How Conservatives Admire Corrupt Dictators and Authoritarians – Trump and Putin

Article from Michel in TNR The New Republic on the right’s obsession with, respect and desire for authoritarians and dictators, even if corrupt and nativist including Trump and Putin.

While ‘free market’ think tanks, especially US fossil fuel Atlas or Koch Network promote right wing policies for the 1%, and related white nativist Tanton Network entities promote eugenics and the great replacement.

Further, two other central elements include media and ageing citizens; hollowed out legacy media including ‘news deserts’ and now social media being colonised or flooded with far right nativist agitprop to increasing numbers of ageing and/or disadvantaged voters who are less urban, less diverse, less educated and less informed.

Right wing parties, nativists and populists are being used to support both eugenics and corporate friendly policies for the 1% versus 99%, even if against the latter’s interests; see Brexit, Trump and Putin.

From TNR The New Republic:

How the American Right Fell in Love With Dictators, Over and Over Again Trump and Putin are nothing new.

By Casey Michel

For years, an imperialistic, hard-right European dictator unleashing bloodshed across the Continent cultivated supporters across the U.S. This despot claimed he was leading a “unique, anti-Western culture,” and, in so doing, cultivated allies and fellow travelers among conservatives across America, all of whom were disgusted by “corrupt Western liberal values” and who “scorned Western liberalism as a bankrupt ideology.” Nor was this appeal just rhetorical; as investigators later discovered, this right-wing revanchist bankrolled both propaganda efforts and agents on the ground, successfully turning Americans, especially on the right, to his cause.

To modern readers, the story is a familiar one — not least as it pertains to Donald Trump’s affections for Vladimir Putin, to say nothing of how Russian forces have cultivated conservative Americans from Tucker Carlson to the National Rifle Association and beyond. But the aforementioned case has nothing to do with Putin or with Trump. Instead, it took place a century ago, when conservatives across the U.S. flocked to the cause of Germany’s militarist tyrant, Kaiser Wilhelm II.

In so doing, as Jacob Heilbrunn successfully argues in his new book, America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance With Foreign Dictators, they created a blueprint for how foreign dictators even decades later could cultivate conservative communities to their cause — and could, by the early 21st century, help propel one as far as the presidency. The story of the Americans who worshipped Wilhelm is just one of a range of pro-dictatorship efforts that Heilbrunn excavates, threading a century-long conservative infatuation with right-wing dictators. It’s not only a corrective to the voluminous (if also accurate) investigations on how communist tyrannies fostered leftist supporters in the U.S., but also an able — and wildly timely — effort to stitch together nominally disparate views, from different epochs and eras. 

It all adds up to a convincing conclusion: that Trump, in “lavishing praise on Putin and other dictators … wasn’t creating a new style of right-wing politics,” Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest and author of a previously acclaimed book on the history of neoconservatives, writes. “Instead, he was building on a long-standing tradition.”

It’s a tradition that has seen surprisingly little scrutiny, allowing Trump’s treacly fealty to Putin to seem like an aberration. To be sure, there are elements unique to Trump’s personal predilections — not least his history as a luxury real-estate developer, an industry that profited arguably more than any other from the illicit, kleptocratic flows linked to foreign dictators, laundering untold millions of dollars (and potentially more) in the process. Never before could foreign despots so easily, and so effectively, patronize the company of a sitting American president.

But in other far more conspicuous ways, Trump is simply building on a legacy long predating his rise. There were, for instance, the early devotions to the Ur-Fascist himself, Benito Mussolini. Il Duce presented himself not only as a guarantor of order and stability — and a bastion against left-wing forces in Italy and beyond — but as someone who posed “as a defender of whites,” Heilbrunn notes, who prioritized “family values” and who, “in stark contrast to hedonistic America, cherished manliness.” (He also cherished Wall Street with JP Morgan organizing a loan for the Fascist government worth nearly $2 billion in modern currency.) Conservatives in America lapped it up, fêting not only Mussolini but salivating for a similar leader in the U.S. One conservative writer, Irving Babbitt, bleated that circumstances “may arrive when we may esteem ourselves fortunate if we get the American equivalent of a Mussolini; he may be needed to save us from the American equivalent of a Lenin.”

