Deftly appealing to fear, nostalgia and resentment of elites
November 1, 2016 7:19 AM   Subscribe

The ruthlessly effective rebranding of Europe’s new far right. "These parties have built a coherent ideology and steadily chipped away at the establishment parties’ hold on power by pursuing a new and devastatingly effective electoral strategy. They have made a very public break with the symbols of the old right’s past, distancing themselves from skinheads, neo-Nazis and homophobes. They have also deftly co-opted the causes, policies and rhetoric of their opponents. They have sought to outflank the left when it comes to defending a strong welfare state and protecting social benefits that they claim are threatened by an influx of freeloading migrants."
posted by blue_beetle (69 comments total) 36 users marked this as a favorite
 
See also Jobbik.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:04 AM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Really a fascinating article, thanks for posting it.

As the French Communist party collapsed, its supporters were left rudderless. According to Andrew Hussey, a Liverpool-born academic who teaches in Paris, the technocratic leaders of the Socialist party – many of them graduates of the ultra-elite Ecole Nationale d’Administration – “are so disconnected from ordinary people” that even former Marxists won’t consider voting for them. Distrustful of the establishment and searching for a state that protects them, many have turned to the FN. “I think you’ve got a big political question here about who looks after you,” Hussey said. “This is a very communist way of thinking.”

So, I follow a guy on YouTube (rather, 'followed') named Rob Ager, who does deep reads of various movies focusing on a critical theory approach. Within the past few years he's gone from having an ideology I'd define as "vaguely lefty, vaguely socialist" to speaking opening in favor of UKIP and British nationalism (with a socialist flavor to it) and openly against multiculturalism. It's really tainted the rest of his work for me, which I used to enjoy. It's weird to see the academic left falling into these new fascistic patterns...
posted by codacorolla at 8:16 AM on November 1, 2016 [9 favorites]


This piece reminded me that I need to pick up Walls Come Tumbling Down: the Music and Politics of Rock Against Racism, 2 Tone and Red Wedge.

Interesting point in this review of the book by Tracey Thorn:

Did it seem easier because the fascists still looked like fascists? I’m reminded of that Michael Rosen poem: “I sometimes fear that/people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress/worn by grotesques and monsters”. In the late Seventies and early Eighties, the National Front really did look like monsters, and were so clearly the enemy. No hiding behind smooth suits and placatory rhetoric. We lived in tribal times, with clearly defined lines, and you knew which side you were on.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:25 AM on November 1, 2016 [5 favorites]


In the short term, really more of a threat to the establishment right than the establishment left. The establishment left's institutional supporters -- media, academia, unions, minority associations, rich people who want to look cool -- are going nowhere. The establishment right's institutional supporters -- corporate interests, rich people unconcerned with looking cool -- are with them only for their votes, and have demonstrated (as with Trump in the primary season in the US) a remarkable inability to work together with their politicians to resist the alt-right.

In the long term, a world where it's alt-right vs. traditional left, what will the traditional left stand for if it becomes the default party of corporations and the uncool wealthy? Perhaps a movement born in part (as the article argues) out the incompetence / irrelevance of the hard left (eurocommunists, etc.) will give rise to a rebirth a a new hard left. Circle of life, all that.
posted by MattD at 8:48 AM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


honestly, this is super great. It gets in to why I inherently distrust a lot of younger internet communists. The glee with which they bash the "soft left that isn't even really the left" is often almost indistinguishable from the alt right and the traditional right in general. You could easily do a "this or that" quiz with the "fuckin liberals" stuff both teams post and you'd have a damn hard time if you didn't have decent familiarity with the exact memes and currently popular language of either group.

"This is who you end up in bed with" is a discussion that really needs to happen in a lot of ~hard left~ spaces. Because seriously, it's completely hilarious how much "fuck libs" is on my newsfeed for someone who basically has entirely filtered out all righty stuff and extended family.
posted by emptythought at 9:25 AM on November 1, 2016 [18 favorites]


On a tangent: I realised recently that Slavoj Žižek and Mencius Moldbug have the same shtick. Namely, in both cases, they're red-pill merchants, selling the brutal truth that effete, decadent liberals with their contemptible fondness for bourgeois comforts don't want to see. The difference is one of branding: Moldbug's red pill is about rolling back the enlightenment and bringing back autocracy, whereas Žižek's one comes in a package with a quasi-ironic stencil of Stalin on it.
posted by acb at 9:36 AM on November 1, 2016 [8 favorites]


"This is who you end up in bed with" is a discussion that really needs to happen in a lot of ~hard left~ spaces.

