Seeing the rise of the far-right through the lens of anti-establishment sentiment reveals why current strategies fail. Mainstream responses that defend the political order or adopt right-wing positions will only accelerate their decline.
The election of Joe Biden in 2020 brought a wave of relief to millions around the world. Not only was Trump gone, but for many Biden’s win suggested that maybe he was just a blip, and that things would return to normal. Clearly nothing could have been further from the truth, and if the recent US election shows us anything, it was that Biden was the COVID-induced blip to the new Trumpist norm. We can no longer look at Trump, nor the movements he inspires, as an accident, or something that will inevitably be corrected. We must reckon with it – both how we got here, and how we will get out of this mess.
I am not going to answer both those questions in full in this article. But I will argue two things – first that the best way we can think about Trump and the broader rise of the far-right is less through traditional understandings of ‘left’ vs ‘right’, but rather through the lens of establishment vs. anti-establishment movements. In turn, I argue that we cannot rely on traditional political systems to overturn this trend – and in fact that attempts from traditional social-democratic parties to do so is fuelling Trump’s fire. Instead, we must develop new alternative structures and stories that speak to people’s anti-establishment feelings. We must properly tear down these structures, rather than simply prop them up in different ways as Trump will inevitably do.
What’s behind the rise of Trump and the far-right?
We’ve all heard the swath of reasons as to why Trumpism and the far-right is growing – immigration, economics, that people are feeling under threat from a changing society, and that there is, as many have claimed a growing “clash of civilisations”. This is of course on top of the more specific reasons given for Trump’s recent victory – that Biden didn’t step out early enough, and of course sexism directed at Kamala Harris. While some, if not all these things may be true to an extent, none of them really get to the core of the problem.
These fights about immigration, culture clashes and even economics, are all a symptom of a broader problem – a societal collapse driven by unfettered capitalism, which has the full support of our political leaders. The reality clear – inequality is rising, poverty rates are increasing, global warming is running rampant, people are increasingly lonely, and have pessimism about the future. The rich are getting significantly richer, with billionaires organising flights to space, while more and more people struggle to afford a house or even their weekly groceries.
This is not inevitable. Political leaders, on all sides of the political spectrum, are creating these problems. Leadership on both the centre-right and centre-left have readily adopted neoliberal ideologies, passing policies for the wealthy while millions are left behind. It is clearer now, more than ever, that whether it is the Republicans and Democrats in the US, or Liberal and Labor in Australia, mainstream parties have more in common with the rich than they do with everyone else (just look, for example, at Anthony Albanese blocking basic environmental reforms in the last week of Parliament to appease mining interests).
While many of the issues I’ve listed are economic, this collapse is not just about economics. As Wendy Brown argues in her book Undoing The Demos, neoliberalism has facilitated a “relentless and ubiquitous economization of all features of life.” Everything in our world has become about individualism and competition – whether it is people competing for likes on social media posts, or the commodification of sexual activity through sites such as Only Fans. In doing so, the “neoliberal rationality disseminates the model of the market to all domains and activities – even where money is not at issue – and configures human beings exhaustively as market actors, always, only, and everywhere as homo economicus.” Neoliberalism has shifted the whole purpose of living. Living is no longer about being happy or connecting with family and friends, instead it is solely about the pursuit of money, money, money, and self-interest.
Yet, this pursuit of individual gain, is something that is only available to a small few. As George Monbiot argues:
“neoliberalism tells us that if we work hard enough, we can all be Number One: a mathematically impossible promise. But it also creates the conditions which ensure that, no matter how hard you work, you are likely to remain subordinate and exploited… neoliberalism simultaneously promises the world and snatches it away.”
This gap between promise and fulfilment has fundamentally impacted our collective psyche, creating a breeding ground for frustration, humiliation and a desire for vengeance. Unfettered capitalism has created what the historian Arno Meyer called a “crisis stratum”, a cohort of primarily disillusioned young men, who feel (and in many cases are) as if they live in a constant state of crisis, having no connection to the current world, and no hope for the future.
Our current political structures have, rightfully, faced the brunt of much of this frustration and anger. Data shows that people increasingly see the political class as working against its interests, a sentiment that some describe as ‘anti-politics’. Mete defines anti-politics to be:
made up of the sum of the critical discussions, attitudes and actions directed against political actors and institutions by different individuals who in a variety of roles form part of the political community (political leaders, ordinary people, political militants, journalists, businessmen, exponents of civil society etc.). Anti-political criticism particularly focuses on political parties and professional politicians, who are accused of being corrupt, inefficient, parasitic, incapable, arrogant, open to bribery and remote from people’s needs.
