What's the Alternative Vision to the Far-Right?
From a Berlin debate to the upcoming CNN debate
On Friday, I attended the Progressive Governance Summit in Berlin; the keynote event was a debate between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and London School of Economics political theorist Lea Ypi. The two represented politics in practice and theory: Scholz leads a shaky coalition with libertarians and Greens that makes governance rather convoluted, while Ypi is an academic and author who describes herself as a "Kantian Marxist" and a "democratic socialist." Ypi wrote a memoir, Free, about her childhood in Albania; I reviewed it in 2022.
Ypi offered a diagnosis as to why the far-right is surging. In her view, after the collapse of communism, Europe no longer had politics anymore. In place of politics came policies -- often technocratic or personality-driven -- without a larger principle behind them. She gave an example from her native Albania, which is seeking to become a member of the EU: "If you stop any person on the street, and you ask, 'When is the next accession negotiation meeting?' They will tell you exactly when the meeting is. If you ask them, 'What is the meeting about?', They won't know." In other words, most Albanians want EU membership for economic reasons but they know nothing about the politics of the EU.
Scholz began his response to her point by saying, "let me answer as a technocratic manager," referencing his reputation as a sober policymaker. But he mostly didn't answer Ypi's question about what the alternative vision to the far-right is.
The nationalist far-right has a coherent vision -- an anti-immigrant and anti-climate agenda. Anti-immigration policies seem like solutions to horrific incidents like a German police officer being stabbed to death by an Afghan asylum-seeker. Undoing the European Green Deal seems like a solution to the unpopular heat pump mandate passed by Scholz's government, which many complain costs too much and the subsidies offered are plagued by bureaucracy.
You don't have to be a Marxist like Ypi to realize that she has a point about the lacking vision of European centrist and center-left parties; her analysis is borne out by recent European Parliament election results. In France, the far-right National Rally received over twice the vote share of French President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party. Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SPD) did poorly, coming in third place, behind the conservative Christian Democratic Union and the far-right Alternative für Deutschland. Scholz's coalition partners also saw their vote shares decline.
One response to the far-right is to dare people into actually electing them into government. Macron called for a snap election of parliament after the EP election debacle, but the far-right leads in polling. There is still a chance that his gambit pays off due to France's two-stage electoral system: the French far-right may get a plurality in the first round, while not winning an absolute majority in the second round. Nevertheless, he is tempting fate.
The bottom line is this: it is often not enough to get people to vote against something, parties have to offer something else. In addition, when facing far-right politics that hits people on an emotional level, they have to offer some emotion as well. On Friday, Scholz posited that fighting for secure pension reform would improve people's lives. He is undoubtedly offering sensible reform as the pension system faces a shortfall; however, the link to a larger worldview that reflects how people feel about the world was missing.
During the debate Friday, my mind drifted to the upcoming U.S. election. Donald Trump is offering up emotional rhetoric and few policies. He claims crime is rampant, immigration is out of control, and the economy is terrible. He said that he hopes for a stock market crash under President Biden. In reality, the stock market is reaching record highs, unemployment is at historic lows, and inflation is falling. Yet, many Americans still feel sour about the economy and Biden has yet to tell a convincing story about it in the face of Trump's lurid rhetoric. In addition, Biden has racked up policy achievements in passing legislation on electric cars and infrastructure, but many people simply don't know about it or understand how they will benefit.
Ypi quoted Voltaire, who said, "Politics is the means used by men without principles to rule men without memory." She said the quote was too cynical for her understanding of politics, and in general, I agree. But the quote did seem to explain the phenomenon where many U.S. voters forget things like the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021 and the Trump Administration's disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, they remember the strong economy of Trump's first three years. This phenomenon may explain partly why Biden and Trump are dead even in polls; voters who vote less often are breaking for Trump. In an upcoming CNN presidential debate this Thursday, Biden will have to articulate a vision and connect on an emotional level or risk falling behind.