As I've been canvassing, the only time I have ever been literally chased away with someone screaming at me was... definitely not Republicans. I'm going to RTFA over my lunch hour here in a few minutes because this entire deal is incredibly concerning for me and I just can't think that that many people on the left are unaware of who they are carrying water for but... maybe they are?
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:47 AM on November 1, 2016 [5 favorites]


So, I follow a guy on YouTube (rather, 'followed') named Rob Ager, who does deep reads of various movies focusing on a critical theory approach. Within the past few years he's gone from having an ideology I'd define as "vaguely lefty, vaguely socialist" to speaking opening in favor of UKIP and British nationalism (with a socialist flavor to it) and openly against multiculturalism. It's really tainted the rest of his work for me, which I used to enjoy. It's weird to see the academic left falling into these new fascistic patterns...
How is the single data point of Rob Ager, who's neither a left winger, an academic, nor even, AFAIK, a university graduate, evidence that the "academic left" in the UK is doing anything, let alone falling into "new fascistic patterns"?
posted by Sonny Jim at 9:48 AM on November 1, 2016 [7 favorites]


Near the end, I found this one of the best bits. In thinking of how well many refugees have come into the US and integrated, it was by becoming part of the economic society around them.

Instead the state has effectively provided newcomers with an allowance and keys to an apartment, and ignored them – assuming that its work was done. The problem, Soei claims, is that there is no political incentive to integrate asylum seekers into the job market. “It doesn’t have consequences for the politicians … because they don’t have the right to vote.” Either way, it plays into the DPP’s argument. “Immigrants can’t do right,” said Gyldal Petersen. “When they’re unemployed they’re a burden to society. When they’re in a job, they just stole the job from a Dane.”

(On a side note: I know that the laws for becoming a French or German citizen are complicated if one is born there but is not born to parents who are citizens. Does anyone know the statistics for people becoming citizens of both countries if they are born there but not to citizen parents? I was thinking this might be an issue, but I honestly don't know if the assumption is correct or not.)
posted by Hactar at 9:52 AM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


"This is who you end up in bed with" is a discussion that really needs to happen in a lot of ~hard left~ spaces.

It's a discussion that needs to happen in a lot of liberal spaces, too. I don't disagree with your contention about elements of the far left and the right, but Phil Ochs' jab about liberals being "ten degrees to the left of center in the good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally" is also on point. The current campaign, at least for me, has been one discussion with a Clinton supporter after another that demonstrates this.

Sometimes, it's just a matter of hero worship and not paying close attention. If you're not careful, you end up unreflectively loving someone who talks an inspiring, NPR-friendly game and takes her beach vacations with one of the great monsters of the 20th century.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:00 AM on November 1, 2016 [32 favorites]


There are good reasons to distinguish between liberal and leftist. One of them is that many liberals have no definite normative vision that incorporates moral principles, or, they're basically establishmentarians; i.e., they're not against social justice, but the very idea of using governmental/ public power to intervene in various forms of social parity makes them vaguely uncomfortable. This tendency is markedly accentuated during times of crisis. So, for example, any specific instances of struggle for social justice are liable to make them tut-tut and wonder aloud if this is really the best way or the right time to agitate; or when reactionary forces start to gain ground politically, they fail to see what's so wrong with wanting to feel secure.
posted by clockzero at 11:14 AM on November 1, 2016 [17 favorites]


The next genocide won't look like the last genocide.
posted by anshuman at 11:55 AM on November 1, 2016 [4 favorites]


Distrustful of the establishment and searching for a state that protects them, many have turned to the FN. “I think you’ve got a big political question here about who looks after you,” Hussey said. “This is a very communist way of thinking.”

I really wish this had been elaborated on because the thinking, 'who looks out' for me equaling communism, makes absolutely no sense to me. Is this some vague gesturing to the value of meritocracy?

And here's some of LePen herself: “I defend fraternity – the idea that a developed country should be able to be able to provide the poorest with the minimum needed to live with dignity as a human being. The French state no longer does that,” she told me. “We’re in a world today in which you either defend the interests of the people or the interests of the banks.”

This sounds immenently reasonable. Now, I'm working from a dearth of intimate knowledge regarding French politics, so I cannot say wether I'd be a FN member or not.

I've been concerned about working class issues for pretty much my whole life. It's the most important issue to me just after dealing with climate change. It should be a long term leftist project in the US to get poor whites and poor blacks working together. I worry less about other minorities because all the evidence I see points to their fully integrating after a generation or two.

Strip the racist and sexist elements from Trump, and I'd be voting for him this year.

There's plenty of introspection that has to happen all around. This includes your Reagan Democrats, i.e. the Clintons, Obama, who knows how many of the legislature, and their boosters.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 12:01 PM on November 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


Distrustful of the establishment and searching for a state that protects them, many have turned to the FN. “I think you’ve got a big political question here about who looks after you,” Hussey said. “This is a very communist way of thinking.”

I really wish this had been elaborated on because the thinking, 'who looks out' for me equaling communism, makes absolutely no sense to me. Is this some vague gesturing to the value of meritocracy?