Anti-politics describes a growing, and well-deserved, hatred of the elites. People are increasingly realising that politics is overtaken by vested interests, that politicians and other leaders of institutions cannot be trusted, and that political and economic systems are fundamentally designed to work against them.
This is where Trump and the far-right have been so effective, much more so than any parts of the left. Trump and movements like his have successfully tapped into this anti-establishment feeling, frustration, humiliation, and desire for vengeance. They have done in two ways – through positioning themselves as the anti-establishment who fight against the elites, and through taking these feelings and directing them toward “outside threats” – whether immigrants, Muslims, LGBTIQ people, or, women, all of whom they often connect to the elite.
Trump’s entire success is framed around him being him an anti-establishment figure. In 2015 and 2016 he deliberately ran against the Republican Party in the primaries, trashing many of their venerated (but broadly hated) figures. Core to this has been breaking the rules of the system itself, with Trump openly flouting what were once considered to be assumed ‘values’ of a Presidential candidate. He even noted this himself, stating at one point “I could… shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters”.
Trump does not hide this strategy, but instead he openly embraces it. In a post prior to the 2020 election, for example, his administration said:
“Donald Trump won the presidency by challenging both the Republican and Democrat Party establishments. For too long, the political class of party leaders, paid consultants, lobbyists, donor-funded think tanks, and partisan media outlets ignored the concerns of millions of working- and middle-class American families. These families didn’t see themselves as Democrats or Republicans. They saw themselves as Americans — and they wanted change”.
Despite what I think about his politics, I cannot help but admire this statement. In it he says that he doesn’t care about The Party, like so many other politicians. Instead, he cares about people. The fact that Trump was part of the elite, and often did nothing to undo their policies, doesn’t matter in this context. What has been so important for so many is that he expressed the frustrations that many have felt for so long – ones that no one else ever listened to. Trump made and continues to make people feel heard, and that is extremely powerful.
Here, though, he, alongside many others like him, also engages in a bait and switch. Instead of directing anger at capitalism, these movements instead claim that the main problem with the elite is that they work too much to help ‘outsiders’, who are the real cause of people’s problems. There are lots of outsiders the right like to attack – whether it’s white supremacists claiming immigrants and people of colour are stealing jobs, livelihoods and destroying Western culture or the Manosphere claiming that women and feminism are destroying men’s lives by refusing to date them. Donald Trump is the absolute master of this – tapping into an array of grievances against immigrants, and claiming that he, and only he, can turn make Government focus on ‘real Americans’ again.
Not only does Trump, and those like him, turn anger towards these ‘outsiders’ he also turns this sentiment into unbridled nihilism that not just accepts violence against these outsiders, but welcomes it. Nihilism, a feeling that is prominent within this “crisis stratum”, describes a loss in values, a belief that nothing is worth it and all actions are meaningless. This sentiment gives people, when provided the permission, to act in pure spite against those they believe are the cause of their problems. In turn, voting for and joining the far-right, and participating in their violence, allows people to, as American political theorist Wendy Brown says, feel a sense of power “when world affirmation or world building are unavailable”. When faced with the despair of neoliberalism, the far-right has created a space where destruction has become the only way out. As Brown says “if white men cannot rule the planet, there will be no planet”.
These tactics, however, would not be viable if it weren’t for the original sin – the fundamental failures of capitalism. It is capitalism, in particular unfettered neoliberal capitalism – driven, it must be noted by mainstream centrist parties – that has given us the rise of the far-right. This is not something that can be fixed, it is fundamental to the system. As the economist, Joseph Stiglitz has argued:
“Unfettered, neoliberal capitalism is antithetical to sustainable democracy… It is evident today that free and unfettered markets advocated by Hayek and Friedman and so many on the Right have set us on the road to fascism”.
The rise of the far-right is embedded in deep frustration and anger amongst many about the state of their lives, and of the work in general. This has been driven by the dominant centrist parties of the past Century, who have spent the past decades shredding the social fabric — imposing austerity, misery, and extreme inequality. The policies of neoliberalism have driven not just economic decline, but also a growing sense of nihilism – a belief that things can’t get better. This is driving many to look for alternatives, with the far-right being one of these.
The mainstream is making it worse
Faced with problems like these, the mainstream centre-left have shown themselves to be fundamentally unable, and unwilling, to properly respond. The main reason is that they have become deeply committed to neoliberal structures and are completely unable to turn against them.
