Few people present have doubts that a fresh force has emerged on the global political stage.
It is no coincidence that Elon Musk not only supports Donald Trump, but besides political movements in Germany, the UK or Italy with a circumstantial colour. It is besides not accidental that our native "patriotes" are delighted with Trump – even though its abroad policy is clearly against the interests of Poland.
Both Musk and these "patriots" correctly perceive the community of values between Trump in the USA, Meloni in Italy, Farag in the UK, Nawrock and Mentzen in Poland. The question remains what to call this right-wing international. The word “right” seems besides general and does not explain why Trump and his allies, for example, hatred the old Republican organization defender so much.
The word "extreme right" introduces any clarification, but inactive does not give distant the specificity of this movement – what precisely is this "extreme right"?
We find ourselves in a situation where this fresh right is increasingly affecting the form of the world, and yet we inactive deficiency the appropriate name to give it defining qualities.
What is the name?
Let us begin by saying that this is not just a trivial linguistic issue. For it is hard to talk of an unnamed thing, and simply naming it is an crucial political act.
There are besides many things going on all day, there are besides many speeches, besides many decisions being made so that anyone can realize it. The attribution of a name to a phenomenon is an effort to extract it from this information noise. Say to people, look this way, due to the fact that something crucial is happening there! It is besides an effort to place specified a phenomenon in a known context, and thus to realize its essence.
Therefore, after the 2007/2008 financial crisis, so many people on the left promoted the word "neoliberalism" as a description of a fresh form of capitalism, in which the lust for profit no longer restrains the social democratic social contract, and the top power is not the owners of the means of production but the financial institutions. Skeptics turned their noses – they claimed that the word was ambiguous and abused. Perhaps, however, the popularisation of this concept allowed, at least for a moment, the attention of the media and the public to real problems: increasing inequality, privatization of common goods, corporate lobbying, and increasing influences in politics.
After Trump won in 2016, it was no longer left, but Liberals and centrists promoted a fresh concept: right-wing populism. It besides captured something real – fresh movements on the right actually seemed more anti-elitarian in its rhetoric and more inclined to attack the customary institutions of liberal democracy than conventional conservative parties.
The choice of this concept had consequences. Focusing on the threat of "populism" has put the consideration of social inequality and another economical issues in the shadows. Fearing populism was besides convenient erstwhile individual wanted to put a sign of equality between the right and the left – like the magazine “The Economist”, which, before the 2020 election, equalled Trump and Bernie Sanders on the rule of “here populism and populism”.
The replacement of "neoliberalism" with "populism" as the dominant concept in the public debate so had concrete consequences for this debate as it turned the spotlight the another way.
Today, erstwhile we know that Trump wasn't an accident at work., only the beginning of a fresh right-wing global where the nationalist right has joined forces with cresus like Elona Muska, the question arises whether the concept of populism to definitely catch the specifics of this movement. Or do we request another tools to describe?
A unusual alliance or a logical alliance?
One of the most interesting attempts was made by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor in article for ‘Guardian’. They propose that the modern movements of the far right should be referred to as the “fascism of the end of time”, the apocalyptic fascism. What's behind the name?
According to them, the Trump movement in version 2.0, in the 2024 election version, combines 2 currents: the MAGA movement (from Trump's slogan "Make America large Again") and the Musk-style Libertarian billionaire movement, Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. The erstwhile mobilizes voters with patriotic slogans about the large America, a request to return jobs, scare immigrants and play anger over the effects of globalisation. The second finances Trump's political device to gain access to power and prosecute its libertarian ideas: dismantling state institutions and deregulation of the market.
According to Klein and Taylor, this alliance is not based solely on a temporary community of interests: you give us political power, we give you money. The MEGA movement and libertarian billionaires combine an apocalyptic imagination of a planet where endurance requires separation from the remainder of humanity. Both sides form closed “bunkras” – 1 in the form of strengthened national states, the another as luxury, technological enclaves – protected from “not desirable” and accessible only to the chosen. And above all, the authors write, both of these ideologies powerfully reject the thought that a better future is possible. The future can only be much worse, and there is no place in it for the weak. The thought of common good is so rejected for the sake of selection, dominance and endurance of the chosen.
The words of Vice-President J.D. Vance (criticized by the present pope, then cardinal) are crucial in this context, that Christian love should be directed towards "its" – family, closest community, nation – alternatively than strangers. However, this apocalyptic alliance is best illustrated by Todd Lyons, manager of the Immigration and Customs Office of the United States. At 1 of the meetings he turned out to want a more business approach to deportation – "something like Amazon Prime, just people".