So, too, did plenty of conservative Americans view the rise of Mussolini’s younger brother, ideologically, in Berlin. While the organization of pro-Nazi sympathizers in America has seen more detailed treatments elsewhere, Heilbrunn ropes in other conservatives who freely platformed Adolf Hitler. Germany’s dictator was freely supported by conservatives such as William Randolph Hearst, who “not only admired the Fuhrer, but commissioned him and Mussolini to write for his newspapers for handsome fees.” Later investigations revealed that Hitler’s regime picked up on the kaiser’s previous model, not only covertly funding agents in the U.S. but even slipping pro-Nazi propaganda into official congressional mailings, recruiting some of the U.S.’s most conservative representatives of the time.

The postwar smothering of fascism didn’t seem to slow conservatives’ lust for right-wing strongmen. By the 1960s, the primary home for such reverence was found not necessarily in Washington but in the pages of National Review, where founder William F. Buckley and his claque of writers apparently never found a hard-right despot they couldn’t support. There was Spain’s Francisco Franco, whom Buckley dubbed an “authentic national hero,” Heilbrunn writes. There was Portugal’s Antonio Salazar, who wrote in the magazine that he was “fighting for Western civilization and Christian values.” There was Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, whom Buckley viewed as a “bona fide leader who knew how to exercise power.” (After Pinochet used a car bomb to assassinate a political opponent in Washington, D.C., Chilean officials turned directly to Buckley for advice on how to “sanitize Pinochet’s reputation,” for which Buckley happily obliged.)

Soon, though, such sentiments swelled back into the White House. By the Reagan era, American affections for right-wing despots during the late Cold War blossomed into official policy. The architect for such fondness was Reagan’s foreign-policy adviser, Jeane Kirkpatrick, who served as an “unabashed defender” of right-wing regimes throughout her tenure. Nor was she picky about the form. Militarists in Argentina, those running death squads in El Salvador, the authors of apartheid in South Africa: Kirkpatrick, with Reagan in tow, succored them all.

But then, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and a few years later, the Soviet Union shattered. America — and liberalism — stood triumphant. Supporting such regimes was suddenly gauche, out of step with this American moment. And the patterns and preferences that propped up American backing of right-wing dictators slunk back into the shadows.

But it never disappeared entirely. As with so much of the paleoconservative architecture of Trumpism — the nativism and the racism, the suspicion of the federal government and the amorality undergirding it all — Heilbrunn identified Pat Buchanan as the figure who kept the flames of such fawning for right-wing dictators alive. Not only did Buchanan refer to leaders like Hitler as “an individual of great courage,” but Buchanan whipped up opposition to American intervention in the Balkans, calling time and again to let Serbian tyrant Slobodan Milosevic have his way and commit genocide.

As Heilbrunn writes, Buchanan — who would later turn his affections toward figures like Putin, even before Trump entered the White House — “longed for a kind of internationalism rooted in those small towns and conservative values and in whiteness, whether in the U.S. or in Serbia or Russia or South Africa or elsewhere.” For years, Buchanan “seemed like a Cassandra,” but as Heilbrunn added, “One prospective candidate for the presidency who picked up on … Buchanan’s unusual history lessons was a loudmouthed Manhattan real estate mogul” — a figure who gave Buchanan’s views the biggest platform yet, carving an entire political movement out of a conservative tradition few Americans had any idea existed.

Thanks to Heilbrunn’s book, however, that confusion is no more. And while the book’s actual writing verges on the overwrought — words like oneiric and pursuivant belong in spelling bees, not mainstream political analysis — Heilbrunn correctly identifies the core of this conservative strain. Trumpists, and those who came before, “are advocating ethno-nationalism in the guise of a set of principles.” Just as the white supremacist Redeemers before them claimed they were simply advocating a restoration of democracy, so, too, do the Herrenvolk reactionaries of the MAGA world claim they’re simply restoring supposed American greatness — and that right-wing despots abroad should be allies in the fight.