I think Hussey means to suggest that Communism, having class-consciousness as one of its central tenets and centering its normative political project on ensuring that the provision of necessities for everyone (in contradistinction to an 'opportunity society' where capital accumulation is basically unchecked) is guaranteed, would produce in aging devotees a deep concern about whose interests the state serves.
posted by clockzero at 12:22 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Strange_Robinson: "And here's some of LePen herself: “I defend fraternity – the idea that a developed country should be able to be able to provide the poorest with the minimum needed to live with dignity as a human being. The French state no longer does that,” she told me. “We’re in a world today in which you either defend the interests of the people or the interests of the banks.”

This sounds immenently reasonable.
"
Now try asking her to define "people".
posted by brokkr at 12:24 PM on November 1, 2016 [20 favorites]


Disenchantment with the establishment is the common element here. The expression of that disenchantment is still inchoate. Right now, it is expressed primarily in the growth of rightist movements that threaten the establishment conservatives. Conservatives have been trying to ride this tiger for a while, but it looks like the ride is going to end with a feast for the tiger. Where will the tiger turn next? Establishment liberals and socialists might want to consider their position very carefully. If they cannot deliver “bourgeois comforts,” they will be eaten in their turn.
posted by No Robots at 12:32 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Right now, it is expressed primarily in the growth of rightist movements that threaten the establishment conservatives.

They're not the only forces growing due to disenchantment with the establishment. Right now the UK has Europe's biggest openly declared socialist party in Labour, and is aiming for a million members next year. Every possible attack from the media and the party machinery could not stop Corbyn's rise.

And Sanders would have defeated Trump.
posted by Coda Tronca at 12:36 PM on November 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


Brokkr, based on what's in the article, that would be French citizens, yes? That, of course, leaves out the refugees. If I were the French, I'd be furious at the US, and the, frustrating to me, bi-partisan War on the Middle East. Those refugees are ultimately the US's responsibility in the old 'you broke it, you bought it' argument.

Let me channel some Chomsky. If we'd leave the region, fully leave it, not some half-assed occupational bases staffed with more mercenaries than soldiers, and stop bombing the hell out them, the larger issues would work themselves out.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 12:41 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Strip the racist and sexist elements from Trump, and I'd be voting for him this year.

What a crock. Trump doesn't believe anything. He doesn't have a plan for anything. The racist and sexist elements are literally all he has.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:45 PM on November 1, 2016 [30 favorites]


If I were the French, I'd be furious at the US, and the, frustrating to me, bi-partisan War on the Middle East.
France’s military efforts against ISIS have developed gradually over the course of the last 15 months—spreading from limited sorties in Iraq to include missions over Syria and the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf.
If you're going to say "Yeah, but the U.S. started it!", you're gonna need to go even farther back to Louis Quatorze. France's hands are no cleaner than anyone else's.
posted by Etrigan at 12:49 PM on November 1, 2016 [6 favorites]


Immigration policy is not traditionally a defining characteristic of left-wing politics. There is nothing wrong with say Peter Singer's definition of left wing, but clearly that's rather modern.

Any party that wants social welfare, public health care, proposes and equitable economic platform, supports gay rights and women's right, seek to avoid wars, , etc. should be viewed as largely left wing in a traditional sense.

In principle, there is nothing wrong with real left-wing parties choosing to compromise with anti-immigration parties in order to achieve their domestic social aims.

I suspect these anti-immigration parties' left wing characteristics might not run quite deep enough though.

We've traditionally label them right-wing mostly because their economic programs pull largely from right-wing fantasy land, not the austerity idiocy, but more orthodox stuff that precedes it. Ain't so likely Le Pen can fix France's unemployment problems with such economic views. Immigrants can be a boon to the economy, so this blind spot seems built in.

Afaik, there is no sign of the extreme alt right in these parties, meaning no monarchists or whatever. Yet, there is still a bunch of reactionary non-sense that cannot achieve anybody's aims. All DPP's talk about better integrating the fewer asylum seekers goes out the window when you hear about their now jewelry law, for example.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:01 PM on November 1, 2016 [4 favorites]


Original sin deflections are an excuse for the status quo.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 1:02 PM on November 1, 2016


In principle, there is nothing wrong with real left-wing parties choosing to compromise with anti-immigration parties in order to achieve their domestic social aims.

There is very much wrong with that, actually, because that's how Herrenvolk democracies behave. Opposition to legal immigration is a defining characteristic of the right wing, partially because it is often based on an implicit valuation of some kinds of peoples' lives over others. There is no safe way to make a political deal with people who promise to exclude certain groups from full personhood.
posted by clockzero at 1:13 PM on November 1, 2016 [11 favorites]


Original sin deflections are an excuse for the status quo.

That doesn't seem to explain why you made one.
posted by Etrigan at 1:20 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


We're still there now in multiple undeclared wars. It's not original, it's ongoing.

I can't be believe I have to explain this. Yea, the French are there, and who knows what their reasons are, I can't fathom the US reasons either, but the bad actions of another are no excuse for one's own. I feel confident in a weighing of these ongoing sins that the US would still come out the worst offender.

