This is a continuation of part 1, if you haven’t read that I advise you to do so before. 

So we have the right rising in the west. Immediately people draw comparisons to the populists being similar to that of the rise of fascism during the early 1930s. Robert Paxton, expert and author of a couple of books on the historical subject of Fascism, says in an interview with Slate (2016) that “Concern about national decline, that was one of the most prominent emotional states evoked in fascist discourse, and Trump is using that full-blast, quite illegitimately, because the country isn’t in serious decline, but he’s able to persuade them that it is. That is a fascist stroke.”. 

It should be noted that this interview was made in February 2016, before Trump was the republican nominee and way before he became president elect. Paxton then goes on to say that the circumstances of 1930 versus today is very different. “There was a conscious choice in Germany at the end of 1932 to use Hitler’s mass following to smash social democracy in Germany. The same strategic [choice] was made in Italy. I don’t see any of that dynamic. The old guard is against Trump.”

With all these things said, I believe that the dangerous aspect of modern politics that is often overlooked in the mainstream discussion, is the ever increasing polarisation between differing political views. Pew Research centers 2014 study, shows that the number of people who consistently hold liberal or conservative opinions, have doubled in the last 20 years. 27% of democrats view republicans as a threat to the nation, and 36% of republicans view democrats as a threat. 

I am fairly certain that we have all seen them online. The ones who without reason or thought, throw their opinions out into the open. Most often, these comments or posts, are not discussion posts, but are just statements. And let me tell you, people with a more liberal view of life like myself, often want to discredit these people to only being of the right wing conservative kind. But we all do this. It is a direct co-relation to the fact that we are ever increasing in polarising the world. Liberals are no better than conservatives or socialists in this matter. 

Langenbacher and Shellenberg (2011), writes: 

There are three core far-right topics and mobilisation strategies that constitute the main success factors of right-wing extremist and right-wing populist players: their attempt to make use of social issues, to picture politics per se as corrupt and to propagate ascriptions of national identiy. 

I am fairly certain that this is where the polarisation stems from. Talking with Sweden in mind, and the recent election in the US, we can clearly see how media and “the establishment” takes a hardline approach against these populists parties. And time and time again it has failed miserably. In both Sweden and the US, these people tried to give the right the cold hand, ridicule them, and as in the case with the Swedish National tv SVT, refuse to invite them to any debates. 

What this does is that it plays perfectly into the narrative of these parties. It shows that “the elite is corrupt”, since they are trying ever hard to confine them. This means that voters of the far right, will be even more infuriated than before, radicalising them further. It will also stir the minds of people who are undecided, or have scepticism towards the current system (See Brexit for a good example of this). 

But at the same time, it also makes the people voting left or liberal, more radical. It creates a us against them, narrative, where the liberals are perceived as a superior entity, and the right are often labeled as “Poorly educated angry white males”. But downgrading the issues to these two hard points, we completely miss the point in understanding what causes the room for a populist right to grow in the first place. We are basically treating lung cancer, with cough syrup and pain killers.

So where does this decline in discussion come from? With all the information available to us, it should be easy to have a calm peaceful discussion about facts, and then go on to actually talk about the issues that leads to each sides polarisation. I have talked about this earlier in another post, but I feel like this have to be talked about again, as this is where the root to all this bullshit lies. Echo chambers. 

Continued in part 3