If there’s a fault in Heilbrunn’s writing, it’s that there might be too much emphasis on such ideological affinity. After all, dictatorships’ abilities to inflame and inflate American conservative support can’t operate without a latticework of supporters. And as we’ve learned in recent years, those operatives — the lobbyists and the PR specialists, the law firms and the consultancies, the former congressional officials who leave office and immediately transform into mouthpieces for foreign regimes — don’t require any ideological overlap with their despotic clients. All they need is to get paid, and they’ll be happy to transform into foot-soldiers for tyranny.

Just look, for instance, at the network that serviced Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian thug who ruled Ukraine until Kyiv’s democratic revolution a decade ago. There was Paul Manafort, who later became Trump’s 2016 campaign manager. But there was also Tony Podesta, who until the mid-2010s oversaw arguably the leading Democratic lobbying shop in Washington. There was even Tad Devine, who helped Yanukovych grab power in 2010 — and who then steered Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign. It was an ideological potpourri, all working at the behest of an autocrat who tried to cement pro-Russian rule in Kyiv — and whose ouster lit a fuse that detonated stability in Europe and that now risks far more devastation.

But that’s all the subject for another book (mine, called Foreign Agents, will be hitting bookshelves in August). In the meantime, Heilbrunn’s analysis of this glorification of right-wing dictatorships is a warning — as if more were needed — of what a potential Trump second term could look like. Whether it’s Putin’s Russia or Orbán’s Hungary, or even the echoes of Wilhelmine Germany, the conclusion is clear: “Aggrieved … by what they perceived as their own society’s failings — its liberalism, its tolerance, its increasing secularism — conservatives have searched for a paradise abroad that can serve as a model of home.” The kaiser would be proud.

For more articles and blogs on Ageing Democracy, Conservative, Demography, Eugenics, Evangelical Christianity, Media, Political Strategy, Radical Right Libertarian, Russia and Younger Generations click through:

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Posted on November 5, 2021

Plato noted more than 2000 years ago, one of the greatest dangers for democracy is that ordinary people are all too easily swayed by the emotional and deceptive rhetoric of ambitious politicians. We have observed the Anglosphere including the U.K., Australia and U.S., becoming more nativist, conservative, libertarian, extreme and conspiracy minded.  This is not organic.

Narcissistic Political Leaders – NPD Narcissistic Personality Disorder – Collective Narcissism – Cognitive Dissonance – Conspiracy Theories – Populism

Posted on April 13, 2022

We have observed the rise of neo authoritarian conservative leaders using nativism and sociocultural issues with media PR support to inform the public, especially voters, suboptimally, including east and west.

However, there are pitfalls for democracy in manipulating access to information by the public or electorate, not just feeding the needs of narcissistic leaders (see article ‘Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons’), but developing societal collective narcissism for populism and electoral advantage aka Brexit, also observed in Hungary, Turkey and Russia.

Nationalist Conservative Political Parties in the Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Ideology and Populism for Votes

Posted on May 31, 2021

Interesting article from CARR reflecting conservative parties across the world dealing with demographic change, and especially the Anglosphere of the UK, US and Australia where they have been beholden to corporate supporters from the old economy i.e. fossil fuels, agriculture and industry including assembly lines and construction.  Nowadays the new economy of Big Tech, innovation, services and government with more educated and empowered citizens is problematic for the Kochs, Murdochs, DeVos, Scaife et al.

Ageing Democracy, Nativism and Populism

Posted on January 18, 2019

Liberal democracies in western world need to make sure they do not become populist gerontocracies with changing demographics creating elderly ‘Gerrymandering’ where influence and numbers of older voters (with short term horizons) increasing proportionally over younger generations with longer term interests but less voice and influence.

AC Grayling on the Need for more Educated and Informed Citizens

Posted on September 1, 2023

When people question seemingly uninformed voter choices averting their gaze from politicians of the right, right wing media and related who are desperate to keep or put right wing parties in power, by attacking the centre and sensible legislation, why or how?