And to another point, a left that ignores the working class is not a left I recognize. I'm not hard left. There's no left for me to be hard left to.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 1:30 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


What a crock. Trump doesn't believe anything. He doesn't have a plan for anything. The racist and sexist elements are literally all he has.

Trump is indeed an opportunist and a con man, but his appeal isn't simply racism or sexism. There are other forms of identity politics he's playing - urban vs. rural (despite being a New Yorker lol), insider vs. outsider (despite being a billionaire lol), cosmopolitanism vs. localism (which needn't be couched in bigotry). To ignore all of that appeal and dismiss him as simply a spokesman for racists/sexists is to misidentify him, and grant him and others of his ilk power.

Consider that this is the closest in American history that a presidential candidate with no political or military experience whatsoever has gotten to the highest office in the land. This is history in the making. Don't downplay what he represents to millions of your fellow Americans.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:34 PM on November 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


I know fucking well what he represents.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:35 PM on November 1, 2016 [8 favorites]


Then the right course of action is to figure out how to mirror the non-sexist, racist aspects of his appeal.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:42 PM on November 1, 2016


And here's some of LePen herself: “I defend fraternity – the idea that a developed country should be able to be able to provide the poorest with the minimum needed to live with dignity as a human being. The French state no longer does that,” she told me. “We’re in a world today in which you either defend the interests of the people or the interests of the banks.”

This sounds immenently reasonable. Now, I'm working from a dearth of intimate knowledge regarding French politics, so I cannot say wether I'd be a FN member or not.


Le Pen are racists (there's more than one). Think Trump but with policies. There's a decent overview here.

The right in France have been snagging elements of the US alt-right for about a decade now. Overtly enough that it's noticeable; it was perhaps done before too. Sarkozy recently renamed his party "Les Républicains" in a nod to our American Republicans, which *golf clap* nice timing there. It's a break from French history, as La République and les valeurs républicaines have a distinct meaning here – roughly (but not fully) equivalent to what we would call "democratic values", but add "societal values" to them – that should have meant two things. First, a political party calling itself by a value supposed to be available to all, is a pretty massive slap to, well, French Republican values. Second, Sarkozy's been open about it being a nod to the US party, which is in WTF territory.

Then you get into the still-ongoing battle over the current government's attempt to kill worker negotiating power, which is largely funded by the management union. And who do the management union pull a lot of their rhetoric from? The American alt-right. They never admit it, but you would likely enjoy being a fly on the wall when managers talk to me about it, unused to trying to pull the wool over the eyes of people who already know what's behind it, and I skewer them. The problem is there aren't many people who know it; true journalism has become essentially as unpredictable and biased as it is elsewhere so no one's really talking about it; and the discourse really is tempting for young kids who don't know any better. And older folk who do know better and think that what with all the immigrant hate going on, all they've gotta do is hitch their wagon to the powerful dudes talking this talk, who, yes, are majoritarily Franco-French white men.

It's gotten to the point where we've invented this word "Franco-French", which is both a sign of resistance and yet also terrible. Why "Franco-French"? I'm French. But I'm not French. Franco-French people treat me like a goddamned job-stealing accent-having barbaric furriner. In their eyes, I, a white woman with a French degree and a Masters from a French university who works in a French company, am not French. How do you think they treat people more different? So, as a show of resistance and to clarify we're not talking about all "French" people, who, for us, are diverse, we say "Franco-French." White xenophobes with alt-right tendencies.

It's hard to express just how depleted I am with the US the way it is and France the way it's going. I only hope the US serves as an example, but fear it won't, because the Franco-French cohort think they're genuinely exceptional. If only they knew.
posted by fraula at 1:44 PM on November 1, 2016 [15 favorites]


Strip the racist and sexist elements from Trump, and I'd be voting for him this year.

Strip only the racism and sexism from Donald Trump and he'd still be an ignorant clown with only two things to offer: the short con and the long con. And indeed, that's the core of his appeal and the appeal of many of the authoritarians like Trump to people who want someone loud and brash and "authentic," someone willing "to tell it like it is." The appeal is entirely performative. The core of Trump's appeal continues to be his promises to mete out punishment and protection to every one who deserves it, no matter that the deserving are subject to change from day to day and even from sentence to sentence.

Apropos of the international far right, this piece on the aspirant "Traditionalist International," "Beyond Trump and Putin: The American Alt-Right's Love of the Kremlin’s Policies," is interesting.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:46 PM on November 1, 2016 [8 favorites]


By the same token, those who want to oppose Trumpism should get their own brash loudmouth, whose bravado makes them sound real. Bring some rhetorical bark to the policy bite. That's why both Warren and Sanders had appeal, though neither were at Trump's level of bellicose. Alan Grayson?

