The Populist Right Destroyed Everything I Cherish
We need to remember what we lost in order to recover it
I've talked a lot about how much I dislike the authoritarian-populist New Right, how much I disagree with their worldview and philosophy, and how much I disagree with their dishonest political tactics. However, today I want to look at these frustrations from another angle. I want to look at the good things that the populist right has destroyed, and from there, at least revive our imaginations of how much better off we would be if not for the existence of the populist right. Let's begin.
Here are the things that I cherish, that have been destroyed or ruined by the populist right so far:
1) A chance at truly rational dialogue
The populist right simply doesn't believe in respectful, rational dialogue aimed at arriving at a better understanding of the objective truth. For the populist right, the truth doesn't matter, only winning matters, and they justify this by painting an emotionally charged picture of a state of emergency across the West (see Michael Anton's 'Flight 93 election' article, for example.) They want to 'own the libs' and win at all costs, so they can implement their authoritarian agenda. To achieve their goals, they don't mind creating more polarization, and creating more confusion and emotionally charged irrationality in society. The way they distorted the meaning of 'wokeness', 'postmodernism' and 'critical race theory', so that these concepts could be weaponized against their political opponents, shows their modus operandi, and the toxic effects it has on the political and cultural discourse.
2) Liberal woke skepticism
When the 'woke' left tried to mainstream ideas from postmodern critical theory, old-school liberals pushed back hard, because the new ideas would dilute traditional liberal values like free speech and free debate, freedom of conscience, individual responsibility and dignity, and commitment to science and objectivity. We believe that these traditional liberal values are the key to achieving social justice, and the misguided turn towards postmodern critical theory-based identity politics in some parts of the left would therefore end up harming social justice. However, the populist right used their well-funded media to effectively take over the woke-skeptical discourse, redefining 'woke' to mean everything they don't like. This, in turn, created the misconception among some people that woke skepticism is reactionary, anti-social justice and anti-LGBT. Not only does this harm the reputation of woke skeptical liberals who are pro-social justice (like myself), it also makes other pro-social justice people increasingly reluctant to criticize postmodern critical theory and its associated activism, lest they be smeared as fellow travelers of the populist right.
3) The rational middle ground on trans issues
Recently, I came across a discussion on Reddit where someone who identified as a 'conservative libertarian' wanted to ask the trans community about certain trans issues, in order to gain some understanding. His stated goal was to hopefully build some bridges between the trans community and the right, and I thought he sounded truly sincere. However, many trans people responded negatively, simply because they are now fearful, frustrated and angry at the Republican Party's avalanche of anti-trans policies in the past 2-3 years. This avalanche of anti-trans policies are the result of several years of vehemently anti-trans propaganda from the populist right-aligned media. Before the populist right targeted the trans community, even the Republican Party and Trump himself was ready to sort of leave LGBT issues alone. But the populist right decided to wage an all-out culture war on all things trans, in order to make the Republican Party anti-LGBT again. This has made the mission of people like myself, to find a rational middle ground where we can work out our differences and seek compromises on trans issues, all the more difficult. This is why I've decided that we must take a stronger stance against the populist right's culture warriorism going forward, if we want to recover the possibility of establishing a rational middle ground.
4) Libertarianism
The attempted takeover of the US Libertarian Party by the populist right-adjacent Mises Caucus in recent years demonstrated how libertarianism, a small movement, is vulnerable to hostile takeover by larger forces that are not really that into freedom. The infiltration of libertarianism probably began during the Tea Party era, and it accelerated greatly during the pandemic, when many people had too much time on their hands, and began exploring weird (and often extreme) ideologies. All this eventually led to Donald Trump being invited to attend a Libertarian Party conference, despite the fact that he is clearly an authoritarian. It's basically as ridiculous as a socialist conference inviting Elon Musk to attend. The negative reception Trump received among true libertarians says it all. However, the damage has been done, and many people are now very confused about what libertarianism is, and very skeptical of the 'libertarian' brand, even when not associated with the US Libertarian Party. I see all this as a deliberate attempt to destroy the brand and the philosophy of libertarianism, so the populist right's authoritarian agenda can proceed unchallenged.
5) Genuine conservative philosophy
This one is more complicated, because the New Right are not the first ones to betray and destroy genuine conservative philosophy. The 20th century 'three legged stool' fusionism of radically ultra-capitalist economics, aggressively interventionist foreign policy and religious right-driven 'social conservatism' (which in practice just means vehement opposition to abortion and all things gay) was clearly not conservative, and its failures effectively sowed the seeds of the rise of the New Right. However, the New Right's blatant disregard of long-standing classical liberal and democratic norms, its attempt to 'borrow' from highly authoritarian Eastern European cultures and disrespect for the largely liberal culture of the English-speaking West, and its wanton trampling on the separation of church and state threaten to basically bury any remnants of genuine conservatism for good. This is why I believe that the best hope for genuine conservative philosophy to survive going forward would be in reconciliation with moderate progressivism, to form a healthy and sustainable reformism guided by the philosophy and principles of both. This conservatism-inspired reformism (conservative progressivism?) could be the key to defeating the populist right.
6) Compassion
Compassion is a long-standing traditional value, and our society would be much worse off without it. However, the populist right likes to spit in the face of compassion, painting it as only for 'SJW libs' who don't know that 'facts don't care about your feelings'. This anti-compassion attitude is part of their extreme Spartan worldview, which they want to impose on our society. In many ways, the battle between classical liberalism and the populist right is reminiscent of the rivalry between democratic Athens and proto-fascist Sparta in ancient Greece. And I really don't want our future to be a Spartan one. Just the thought of this is horrible indeed.
The Key to Deradicalizing People is to Give Them Hope
The proliferation of extreme political ideologies on both the left and the right is a serious problem. One thing many people don't seem to realize is that the lack of hope is perhaps the most important reason behind this. Many people lack hope in their lives, and the extreme political ideologies give them hope. Of course, it is false hope, but it gives them what they crave in life right now. Therefore, the key to preventing more people from being radicalized is to give people hope in their lives. We really need to think about how to do that. Firstly, we need to get rid of all the fear, and the negativity, from our discourse. Then we need to start thinking about how to inject hope into people's lives. We need to think about what they want from life, and how we can help them achieve it. I think that if people had more hope of achieving meaningful goals in their own lives, political extremism would be much less popular.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).
Thanks for sharing your experience. I have a more or less same experience in Sweden and in the European context. Tribalism is horrible