Across the Anglosphere and Europe many mostly ageing dominant voters, politicians, media and influencers, who are less educated and less diverse than younger generations, backed up by ‘collective narcissism’ and ‘pensioner populism’; see Brexit, Trump, Meloni, Orban et al.

British Young People Thrown Under a Bus for Votes in Ageing Demographics

Posted on September 21, 2023

Relevant article from John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde on how age determines divides in British politics, and not class in Conversation article ‘Age, not class, is now the biggest divide in British politics, new research confirms’.

EU & Anglosphere – Refugees – Border Walls vs. Working Age Decline

While media, governments, think tanks, NGOs and politicians highlight, stress about, gaslight and promote negative tactics to stop refugees e.g. British government’s policies on channel crossings and using Rwanda as an offshore detention centre, there are gaps growing in the working age cohort due to demographic decline.

Not only is much of agitprop this drawn from old ideology by right wing or nativist politicians, while holding libertarian views on much else, a clear need for temporary and/or permanent immigration to plug employment gaps, pay taxes and support budgets for more retirees and pensioners using social services, is apparent.

Good examples are Britain and other OECD nations which share below replacement fertility, fewer youth and demographic decline in working age i.e. has passed the ‘demographic sweet spot’, but more retirees and ever increasing old age dependency ratios.

In short, we need well and better supported budgets for more retirees needing the support but they vote against their own interests e.g. Brexit?

See OECD data here on working age trends.

OECD (2023), Working age population (indicator). doi: 10.1787/d339918b-en (Accessed on 20 March 2023) 

However, nativist politics and talking points, targeting older voters on refugees, immigration, population growth and purported negative issues, then precludes the solutions i.e.  increase net migration, temporary or seasonal workers as ‘net financial budget contributors’ and more modest numbers of permanent migrants, going onto citizenship. 

Following analysis explains immigration and employment issues for the EU, from The EU Observer:

‘On migration, Europe needs to pivot from walls to work

By MICHELE LEVOY   BRUSSELS, 16. FEB, 07:00

It’s not news that Europe wants fewer migrants reaching its borders. What is less visible is that at the same time Europe is scrambling to get more migrants — to fill dramatic labour shortages, with little consideration for workers’ and human rights. The approach so far has been hypocritical, harmful — and self-defeating.

EU migration policies have long been promoting a narrative of migration as a threat, and something that should be tackled with a defensive and punitive approach.

The 2020 EU Migration Pact, still under negotiation, is billed as overhauling the EU migration system, but instead just expands existing measures like detention for anyone coming to Europe via irregular routes, including children, and speeding up deportations, while lowering human rights safeguards.

The never-ending fight against irregular migration

Last week, the European Council asked the Commission to fund border surveillance technology and to step up the use of visa agreements as a tool to pressure other countries into accepting swifter and more deportations of their citizens. Throughout 2022, several agreements were struck to increase joint policing at common borders, including between France and the UK, Germany and Switzerland, and Czechia and Slovakia.

The proposed revision of the Schengen Borders Code would allow border guards to stop and check people crossing borders internally within the EU if they believe that the individuals can’t prove their right to enter the country. There is little doubt that this amounts to legitimising racial profiling.

The demand for workforce

While Europe cracks down on migration, it also discreetly tries to get more migrants to fill ever more dramatic labour shortages in key sectors from hospitality to construction, from transportation to health care.

In practice, this means granting residence permits to people already living in the country through ongoing or new regularisation mechanisms, and creating work permits for people to come to work in the EU from abroad. Yet many of these measures may be driven by the demand for workforce, with little attention for workers’ rights.

France is negotiating a regularisation scheme for shortage occupations — but it’s been criticised for focusing on workers employed in the most physically demanding professions, while leaving out other key sectors and skills.

In January 2023, the right-wing Italian government increased the number of available permits for non-EU workers from 69,700 in 2022 to 82,705 but more than half are for seasonal work, which is often extremely precarious and rife with exploitation.