But of course, it's not just brashness that make authoritarian demagogues attractive. They might promise unrealistic visions, but hell, sometimes that's what people want. Sometimes that's what need. Something to aspire.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:55 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Not mentioned much is that US foreign policy demolishes functional states [however corrupt/brutal/ whatever] replacing them with chaos and creating streams of refugees who head to Europe. The problem is either "made in USA" or assembled with USA-made parts.
posted by SteveLaudig at 1:56 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


those who want to oppose Trumpism should get their own brash loudmouth, whose bravado makes them sound real ... Alan Grayson?

I believe Roseanne Barr has dibs on that position.
posted by octobersurprise at 2:04 PM on November 1, 2016


Roseanne is affiliated with the Greens, then the Peace and Freedom Party.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:07 PM on November 1, 2016


Thank you, Fraula. The Justice and Security section is particularly troubling. Emulation of the US system is not what I had in mind.

There's a clear line between militarization of the police, and the occupational nature of US militaries that seems obvious to me. Maybe that's an angle I need to think about more deeply. For example, I am less certain attempts at de-militarizing the US police will work very well without a parallel reduction in war making abroad. A constant martial stance makes folks callous monsters.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 2:09 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


I know it's technically pertinent to the EU trend discussed in TFA, but for the love of dog can we please not make this thread all about Trump?

There have been and will be plenty of other threads to talk about the US election.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:28 PM on November 1, 2016 [11 favorites]


I'm not so sure that the alt-right in Europe is really co-opting "the causes, policies and rhetoric of their opponents". I think a lot of definitively left-wing people are actually profoundly xenophobic, but the way they expressed their positions was formerly privileged because they were left-wing.

For instance, France has a value called laïcité, "the absence of religious involvement in government affairs". That sounds great, and you can see why it would appeal to people who oppose clericalism, but it means that France has historically (maybe currently too) refused to identify antisemitic crimes as such, which has the effect of suppressing reporting on it. And you have people saying that Muslim sensibilities shouldn't be allowed to determine school policies, which sounds ... sort of normal, until you find out that they mean the school lunches must contain pork. And while it seems to be easy to get people who are solidly left-wing to oppose "ostentatious" displays of religiosity, it's always minorities' behavior that attracts attention: Jews who don't want to sit exams on Saturday are out of line, but of course there are no exams on Sundays; that's how it has always been.

So when Marine Le Pen comes out with a proposed ban on Jews wearing traditional head coverings (yarmulkes, kippas) she's tapping into a long tradition of xenophobia, carefully designed to make traditional Jews seem less French. Because how can we stop Muslim women wearing veils while Jews are allowed to wear yarmulkes? Jews are effectively sabotaging laïcité unless they (a) abandon their culture and (b) join in with persecuting others. But this isn't a re-branding; it's exploiting something that was there all along.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:18 PM on November 1, 2016 [13 favorites]


Saying that the left must support immigration, QED, is extremely provincial. The vast majority of leftist parties and politicians in the world reject mass immigration to their countries without a second thought. It is solely a platform plank for leftists in white majority countries, and then only one way -- you hear no one advocating that India or Mexico or China ought to accept immigrants from Europe or the US in substantial number or give illegal immigrants the right to public benefits or the vote.
posted by MattD at 3:23 PM on November 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


you hear no one advocating that India or Mexico or China ought to accept immigrants from Europe or the US in substantial number or give illegal immigrants the right to public benefits or the vote.

Given the net migratory pressures involved, why would this ever become a contentious issue? Leftists in the west aren't supporting free movement in an ahistorical vacuum, but because it actually means something in the context of global inequality. It is not "provincial" to expect the left to show solidarity with the poor. Socialism in one country is an odious Stalinist lie.
posted by howfar at 4:32 PM on November 1, 2016 [8 favorites]


If there were freedom of worker movement across national lines, I'd accept unlimited immigration without hesitation.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 4:33 PM on November 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


That's great to hear! Care to elaborate how that relates to the article about the rise of the right in the EU, which has freedom of worker movement across national lines?
posted by brokkr at 5:00 PM on November 1, 2016 [6 favorites]


I was reinforcing an earlier point. The EU is a half measure. For instance, an EU citizen cannot go freely to the US. To make sure what I mean is clear: capital has rights the worker does not.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 5:05 PM on November 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


For further elaboration: as things are, the only folks who benefit are the 10%. That would be the 1% and their cadre of useful idiots.

The 90%, largely, resents this arrangement. Various scapegoats are assigned. And the far-right is capitalizing on this while the left and moderates, or whatever the status quo is called, whistles in the wind. They haven't yet realized the enlightenment is over and has been for a while.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 5:14 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think the article has some small errors.
First Finkielkraut is not a jewish liberal, he is a far right intelectual, a staunch conservative, a vocal one at that.
Second, the french presidential election of 2002 is often badly misunderstood outside of France. What happened was a failure for the left to unite. there were 8 candidates on the left, 3 from the extreme left (specifically trotskyists) and 4 center-left what you would call liberal in the US I guess, and one from the green party.
They destroyed each other basically, if both major candidates from the center left had united they would have beaten Lepen easily.
So what is often desribed as a success for the far right is actually more of a failure of the different parties on the left to find common ground.

