The Continued Rise of the Populist Right

For the majority of people in most developed nations, the last 20 to 40 years have been periods of economic stagnation or decline. Their incomes have either stayed steady or dropped, while both productivity and the income of the wealthy have soared.

Since 2008, this trend has accelerated, going from “stagnation” to “decline” in many countries, including the US, Britain, and the south of Europe.

Now we have clueless wonders (in the UK, chinless wonders) trying to figure out why the populist right is rising.

They are gaining traction because most people’s lives are getting worse and the populist right offers an explanation and a cure. The explanation is mostly wrong, the cure mostly won’t work, but they have an explanation (immigrants!) and a cure (no more immigrants!).

Trump has focused on two things: immigrants and trade. Immigrants and trade.

This is not an insane explanation: Trade deals have, indeed, hurt ordinary people, and immigrants compete with the lower and working class for wages. There is an argument that immigrants bring enough demand to outweigh the supply (a.k.a., that enough jobs are created to make up for their presence by their presence), but it is not insane to say “more workers = lower wages,” when your lived experience is that you’re competing with immigrants for jobs and they are willing to take worse wages than you are.

If you are a neo-liberal you cannot be effectively against fascism or right-wing populism because the policies you support create the necessary conditions for both. You are the enablers and you have no story about how life can get better for the people who are looking for one. You’ve been in power for about 40 years now, your methods have been tried, and all they have done is make ordinary people poorer and create lots and lots of billionaires.

You may say you oppose fascism, but you are creating the conditions under which it flourishes. This is true of Cameron, Blair, Thatcher, both Clintons, both Bush’s, Reagan, and every politician who supports or supported neo-liberal policies.

You are enablers of fascism. The post-war economy was created to make sure that something like fascism could not happen again, and you dismantled it.

You worthless, greedy, foolish, stupid wastes of human skin.

To fight fascism, you must offer an explanation for why the economy keeps getting worse for ordinary people and offer a solution for it, both of which must be believable and actionable.

“Do more of the same but change our rhetoric” is not a solution. This is not a PR problem, this is a reality problem: Our elites really did fuck up the economy in most countries for most people. This is a REAL problem and people are looking for a solution.

If you are the sort of clueless putz who says “globalization and lower wages are inevitable, there is nothing we can do” you are a Nazi enabler, as well as a worthless waste of skin and a moron. (Especially as I’ve noticed that most people who say this happen to be doing just fine, thank you.)

Trump did well because he offered a problem statement and a solution (albeit somewhat incoherently). Sanders did better than any socialist has done in decades for the same reason. Corbyn is Labour leader because he offered a solution as well.

All of these people are offering solutions which are not tweaks to the status quo: They are massive changes. Slapping a 35 percent tariff on all overseas-made goods (Trump) is not a small thing, it is a radical overthrow of the current world order.

Re-nationalizing swathes of industry in the UK, which Corbyn wants to do, is also a radical change in how the country is run.

Neoliberalism is dying because it cannot offer a solution to problems it created. The problem is that it is dying in a way which may lead to a revival of fascism, an age of revolution, and an age of war.

Neoliberals are monsters. It is a philosophy born in the sentiment, “Fuck you Jack, I’ve got mine.” People who supported neoliberals (like Reagan Dems) were either clueless or monsters (or both). The results reaped by neoliberalism are exactly what was predicted by its critics.

There will be war. There will be revolution. There will fountains of blood in the streets. There will be refugee crises that make the current one look like a piss in the wind compared to a hurricane. All of this is because neoliberals ruled for 40 years and their policies are reaping exactly the results predicted by those who opposed them.

So enjoy your fascists. They won’t be going away any time soon, and if they are defeated again, it will be in rivers of blood, like last time.

That’s what you were voting for when you voted for neoliberals over and over again.

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