The 2020 Italian regularisation was largely prompted by fears that the country’s fields would remain without workers due to COVID-19 restrictions on international travel. The regularisation kept workers dependent on their employers, and conditions to apply were extremely strict and burdensome. The result is that only a third of the applicants managed to regularise their stay….’

For more articles about Ageing Democracy, Demography, EU European Union, Immigration, Media, Pensions, Tanton Network and White Nationalism:

Immigration to Australia – More Opportunities for Temporary Residents?

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Narcissistic Political Leaders – NPD Narcissistic Personality Disorder – Collective Narcissism – Cognitive Dissonance – Conspiracy Theories – Populism

Ageing Democracy, Nativism and Populism

Economic Research – No Negative Relationship with Immigration and Wages, Income or Employment

Mainstreaming Extremism – How Public Figures and Media Incite Nativist Beliefs Leading to Violence

Eugenics and racism have been apparent for centuries, but nowadays we are not surprised at extremist events in the Anglosphere, especially shootings in the US, mostly from the white nativist right, with incitement from media, or those accessing media. 

Below is an article repost from Bryn Nelson in Scientific American: ‘How Stochastic Terrorism Uses Disgust to Incite Violence. Pundits are weaponizing disgust to fuel violence, and it’s affecting our humanity.’ describing how people are encouraged to view what should be neutral sociocultural issues with ‘disgust’. 

Rewind, the Brexit campaign in the UK followed years of Tufton Street think tank informed media dog whistling of immigrants and/or European Union, exemplified by remarks made by then Prime Minister Cameron, using the language of entomology for insects to describe human beings i.e. eugenics:

‘spoke of “a swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life, wanting to come to Britain”.’ egregiously ignoring causes of migration, such as Iraq then Syrian wars.

This was then followed by the right wing extremist murder of Labour MP Jo Cox, but initially described by disbelieving media as an unfortunate incident while again ignoring causes. The US based SPLC on the murder of Jo Cox, knew more about the incident and perpetrator within 24 hours, identifying him as a neo Nazi, than UK media, MPs and security services?

In Australia there are echoes of old ‘white Australia policy’ of immigration restrictions in media and politics dominated by Anglo Irish cohorts (influence is in decline, now only 54% identify), Murdoch media, Koch Network think tanks and Tanton Network nativism for same media content i.e. dog whistling refugees, international students, immigrants and population growth, as an environmental issue to deflect from fossil fuels and attract above median age voters.

Interestingly, Murdoch outlets like Fox News, Sky News After Dark (in Australia), TalkTV, print and radio media share common nativist messaging, repeatedly, to reinforce the Tanton tactic of voters making negative associations with ‘immigrants’; then picked up by other media in lock step.  After the appalling Christchurch shooting of Muslim worshippers by an Australian extremist Brenton Tarrant who follows the ‘great replacement’, right wing media and politicians quickly deflected and took no responsibility for creating the public ecosystem where his ideas were acceptable.

The Scientific American article follows:

By Bryn Nelson on November 5, 2022

‘How Stochastic Terrorism Uses Disgust to Incite Violence.  Pundits are weaponizing disgust to fuel violence, and it’s affecting our humanity.

A week and a half before the midterm elections, a man broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s house, screaming “Where’s Nancy?” and attacked her husband with a hammer. David DePape, charged in the attack, had posted a slew of rants that included references to a sprawling conspiracy theory known as QAnon, which claims that Democratic, Satan worshipping pedophiles are trying to control the world’s politics and media.

Several hours before, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson interviewed right-wing activist Christopher Rufo, who claimed drag queens participating in book readings were trying to “sexualize children.” The people who support these events, he said, want to create “a sexual connection between adult and child, which has of course long been the kind of final taboo of the sexual revolution.”

With the support of former President Donald Trump, the pedophile conspiracy theory has contributed to a widening spiral of threats and violence, including the deadly January 6 Capitol insurrection. A revival of the “groomer” smear against the LGBTQ community (a reference to a pedophile) has ramped up the aggression. Right-wing media personalities and activists have created or amplified conspiracy theories about Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates and others.