Zygmunt Bauman erstwhile argued that the Holocaust was a typically modern crime – organized, bureaucratic, based on fresh technologies. Lyons seems arrogant to say that the construction of "bunkers" should be a complement to the logic of modern capitalism, dominated by technofeudals from Silicon Valley.
The effort to take over key resources (think about Trump's demands that Ukraine give distant its minerals) and full territories from Greenland to the Panama Canal besides fits into this ruthless logic of endurance of the strongest.
Fascists? Apocalyptic?
And so – is it a appropriate grasp of the features of the fresh right?
Let's start with Fascism and the question of how much exposing it in the name is simply a good move.
During the 2024 election, 1 of Barack's erstwhile advisors Obama mentioned in Pod Save America's podcast the conclusions he drew from in-depth electoral investigation in key states. The Democrats examined what arguments against Trump best appealed to undecided voters. It turned out that the most persuasion was the argument "Trump's economical decisions will harm you". And what was the least persuasion? You'll most likely guess by now: calling Trump a "fascist."
This is the strongest argument against exposing this aspect of the fresh right. usually in the planet for a large part of people it does not work.
There are 2 contrarguments. First of all, this name is simply appropriate. Leader's cult, authoritarian tendencies, nationalism, contempt for the weak, allowing violence, attacks on minorities, including national ones, and more late universities and technological investigation – are all characteristic features of fascist movements. Secondly, since the fresh right hand itself does not avoid the most severe accusations against its opponents, these have no reason to walk around it on their fingers – on the contrary, they should emphasize the radicality of this movement.
The dispute over whether the modern utmost right should be referred to as fascists is not fresh on the left or among liberals. A more interesting, due to the fact that the comparatively fresh aspect of Klein and Taylor's proposal seems to be the apocalyptic theme. due to the fact that while 20th-century fascism and Nazism promised their followers a better, prosperous future, so modern uber-libertarians do not make specified promises.
Doubtful of specified a fresh right expressed historian Adam Tooze. In short, they are as follows. Trump and Musk's movements are not just a sign of nostalgia or apocalyptic fear – on the rhetoric level, they besides offer a clear imagination of the future that mobilizes people around the thought of change and sacrifice. They may offer a bunker, but they assure voters that this is simply a luxury bunker, much better than the US today.
Trump's trade policy is based, for example, on criticism of elites, the construction of a working community of America and calls for self-sufficiency, even at the expense of giving up consumer convenience. Musk, in turn, turned his businesses into a secular mission: around Tesla and SpaceX he built a community of believers in the technological transformation of the world, willing to bear the hazard of believing that it was the way to a better future, specified as the colonization of Mars.
Tooze points out that the strength of these projects is something that the left is lacking – the ability to give material undertakings political meaning and emotional strength.
There won't be any warmer water in the tap
Notice that despite the differences, Klein and Taylor on the 1 hand and Tooze on the another have crucial points in common.
First of all, the technological muzzles, represented mainly by Musk, are an essential component of the fresh right hand. Not just due to the fact that they power her financially. They besides bring their own ideas: whether it's a imagination of building safe enclaves (Klein, Taylor), or a belief in advancement driven by fresh technologies (Tooze).
Secondly, it is apparent that in this fresh imagination of the world, it is the billionaires who are to give the tone. There is no serious equality policy or even typical democracy. On the contrary, billionaires with a vision, specified as Musk, are to gain even more freedom in achieving their own goals.
Thirdly, the fresh right reaches for what can be called the rhetoric of loftiness. Trump has been utilizing a bombistic language since the beginning of his political career: America under his regulation is always to be the largest and top in history. Musk goes 1 step further – he is not just talking about the large America, but about "Saving mankindIt’s okay. ” Whether we call this language apocalyptic or technoutopian, it remains in sharp contradiction with the technocratic slogans of insignificant reforms, corrections and defence position quo – so characteristic of liberals and centrists.
It is not a task of "warm water in the tap" – that is for sure.
I'd add 1 more thing to it that neither Klein of Taylor nor Tooze mentions, but that fits well in their shots.
The fresh right hand can let go of both liberals (see, we fight for freedom of speech against voke’ism) and the left (see how the elites defending liberal democracy hatred us), but above all, it is implementing its own project. It cannot be reconciled either with liberal free marketplace technocracy or with left-wing equality. Let's not fool ourselves, the fresh right doesn't want to compromise.
These 4 issues are essential starting points for trying to capture both the character of the fresh right hand and, more broadly, our current historical situation. And, most importantly, to start building an effective response.
