I don’t mean only the US but in much of the world: in many European countries the populist far right is unseating Christian-Democratic parties (conservative parties), like in Hungary, Slovakia or Czechia. In others like Germany or France the far right is at the gates of power, in the UK, Reform UK is running high in the polls. In Turkey autocratic Erdogan is copying the Putin playbook to systematically dismantle the social-democratic opposition. In Japan, a neo Thatcherite that doesn’t hide she honors Japanese war criminals is about to become the new PM.
Something common I see in all these parties is strong disaffection with the current state of their countries and a longing to an idealized past they promise to bring back, to make countries great again…
Except that societies have changed beyond recognition in the last 40 years, emerging China, India, Mexico and a myriad of south east Asian countries can produce cheaper than us in the developed countries, so called first world democracies are now much older and indebted than 40 years ago (no wonder societies have shifted so hard to the right), buying a house is now waaaay more expensive than 40 years ago, you cannot earn a livable wage just assembling toasters like 40 years ago, you just cannot roll automation and digitization back, no matter how much you complain…
The past cannot come back, neither will it come back just because some people want it to. It’s completely futile, but people are not rational about this, they’re completely emotional and tribal.
It’s like a huge, collective effort in denial: denying that we in the developed world are older, not the first ones in the world anymore, that other countries we always considered inferior to us are even surpassing us technologically while we complain and hope for a savior that brings us 40 years back when we, the white guys, ruled all over.
I don’t see it happening: being angry and voting the far right may make some people feel good, it may make them feel they’re somehow taking their country back, but it’s not going to stop China, India and other countries from developing, investing in new technologies and even creating trade alliances that bypass the US or the EU.
My question: was there a moment in history where societies were so shifted to the right like today? How long did it last?
You gotta stop thinking of it as a left/right thing. It doesn’t exist. It’s clouding your perspective. Populists vs establishment might be a better way to categorize if you needed just two groups, but that’s still too simplistic.
The world is a messy place with lots of different groups trying to get power, enrich themselves, and push their ideology. Whatever ideology a group is pushing has little to do with having the moral high ground and will typically result in their own benefit.
There is a good video that explains this kind of phenomenon. First it starts with a political 1D left-right line then ends with a political tesseract.
Important thing is, it is better off to treat it as a spectrum rather than a graph. Because, as implied - complexity.
a spectrum is typically 1-dimensional as well, though; at least the spectrums i think of
what little you can do to improve the quality of politics is to educate the people so they can analyze and decide whether the policies are meaningful for common good or not.