205 - How Opportunistic Politicians Worldwide Stir Up and Magnify Feelings of Status Compression and Loss of Esteem

From Mar-a-Lago to Bratislava

            “Trump will save the white population from being oppressed by Blacks. He will be our savior.” That wildly racist cant was uttered not by a J. D. Vance, a Tommy Tuperville, a Josh Hawley, or by some more authentic and much more personally threatened out-of-work mill worker in middle America. It might well have been, for the rise of “white supremacy” feeds off fear as well as perceived losses of status and the need for scapegoats and caricatures. But it was sounded in my presence by a wealthy white woman in a far off southern African country.

            The old order has turned topsy-turvy for so many North Americans; Trump’s purported victimhood speaks to those whose sense of self-worth has been undermined by work insecurities, consequent losses of self-respect, and an external environment that overturns trusted societal anchors and replaces the old standards by many new kinds of permissiveness -- LBGTQ, same sex marriage, gender fluidity.  Cultural advances become dastardly threats to a proportion of our population that anyway feels left behind, pushed aside, and marginalized.

            When expected norms are shattered, when the old predictable order breaks down, when hard work and straight living is unrewarded, when one loses a job to a robot or to a less-expensive worker overseas (or in Mexico), and when one’s children come home with outlandish ideas, many hitherto reasonably satisfied and reasonably honored Americans feel immensely under attack. They become more receptive to demagogues, to bigots, and to those – like Trump –who claim to feel their pain and promise to up-end the “elites” and others who have “unfairly” and by slight-of-hand disturbed the established order that hitherto had sober, sensible, upright, persons permanently on top. Despite his womanizing, his corruption, his foul-mouthed ignorance, his perpetual self-aggrandizement, his insistence on taking money from those in his Moony like cult – despite all of these outrageous human failings -- Trump still has managed to enroll myriads of Americans and foreigners in his nihilist political tirade.  His is the new Jonestown or Waco cult. Conspiracism sells. So does speaking up loudly if erratically for those who think themselves downtrodden, overlooked, and profoundly marginalized.

            The hurt that some people feel is real. But the venom that myriad politicians spout is far more manufactured to gain electoral support.  Just recall what Sen. Mitt Romney wrote about the true sentiments of his colleagues, their bad-mouthing (in private) of Trump and other similar sounding colleagues.  Ambitious Republican political opportunists are the actual “deplorables,” not those for whom they purport to speak.

            Unfortunately, Americans are not the only governing operations threatened by the weaponizing of anxiety for political gain. What is immensely frightening is that those in this country have their counterparts throughout Europe and Latin America. The Economist recently published a frightening article and chart showing how powerful political movements overseas build on the same kinds of resentments that Trump’s followers express.  There is hardly any part of Europe without its right-wing political party. And their appeal is growing rapidly, with some crypto fascists already in power or having become politically influential and their counterparts in other countries poised to gain increased salience electorally later this year, next year, and well beyond.

            Trump is a unique, self-invented, dishonest, con man.  But he has his clever counterparts in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, and even Germany. According to the Economist each case is different, but everywhere the arrival of numbers of immigrants triggers threats to established order, are perceived falsely to be stealing jobs, are blamed for or actually engage in new kinds and dimensions of crime, and are accused mostly wrongly of raising levels of violence following the formation of gangs. Whether or not the perceptions are accurate, there is enough anecdotal suspicion and empirical experience for whole “native” populations to seek ostensibly strong, loud, men to right floundering ships. (And most “natives” in North America were once immigrants or are descended from immigrants.)

            Hungary’s President Viktor Orban has played well to the fears of his white and ethnically largely linguistically aligned people.  He has largely fenced Hungary off from immigrants, pilloried elites, used Hungarian-born George Soros as a whipping boy, sided with Putin’s Russia, opposed a free Ukraine, penalized free expression, excoriated Western democracy, locked up political prisoners, and – most winningly of all – told his Hungarian people that he would trade bolstering their sense of self in exchange for unquestioning obedience to his dictatorial pursuits.      

            There are many more like him, including Prime Minister Giogia Meloni of Italy who, so far, has talked antagonistically (especially about immigrants fleeing by sea) but so far has legislated pragmatically. Not so for Serbian President Alexsandar Vucic, who whips up sentiment against Albanian-majority Kosovo almost daily and backs the anti-democratic Serbs in Bosnia. On Saturday, Slovakian prime ministerial candidate Robert Fico led the polls by spouting anti-immigrant and anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, copying Orban in successfully appealing to those of his constituents who may be feeling aggrieved. Germany cracked down last week on two very far right Fascist pro-Nazi movements, arresting many.  (Fortunately, German law prohibits the uttering of pro-Hitlerian rants.) Just like Trump, each of these rightist leaders and movements play well to the feelings (real or perceived) of their countrymen and women, especially with widespread experienced self-identified losses of purpose.

            We should not dismiss this massive global rise of human anger. It is real even, or because, it plays out as bigotry, intolerance, and scapegoating. Many among us want the security and the salience that we once think we enjoyed in a less fractured and less complex world. The old supposed certainties produced less personal doubt and far more comfort for a middle class and a working class that could envisage long years of reliable work and relaxed retirements. Off-shoring, robotics, AI, and the relentless rush of change test resiliencies, in Detroit as well as in Belgrade, Bratislava, Budapest, and Krakow.

            These are discomforting times for many. Fico, Orban, and Vucic attract voters much the way Trump does, and for many of the same feelings of the heart, less the head. President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz each advances reforms in large part intended to better the lives those who feel aggrieved. Rationality, and sensible policy making (in Biden’s case vastly improved health and medical care, taxes on the affluent, close attention to unions and working class needs, and sensible environmental actions) should reduce the appeal of racism, victimization, and hostility to immigrants. But it never does and never will because of profoundly deep senses of entitlement forfeited and gut-wrenching alienation.

            Biden and such aspiring leaders as Donald Tusk in Poland must somehow channel their inner Franklin Delano Roosevelts and craft lasting answers that could begin to provide hope and stability to the mistakenly so-called “deplorables” in North America, in Europe, and even in white fearful redoubts in distant Africa. Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has managed to become an inspired beacon of hope not only for his own people, but for others in Europe and across the globe (even if recalcitrant Republicans trash him for narrow political reasons).  Trump is the antichrist; the West and the Americas need to find someone who can speak authentically to the aggrieved and guide them to see their place in the world as honored and secure – despite profound evolutionary shifts.

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