Unlike many from the far-right, who are also deeply committed to neoliberalism, but can at least position themselves as anti-elites, Mainstream parties like the Democrats and Labor are also so committed to liberal structures, even when they are failing, that they cannot adopt such messaging. Instead of recognising the mood in the current moment, mainstream centre-left parties are instead trying to convince the voting population that the structures are fine, and we just need to let them do their work.
Hillary Clinton was the worst at this. In response to Donald Trump slogan, “Make America Great Again”, for example, Clinton started to say, “America is already great”. She did so, presumably, through a failed belief that it would tap into American patriotism, and somehow make people believe that Trump was anti-American. But it fundamentally misunderstood the problem. While many, if not most, Trump voters would consider themselves deeply patriotic, they are also very frustrated with the structures and leadership of these countries. As a commenter on a post in the Manosphere says, “Love your country, hate your government”, a sentiment of so many of these movements, who criticise current governments while looking back romantically at an imagined past in which the nation-state was nobler.
In defending current structures, therefore, all Clinton, and other mainstream left, folks are saying therefore is “we don’t get your problems and we’re not willing to fight for you.” When people, rightfully, realise that the structures are working against them, and then a party comes in and says the structures are fine, then that party is not that appealing to vote for. This means that even if the alternative – Trump – doesn’t have solutions to the problems, that doesn’t matter. Because he is good at showing that he gets it, which is a lot more than many on the centre-left can do.
The other mistake the mainstream centre-left is making is to increasingly adopt far-right ideas to neuter these movements. Centrist and mainstream parties, particularly the older dominant social-democratic parties, for example, have increasingly tacked right on core issues for the far-right such as immigration and crime. In the US, Joe Biden announced policies to block asylum seekers from crossing the US/Mexico border, hoping to make himself look tough on immigration. The ALP here in Australia have done the same, taking a ‘tough on borders’ approach, such as announcing trying to implement caps on international students at universities over housing prices, and recently working with the Coalition to pass draconian laws that allow Australia to pay third countries to take non-citizens, expand powers to prohibit items including phones in immigration detention, creates criminal penalties for not cooperating with deportation and creates the power to blacklist visa applications from designated countries (which is exactly what Trump ended up doing to implement his much publicised ‘Muslim ban’)
It’s worth noting that many mainstream leaders actively want this. Mainstream centre-left parties are in many ways more politically aligned with the far-right (who are just extreme neoliberals) than with the real left. In turn they’d rather adopt their policies than any real left alternative. In other words, we should not believe that the ALP are just implementing anti-immigration laws for cynical political means – they do it because they want to. Positioning groups such as immigrants as ‘the problem’ also provides a distraction that allows such parties to avoid any culpability for causing many of our societal problems. Mainstream parties benefit from this narrative as well.
But even if they are doing this cynically, mainstream parties are undermining their own support as they legitimise far-right parties.
This backfires as adopting far-right policies – such as extreme restrictions on immigration – give further legitimacy to these ideas. As parties adopt these ideas, they shift the so-called ‘overton window’, making more right-wing ideas acceptable, and in turn making it more acceptable for people to vote for more extreme candidates. Research from the Progressive Politics Research Network examined this through looking at centre-left parties, particularly Labour in the UK, that adopted austerity policies. They found that instead of giving the party greater ‘credibility’ on economic issues, adopting austerity resulted in them losing votes. Talking about UK Labour’s losing 2015 campaign, which focused on fiscal responsibility, Björn Bremer of the Central European University, said:
“[When] voters really care about fiscal policy, they’ll go for the ‘issue owner’ – in this instance, the Conservatives, who they’ll always believe are more credible on that question.”
This is the same for adopting anti-immigration policies. If people believe that immigration is the main issue of the day, then they are more likely to go for the ‘issue owner’ – that is far-right parties. People are perceptive and can understand when parties are adopting issues as cynical ploys. If they consider that issue to be important, why would they go for the one cynically adopting it, instead of going for the real deal? As Tarik Abou-Chadi, an associate professor of European politics at the University of Oxford, says “Voters tend to prefer the original to the copy. ”
Developing real alternatives
If we want to defeat the far-right, therefore, we do not do it by appeasing them. We also cannot do it by simply reinforcing the structures that many people have turned against. Instead, we must do it by recognising people’s pain and fighting to create new structures that can work for people, rather than against them.