Besides that it's a pretty accurate portrayal of the Front National today.
2017 is not looking good.
posted by SageLeVoid at 5:45 PM on November 1, 2016


Saying that the left must support immigration, QED, is extremely provincial. The vast majority of leftist parties and politicians in the world reject mass immigration to their countries without a second thought. It is solely a platform plank for leftists in white majority countries, and then only one way -- you hear no one advocating that India or Mexico or China ought to accept immigrants from Europe or the US in substantial number or give illegal immigrants the right to public benefits or the vote.

This is because Western left-wingers feel guilty over imperialism and feel a little awkward about coming across as telling those nations what to do rather than anything particularly provincial about the benefits of freedom of movement.

Given historical context, asking Japan or China, for instance, to open their borders might not give the impression of coming from a place of peace and goodwill towards all.
posted by Zalzidrax at 5:45 PM on November 1, 2016


Whoa, this thread has already sorted itself, hasn't it?
I could write a 200 page essay on this, because it is complex and difficult. But it is a really important point that Europe can not survive without immigrants. We are dependent on immigrant doctors. And immigrant painters, and immigrant just about everything.
One of the reasons Southern Europe is more populist left and less anti-immigration is that they are "ahead" in the de-population trend. If Europe as a whole is dying out, the South is dying much faster. They are much more aware that they need immigrants, and immigrants are much more likely to get jobs there.

I can answer about a lot of the Danish stuff, but at this point, I just want to note that the Danish People Party are disintegrating rapidly because of misuse of EU means. They may recover, but right now, they are leaking voters like a sieve. They have a new challenger from the right, who are discarding all the socialist stuff, but 98 % of the Danish population support general welfare and universal healthcare.
posted by mumimor at 5:53 PM on November 1, 2016 [6 favorites]


Saying that the left must support immigration, QED, is extremely provincial

I guess you would say that, person on the right, wouldn't you?

They haven't yet realized the enlightenment is over and has been for a while.

I'll be happy to chalk you up as anti-Enlightenment. You can join the right and the rest of the global religious fanatics.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:05 PM on November 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


octobersurprise I agree with you politically, but I think this response is unproductive (although "extremely provincial" feels baited, and I can see why your hackles are up).

It's worth articulating the reasons that the left "must support immigration." Going with a broad Utopian definition of "left" there's certainly idealogical rationale for international freedom of movement.

But in practice we still have the international state system with its multitudinous trade agreements, and the rhetoric surrounding free movement among areas of uneven development is part of how we ended up with neoliberalism. On the ground, the "left" that has political power in the existing system of states has often been co-opted by economic liberalism + populism or straight-up Chavez-style authoritarianism.

In that context I think you could make the argument that the left, as it exists as a higher-level political force, has a . . . complex approach to immigration, and I don't think that MattD's entirely wrong to state that the "majority of leftist parties and politicians in the world reject mass immigration to their countries," although I'd want to see some figures to back it up.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:25 PM on November 1, 2016


I know fucking well what he represents.

He represents the idiocy of today.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:27 AM on November 2, 2016


you hear no one advocating that India or Mexico or China ought to accept immigrants from Europe or the US in substantial number

I am. I think there are a lot of people trapped in the West, who would love to see their CoL decrease massively by moving to Mexico, India, or elsewhere.

To make sure what I mean is clear: capital has rights the worker does not.

This is the scam, it is what makes us all chumps for buying into the free trade rah-rah that has been set up in the last 20 or 30 years. And of course if you are rich, with access to capital, you can have the rights your money does... almost every country has a sweetheart immigration deals for "investors" or similar.

When I was briefly living in Canada, I couldn't even bring in my MiL without proof of income. Immigration is for rich people.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:42 AM on November 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


Ah, so the far right are adopting the policies and platforms of the left, the insidious bastards. So what makes them far right if their policies and platforms are left-wing? I think it's a mistake to use the term "far-right" to mean isolationist or racist, because increasingly, it's becoming the domain of groups that are traditionally left-wing - welfare state, taxes, government intervention in markets, nationalisation, etc. We already have perfectly good words to describe racists and isolationists - "racist" and "isolationist".
posted by Dysk at 4:49 AM on November 2, 2016 [4 favorites]


Strange_Robinson: "For further elaboration: as things are, the only folks who benefit are the 10%. That would be the 1% and their cadre of useful idiots."
I'm not going to discuss further with someone who writes me off as someone else's useful idiot. Thank you and have a good day.
posted by brokkr at 5:00 AM on November 2, 2016


It's clear that historically the left has valued some people over others, clockzero, less so than the right of course.

As I said, I'm dubious that these parties economic platforms come out all that left-wing, or even sensible, but if one did so then I would not fault left-wing voters for choosing them, or left-wing parties from compromising with them. There are much more dangerous things to compromise with than some base tribalism that predates humanity. And I'd kinda expect voters to become more open minded after an economic upturn.

