The Far Right Plague

The US is an inward-looking nation. Most of the think-pieces after Trump’s rise have focused on the particularly American reasons for his emergence, the failure of the Democrats, the influence of evangelical Christianity, celebrity, and economic uncertainty.

But that misses the larger picture; the drivers that brought Trump and MAGA to power are not about America, as it is about the bitterness of white, uneducated men feeling they are losing their place in society. This isn’t about America; it is happening everywhere, across the Western World.

Look at who supports MAGA, Reform in the UK, the AfD in Germany, and Rassemblement National in France; they’re the same people. Low, often very low, educated white men from post-industrial landscapes.

These post-industrial areas have become the breeding grounds for the Far Right in the US and Europe. Communities that once voted for economic self-interest are now rallying around what are said to be cultural issues (racism, sexism, bigotry, and race-based resentment against immigration).

President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

Just like the shift from an agrarian society to an industrialized society, the shift from an industrialized society to the new Age of Digital Technology has been massively disruptive. This change, over several decades, came very fast for the majority because they didn’t see it. It was happening in areas far from where they lived, in universities they did not attend, and in industries they did not work. Their very nature of limited education, limited reading, and limited interest in the greater world isolated them.

In the agrarian and industrialized ages, they could leave primary school with no qualifications and still make their mark on the world. Sweat and toil while spending evenings and weekends having beers with their friends, and the nation would see them as heroes for keeping the wheels of industry turning. It was the age of “Joe Sixpack”.

But during the latter part of the last century and into the 21st century, it has become clear that you not only need a basic level of education, but K through 12 needs to be K through 16 and/or trade school. Brains are what matter now, not manual labor. Most manual industries have gradually slipped away, while those that remain do not pay top dollar to their workers. As the new industrial revolution of digital technology caught everyone’s imagination, Joe Sixpack discovered he wasn’t the hero anymore. When you don’t have much, being a hero is a big deal. Pride is a powerful force.

Now that the time of manual labor has passed. Educated people are taking over everything. The scientists, the professors, the engineers, they’re the usurpers, the threat, the Elite.

One of the mistakes a lot of politicians in the middle and on the left make is thinking that all voters have rational and reasoned choices about which party they support; if you vote for a Far-Right party, you must love Far-Right policies, but that is not true in a lot of cases. Certainly not enough to win elections.

There is plenty of data to show that low information voters who support MAGA, Reform, or other Far-Right parties have very little idea of the party’s actual policies. In fact, most of the policies are in direct opposition to what those voters want or need.

Yes, racism is used to inflame and drive many of their votes; however, most agree with taxing the wealthy, investing in public services, healthcare, retirement, pensions, and social security.

They are more burn-it-all-down angry voters. I’ll vote for anyone who looks like they’re going to upend the status quo, drain the swamp!

That bitterness at losing their place in society has made them easy prey to those who promise the clock can be turned back to the days when they were on top (Make America Great Again). Right now, those disillusioned voters feel they’re in an existential fight, and they’ll take the support of anyone who says they will break the new way of operating. Trump. Farage. Le Pen.

MAGA has sunk deep roots into this resentment, not only preying on that sense of unfairness but twisting it into something hateful, cruel, and divisive to control their votes. Limbaugh, Gingrich, Murdoch, the Heritage Foundation, and now Trump.

These once-supporters of the Left, now supporters of the Far-Right, were so desperate to be back on top that they were ready to displace those they felt were standing in their way: the educated, people of color, women, immigrants, and the elite. Seen through this prism, it’s not about party politics or Left and Right. It’s about the Past vs the Future.

Far Right manipulators answer those desires to retreat to the 20th century. The victims are people of color, immigrants, women, the non-religious, and the educated.

The ones who haven’t adapted to the 21st century, however, are not going to win with MAGA or Reform or any of the others. They are simply being used.

Once you have that understanding, the opportunities are clear. It’s a lot easier to convince someone they actually have a stake in the system than it is to talk them out of fascist ideology.

Trump did not create this. He is not that smart, like Farage, he is using it. The power he has accrued, and the lies he tells, have convinced these people that, yes, they can have the past back again. The coal mines will reopen. The steelworks will fire up. The money will flood back in, and the uneducated working people can be back on top again. Elon Musk has been trying to fund and spread the same propaganda in France, Germany, Austria, and Romania.

Non MAGA politicians will not be able to placate them by bringing back the industries and those well-paid jobs where you could thrive without investing in yourself. They’re gone for good.

There’s only one answer for the future; education. This will not work with the majority of the angry white men today; they are a lost cause. But it will work with some who have families, and it will speak to the young voters here today and those coming up in the future. Education should be a primary policy for every party of the Center-Left everywhere. Free or affordable, High-Quality, K through 16 education.

People need to be given the skills and the knowledge to prepare for the vast changes that are coming in the next few years, far beyond anything we’ve lived through since the turn of the century.

Leave people to fend for themselves, and that Far Right Plague will spread even further.