This, I admit, is the shortest section of this essay, because we are all still grappling with how to create a genuine alternative. If we had the answers then Trump wouldn’t still be winning. But here are a few things I think we must start doing, and now.
First, we must do something that the left has increasingly found extremely difficult – that is empathising with those who have different views to our, particularly those who are find Trump or the far-right somewhat appealing. As Jeff Sparrow has pointed out, the left and centrists often adopt a ‘smug’ approach to our enemies, which looks down at those who we are opposed to, and mocks the issues they bring to the table. This is often driven by identity politics, which engages in an oppression Olympics where the complaints of anyone who is considered ‘privileged’ are automatically discounted.
I’ve seen this happen far-too-often in debates around the far-right and those who they are speaking to. Instead of creating change, this approach reinforces anger people have at the left, with it rightfully being seen as an example of elites speaking down to those expressing their feelings. This bolsters the culture war claims of the far-right, who use populist ideals that position themselves as the friends of ‘everyday people’ who are fighting against a cohort of ‘leftist elites’. As Jeff Sparrow argues:
“By dismissing people as fools, progressives confirmed everything the culture warriors said: they openly embraced the condescending stereotype of the liberal elitist”.
Instead, left-wing politics works best when we recognise that the complaints about society of many who join the far-right have are, at the core, very similar to our own – they are just pointed in the wrong direction. People are suffering – socially, economically, and in an environment that is collapsing. The far-right are simply being more effective at creating an easy narrative to explain these problems. In his book, Living Democracy, Tim Hollo describes this perfectly. He says:
“The neofascists are, ironically, more honest about the alienation and disenfranchisement rampant in our society than many capitalist liberals, although they are deeply dishonest about its causes and solutions. In a classic bait and switch, they bring people together on the basis of legitimate concerns about the state of politics and how it has been corrupted, and then misdirect the anger away from the real causes”.
We can learn from the far-right. Our job is to recognise this genuine anger and frustration, but to turn it toward the real causes of their pain. This doesn’t mean agreeing with the far-right when they blame immigrants or other minorities for everything. Instead, we should label the real problems behind their grievances – a rampant neoliberal capitalism and successive governments that are more interested in appealing to the big end of town than to addressing the social isolation, economic insecurity and ongoing alienation felt by those in the community. We must convince people that it is only in defeating these systems that we can alleviate these problems.
This is the second core part of the lesson. We cannot defeat Trump or the far-right through our neoliberal systems. These are the systems that have given us these problems in the first place, and every time we try to boost or defend them, we will lose more people to our movement. Liberal democracy is failing people, we must accept that. We must turn against it as well. I am not suggesting that we become authoritarians, or free market libertarians. Rather, we must consider, fight for, and build new and more democratic structures – ones that will benefit all, rather than the few.
This may seem hard, but it is the only way that we can truly defeat these movements. And we’ve seen it done with some success in recent years – whether through the (initial) popularity of Jeremy Corbyn, the campaigns of Bernie Sanders, or the recent defeat of the far-right in France’s Parliamentary elections. Here in Australia, the Greens are also understanding this more. Instead of taking a moralising approach, which was often (although not entirely) common when I first joined the party, we can now see genuine engagement with communities that are expressing such grievances.
Notably, many of these campaigns have frequently drawn the ire of the centre-left even more than from conservatives. It was Labor MPs who destroyed Corbyn, and establishment Democrats who refused to let Bernie do what Trump did to the Republican Party, even though it would have possibly been extremely beneficial electorally. Just recently Anthony Albanese has begun to make it clear that he much prefers working with Peter Dutton to pass legislation than he does the Greens. So committed to the neoliberal structures, the mainstream of these parties would often prefer to lose than to let real left alternatives win.
But we cannot lie down or be shamed. We must understand the political moment we are in, and the reality of the situation so many people are facing. The only way to overcome the growing threat of the far-right is through adopting some of their tactics, but turning them to fight for our principles in a way that gives people a real alternative to our rubbish systems.
Dr Simon Copland is the Executive Director of Pedal Power ACT, Canberra’s oldest and largest cycling organisation. In his role Copland is advocating for a mass increase in investment in cycling infrastructure in the ACT. Simon completed his PhD in Sociology at the Australian National University (ANU), studying online men’s rights groups and communities ‘manosphere’. He has research expertise in masculinity, the far-right, online hate, and digital media platforms. He has a Masters in Science Communication.
Feature image. Do Not Adjust Your Screen by Rich Hermann (2017) CC BY-NC-ND 2.0