I'm just annoyed by DPP because (a) Denmark is doing fine economically and (b) they're billed as embracing all these sensible left-wing positions while passing blatantly silly anti-integration laws like their jewelry thing.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:24 AM on November 2, 2016


DF (Dansk Folkeparti or the Danish People's Party) have always had a certain strange welfarist bent in some ways. Their major electoral plank for a long time was pensions, something few other parties were actively campaigning on or agitating in defence or support of. But really, they're a centrist party (except for the flagrant "os nok" racism) and they've always been in coalition with the right wing bloc.

A better example of the straight out racist/isolationist left is UKIP in parts of the North, where they ran a very different campaign and set of policies.
posted by Dysk at 6:04 AM on November 2, 2016


I doubt UKIP can be considered the same animal. And the article does not mention them. Aside from noting that many anti-immigration parties do not want to leave Europe.

I'd suspect UKIP and Brexit scenarios become more likely when the left allies too strongly with the banksters, free trade at all costs, etc. crowd, like Labor did in the U.K. and like the Democrats did in the U.S.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:11 AM on November 2, 2016


like Labor did

Labour
posted by Mister Bijou at 8:19 AM on November 2, 2016


I too would qualify as one of the 10% useful idiots.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 8:53 AM on November 2, 2016


I don't honestly know what I think about living in a post-enlightenment world. I don't even know what to call it.

The silver lining is we can commence with the project of dis-assembly of imperialism.

My apologies if my use of theological terms is triggering. I think it necessary the left have some representation, in my case Christian, as I can no longer let the right claim that mantle for their own.

The article actually addresses this in a very brief form. While politicians fan the flames of fear, the official said, “the economists look for the economic roots of the problem, sociologists look for social causes and the anthropologists try to explain jihadi culture – but none of them have any idea about theology”.

The scapegoating of Islam does not change that Christianity is suffering from the same sorts of problems. I'm very aware of the doctors killed and clinics bombed in the US, my home.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 9:19 AM on November 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


jeffburdges: "I doubt UKIP can be considered the same animal. And the article does not mention them. Aside from noting that many anti-immigration parties do not want to leave Europe. "
Marine le Pen (while, as has recently been revealed, not being above siphoning off EU funds) wants a Frexit referendum. The Danish People's Party have always been against the EU (while, as has recently been revealed, not being above siphoning off EU funds). The German AfD, the Belgian Vlaams Belang, the Dutch PVV, the Italian Lega Nord and the Austrian FPÖ are all far right and eurosceptic to put it mildly.
posted by brokkr at 9:48 AM on November 2, 2016


I doubt UKIP can be considered the same animal. And the article does not mention them

Parliamentary UKIP is not the same, no, but the parallels to constituency and local UKIP in areas of the North are striking.

I'd suspect UKIP and Brexit scenarios become more likely when the left allies too strongly with the banksters, free trade at all costs, etc. crowd, like Labor did in the U.K. and like the Democrats did in the U.S.

So when the left wing assumes a right wing policy base, the hard right adopt left wing policies and rhetoric. So... why are the people with the right wing policy base "the left" and the racists with the left wing policies "the far right"?
posted by Dysk at 10:39 AM on November 2, 2016 [3 favorites]


I don't honestly know what I think about living in a post-enlightenment world. I don't even know what to call it.

The silver lining is we can commence with the project of dis-assembly of imperialism.


As if "imperialism" never existed before the Enlightenment, couldn't exist afterwards, or has any necessary relation to the Enlightenment at all. Honestly, I see no sense to these sentences at all. It's as if you've just strung together words that you like the sound of.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:05 PM on November 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


Intrigued by The Atlantic's article on Trump, Putin and the alt-right comintern, especially the bit about Marine Le Pen's double-digit-million-dollar loan from Russia, I did a quick search on Poutine et Le Pen. Two things: I'm not sure how this got so little show in 2014, and holy cow there is a load of documented proof going back fifty years. Fifty. Years. Of ties between the Front National and Russia, so well before Putin. I think I'll have to amend my (admittedly American) impression of US alt-right influence, and go with what The Atlantic, The Guardian and now several French pieces all show: it's Russia's influence coming full circle.

Poutine et le FN : Révélations sur les réseaux russes des Le Pen. Title translation: "Putin and the Front National: Revelations on the Russian networks of the Le Pen family" as it includes Marine and Marion. Strongly recommend going to the trouble of using whatever translation tool you prefer to read it in your preferred language if you don't read French. I've picked two paragraphs:
Tout commence au quartier Latin, en plein Mai-68. Un jeune et talentueux peintre moscovite, Ilya Glazounov, débarque à Paris. L'artiste, déjà célèbre dans son pays, est un personnage sulfureux. Il se dit monarchiste, le KGB le qualifie même d'"antisémite". Pourtant, le régime communiste le juge utile à sa propagande et le promeut.

