SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Politics used to seem so predictable. It wasn’t that long ago that you could go to bed and pretty much guess what the world’s political leaders would be saying the next morning.
A rough formula of what to expect would go something like this: new policy x polling + spin = a neat backdown from a solemn election promise. Batteries of pollsters and political columnists and podcasters would confidently tell us what the leaders and parties were going to do and why; sometimes they would even guess right. Not so now.
Illustration by Joe Benke
In the past fortnight, we have woken to hear Donald Trump threatening to make Canada the 51st state of the US, invade Greenland, seize the Panama Canal and blame the LA fires on diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring policies in the Californian fire services.
We heard his sidekick, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, call for the overthrow of UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, the replacement of Nigel Farage as the head of Reform UK because he’s too moderate, and for Germans to support the neo-Nazi-linked AfD at the federal election in February. And we heard another media tycoon, Mark Zuckerberg, the head of Meta, declare fact-checking, and therefore the concept of political truth, to be obsolete.
Just one of these announcements might have seemed unthinkable not that long ago. But together they are telling us something. The MAGA elite is generating a blizzard of intimidating political aggression in an attempt to sow fear and confusion and knock their political opponents off balance. We are, perhaps, in the early phase of a political revolution.
The “Trump normalisers” are telling us that he’s just playing with our minds and that he doesn’t really mean it. Meanwhile, the track record of mainstream commentators and political strategists has been shocking of late. Think of how many celebrity talking heads got Trump’s first – and latest – election win completely wrong.
Whatever the case, we need to think differently. Historically. The current political madness all seems so new, but to the historian it’s all so recognisable. This is exactly how populist extremists operated to intimidate democracy in the 1920s and ’30s. Always making new outrageous demands, always blaming easy hate figures, always using heavy-handed intimidation, always claiming they can generate their own truth. A never-ending hurricane barrage of political aggression that leaves opponents dizzy and exhausted. A repetitive assertion of fearlessness, strength and contempt that aims to impart fear.
This unpredictability was one of the reasons the political generation of the interwar years was initially bamboozled and defeated by the populists. They simply couldn’t get a handle on what the radicals might do next. It was outside their experience as careful, moderate democratic politicians to believe contemporary populists like Hitler and Mussolini would continually up the ante, make yet more outrageous demands, and call democrats’ bluff over and over again. They were completely psychologically unprepared for what was happening. We can’t afford to be. Think of the bullying chutzpah of Donald Trump Jr flying to Greenland for a supposed five-hour tourist visit the very day his dad threatened to annex the Arctic wilderness to build bases and “drill, baby, drill”.
There is something else about the MAGA movement that looks familiar to the historian: its modernity and futurism. Despite promising to return America to some old glory, the MAGA movement speaks the language of the future. It loves AI, cryptocurrency, reusable rocketry, the conquest of Mars. It makes the movement exciting, sleek, flash, led by people who think themselves smarter and sexier than us. And it appeals to the young – the generation that until now has been the wellspring for progressive politics. It’s all too easy to be confused, overawed, doddery.
The populists of the ’20s and ’30s worshipped new technology too. They campaigned using cutting-edge tools such as aeroplanes, records and radio. They invented propaganda and misinformation. Their imagery and uniforms were sharp and appealing. Their rallies were irresistible. They even invented modern rocketry to conquer other planets and – more practically, perhaps – bombard London.
Whatever mainstream politicians of the past did to negotiate with and contain the populists just made them look old and cowardly.
In the aftermath of the latest Trump victory, we’re told it’s not helpful to mention the F-word any more. But just because calling the MAGA movement “fascist” didn’t win Kamala Harris the election doesn’t mean it can’t shed light on how the movement might behave in the future. Because populist movements, including fascist movements, thrive on aggression, unpredictability and novelty. They are political tactics, but also essential to fascism’s being, which is to intimidate, undermine and cow democratic institutions.
My guess is that the wariness we feel about the MAGA movement today was shared by our grandparents and great-grandparents during the rise of right-wing populism almost a century ago.
Believers in liberal democracy back then at least had an excuse. Modern populist movements like fascism and Nazism were genuinely new. Their methods had never been seen before. It’s not surprising people didn’t have a clue how to counter it and were completely overwhelmed. Our generation doesn’t have that excuse.
As we face the inauguration of the second Trump presidency, and the possibility of new political gains for the far-right across Europe, the starting point for the defenders of liberal-democracy is to imbibe lesson number one: don’t be surprised, don’t be intimidated, and don’t give them an inch.
Dennis Glover is a political speechwriter, novelist and author of Repeat: A Warning From History, published by Black Inc.
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