation voter or would they just be seen as straightforward low info voter?
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