Dehumanizing and vilifying a person or group of people can provoke what scholars and law enforcement officials call stochastic terrorism, in which ideologically driven hate speech increases the likelihood that people will violently and unpredictably attack the targets of vicious claims.

At its core, stochastic terrorism exploits one of our strongest and most complicated emotions: disgust.

In my new book Flush, I describe how psychologists have come to view disgust as a kind of behavioral immune system that helps us avoid harm. Whether in response to feces or rats, disgust triggers an aversion to things that can make us physically sick. The emotion has a darker side, however: in excess, it can be weaponized against people.

Propagandists have fomented disgust to dehumanize Jewish people as vermin; Black people as subhuman apes; Indigenous people as “savages”; immigrants as “animals” unworthy of protection; and members of the LGBTQ community as sexual deviants and “predators” who prey upon children.

That horrifying history is now repeating itself, as political extremists create dangerous new strains of contempt and hatred. During the COVID pandemic, there has been a surge of racism and xenophobia, as well as violence against foreigners who are baselessly blamed for importing disease and crime. 

Even when disgust doesn’t incite outright violence, it can still cause harm. Clinical psychologist Steven Taylor, author of The Psychology of Pandemics, told me that the ongoing monkeypox outbreak has further amplified bigotry. The disease’s mode of transmission through close physical contact and its symptoms of pus-filled sores, he says, make it a perfect vehicle for eliciting disgust. Its name and origins in Africa have stoked racist misinformation about how it spreads, and its link to men who have sex with men has fueled stigma and homophobia as well.

People who are trying to outlaw gender-affirming care for transgender kids and purge pro gay books from library shelves have stirred up disgust by invoking the specter of sexual “grooming”; others have made the same accusations against those speaking out against such legislative efforts, and some have used the idea to fuel disinformation about the cause of scattered pediatric monkeypox cases. The manufactured grooming mythology has spurred another round of moral disgust and outrage.

In response to Rufo’s diatribe, Carlson—who has an average of over three million viewers— explicitly linked drag queens to pedophiles: “Why would any parent allow their child to be sexualized by an adult man with a fetish for kids?” Rufo then suggested that parents should push back and “arm themselves with the literature” supposedly laying out the child sexualization agenda. Carlson replied, “Yeah, people should definitely arm themselves.”

Some people have. Researchers have estimated that transgender people are more than fourfold more likely to be the victims of violent crime than their cisgender counterparts, and while not a direct link to violence, other scientists have linked disgust sensitivity and authoritarianism to a higher opposition to transgender rights. Over the past few months, assailants repeating the groomer slur have threatened to kill drag queens and LGBTQ people, as well as educators, school officials, librarians, parents and lawmakers who have come to their defense.

In the lead-up to the midterm elections, a blitz of far-right radio ads targeting Black and Hispanic stations in swing states has repeated falsehoods about transgender people and a QAnon warning that the Biden administration will make it easier for children “to remove breasts and genitals”—an attempt to evoke disgust. Other ads aimed at white audiences claim minorities are the true aggressors and destroyers of social norms. One decries “anti-white bigotry.” Another warns ominously, “Stop the woke war on our children.”

The cynical appeal to protecting children by attacking minorities has exposed a bitter irony: disgust is an emotion that evolved to keep us out of danger, but people have long misused it to inflict cruelty and catastrophic harm.

No single intervention is likely to reduce the boil of this toxic stew. But a better understanding of how disgust works and how we can be manipulated by our sense of revulsion may help us turn down the heat. Just as we can overcome our fears, Taylor said, we can break free of disgust. Desensitization and habituation can lessen its potency. Other research suggests that interventions based on compassion, empathy and trust-building can help weaken its contribution to prejudice. Awareness and education can uncover unconscious biases and expose the tactics of those who weaponize it, like those inciting the current wave of ugly antisemitism.

A day after the attack on Paul Pelosi, Hillary Clinton reacted to the suspect’s apparent far right influences by tweeting, “The Republican Party and its mouthpieces now regularly

spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories. It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result. As citizens, we must hold them accountable for their words and the actions that follow.” In response, new Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted a hateful conspiracy theory by a notoriously misleading news site that blamed Pelosi’s attack on the LGBTQ community; Musk later deleted the tweet, but then joked about it.