En France, Glazounov est donc en mission : il doit peindre les personnalités françaises que le Kremlin veut séduire, dont la plus prestigieuse, le général de Gaulle. Son aventure parisienne va prendre un autre cours.


Translation: It all starts in the Latin quarter, in the midst of May 1968. A talented young painter from Moscow, Ilya Glazunov, arrives in Paris. The artist, already famous in his home country, is a sulfurous character. He calls himself a monarchist, while the KGB goes so far as to label him "anti-Semitic". However, the Communist regime finds him useful for their propaganda, and promotes him.

In France, Glazunov is on a mission: charged with painting leading French figures whom the Kremlin wants to seduce, of which the most prestigious is General de Gaulle. His Parisian adventure will take a different direction.
Dossier: l'argent russe du Front National. "The Russian money of the Front National." This is another whopper, with several articles.
posted by fraula at 12:07 PM on November 2, 2016 [6 favorites]


Study of the colonial era will demonstrate the relations between the enlightenment and modern imperialism. I'll assume in good faith that no one is advocating modern imperialism here.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 1:52 PM on November 2, 2016


I'm sure some modern Scotsmen are.
posted by Etrigan at 3:09 PM on November 2, 2016 [5 favorites]


Study of the colonial era will demonstrate the relations between the enlightenment and modern imperialism.

Even assuming this to be true (and it's an instance where "citation needed" is desirable, if not necessary), it doesn't follow that "imperialism"—for whatever definition of such—is an emergent property of "the Enlightenment"—however defined—such that the end of one necessitates the end of the other. That's not an argument; it's a non-sequitur. Now you're free to make that argument, but it's going to require something more than the rhetorical equivalent of jazz hands.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:53 AM on November 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


There is a case that, if you go back far enough, then any sort of leisure class, and thus any sort of social and technological advancement, required exploitation, imperialism, etc. And this would make exploitation, imperialism, etc. good in that context.

There is no reasonable way to make that argument today however since we could grant everyone oodles of leisure with a slightly more sensible allocation of resources. Yet, there is an extreme contingent of the alt-right that tries to make exactly that case, basically by arguing that democracy allocate resources really badly. We make a symmetric argument on the left by arguing that rich people allocate resources really badly.

Who is right? I suspect almost nobody has ever allocated resources that terribly well, except under extreme duress. And almost nobody wants that. There is no way forward to better allocation of resource through rejecting the enlightenment per se though.

We do want democracy-like rules for decision making because they reduce bloodshed. We do not necessarily want these elected representatives with enough power to make them targets for corruption, well their purpose expired with the internet, if not the telephone. We do not want simple minded referendums for everything either, as social parasites learned to manipulate those too.

I believe the solution lies in combining ideas like demarchy aka sotation and delegative democracy, along with multi-winner ranked voting systems for when you really need representatives. We'll corrupt system like these eventually too, but we'll buy ourselves a period of better decision making while those social parasites evolve.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:16 AM on November 3, 2016


I suspect almost nobody has ever allocated resources that terribly well, except under extreme duress. And almost nobody wants that. There is no way forward to better allocation of resource through rejecting the enlightenment per se though.

Well, there was the Technocracy movement of the '30s, though they were definitely a distant descendent of Enlightenment thinking.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:41 AM on November 3, 2016


Technocratic is the term I'd use to describe US bi-partisan consensus. Maybe there is some other term for this in vogue that I am missing? Neoliberal maybe?

Current solutions look essentially technocratic. There's much hemming and hawing around solutions without means testing, evidence, forecasting, and all the rest. These are the tactics of well placed professionals, the useful idiots mentioned earlier. Marketing, aka psy-ops, is essential.

Until technocratic solutions are de-prioritized in favor of more humanitarian solutions, I'm not convinced the myriad issues we're facing can be resolved. Here's an admittedly anecdotal example. Pro-immigration policies get distorted into anti-labor policies. H1B's, visa holders, aka moderately well paid indentured servants, are routinely abused. I may well have lost my job, in part, by quietly encouraging visa holders to take time off on the weekend. I've got skin in this game, folks. I'm not the enemy. I also don't want sympathy, I want folks to take it to heart that every hour over forty is stealing a job from someone else.

I agree there's a great deal of reduction in the arguments I'm placing here. This, as well as personal conversations I've been having, have been a huge help in sharpening these ideas. I hope, once I am done with my ongoing transition from useful idiot to one of the 'poors', the 90%, that I'll have time to write the couple of thousand word essay required. Place shout out to Hardt and Negri here.

Also a thank you to the mods. I cannot imagine the last six months or so has been easy, particularly in the election threads.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 1:04 PM on November 3, 2016


I've only heard technocrat used to describe pro-austerity policies in Europe, usually imposed by other countries. It's meant to sounds like they know what they're dong, well maybe they do understand extracting short term value, but they willfully miss-understand economics, as noted by many economists like Paul Krugman, etc.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:45 PM on November 3, 2016


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