What can stop stochastic terrorism and break the cycle of disgust-fueled vilification, threats and violence? 

Turning off the source of fuel is a start. Programs to counter violent extremism, particularly those that emphasize early intervention and deradicalization, have yielded some successes in at-risk communities. Other programs disrupt the ideological ecosystem that creates radical conspiracies through counseling, education and other community interventions. Beyond understanding how our emotions can be exploited to demonize others, we can refuse to buy into “both-sides” false equivalence and the normalization of dangerous rhetoric and extremism. We can do better at enforcing laws against hate speech and incitement to violence. And ultimately, we can disengage with media platforms that make money by keeping us disgusted, fearful and forgetful of our own decency—and shared humanity.’

For more related blogs and articles on Ageing Democracy, Australian Immigration News, Australian Politics, Conservative, Demography, Environment, EU European Union, Eugenics, Media, Nationalism, Political Strategy, Population Growth, Populist Politics & White Nationalism click through:

Anglosphere Legacy Media: White Nativist and Libertarian Propaganda for Ageing Conservative Voters – Australia, Brexit & Trump

Dumbing Down and Gaming of Anglosphere Media, Science, Society and Democracy

Afghan and Islamic Refugees – ADL – The Great Replacement Theory – Nativist Conservative Media, Politics and Public Discourse

Research of Social Media – Fake News – Conspiracy Theories – Junk Science

Monopoly Media Bias in Australia

White Nationalist Extremism – Mainstreamed by Politicians and Media

Language, Discourse Analysis, PR and Communication in Politics

For the past decades in the Anglosphere of the US, UK and Australia, especially in recent years, we have witnessed changes in policy making, politics, media, delivery channels, campaigning, messaging and language; used to mask deep seated nativism or eugenics and radical right libertarianism catering to both ageing democracy and corporate sector needs.

This has been exemplified by ideological e.g. radical right libertarian think tanks contributing to policy, conservative parties losing membership, subscriptions and capability for policy development; PR techniques being used in media to persuade viewers vs. providing information for analysis or decision making, dispersal of messaging across social media, supported by dog whistling of sociocultural issues (including liberal democracy), Orwellian doublespeak and constant reinforcement of the same messages.

The new and very good independent media outlet in the UK, The ByLine Times, has a recent article observing changes in politics, messaging and communication through discourse analysis tracking populism and nationalism, described by some as fascism.

UR-FASCISM? The Parliamentary Language That Defines the UK

Iain Overton

Iain Overton’s analysis of Hansard reveals a worrying shift of political rhetoric in Britain in the last decade 

How can we trace the political shifts – often gradual and imperceptible – that happen in a State? How can we, caught by the weight of the present, understand how political rhetoric and debate in Britain has changed over time? And how can we track the rise of populism and nationalism in our beleaguered Isle?

It is no easy task. But perhaps the first place to start is an examination of keywords, and the frequency of those words, used in British politics.  It would be interesting to chart the rise and fall of specific, loaded words under the shifting right-wing ideological leadership of the last 10 years, and in particular during a period marked by the threads of Brexit, rising nationalism and populism that have so defined our age….

As someone often asked if I came up with the ‘Overton window’ – a model for understanding how ideas in society change over time, and how politicians generally only pursue policies that are widely accepted throughout society – how political language has shifted in recent years is frequently something I’ve been made aware of. For if the ‘Overton window’ in UK politics shows a shift to the right, what might once have been considered ‘extreme’ can now become merely ‘to the right’ of a centre that has moved across….

Perhaps inspiration to answer that question comes from the late novelist and historian Umberto Eco, a man raised in the thick of Italian fascism and who emerged the other side as a humane and insightful critic of the dangers of populism.

“There was only one Nazism,” he wrote in an article on Ur-Fascism in the New York Review of Books in 1995. But, he observed, “the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change.” 

The Cult of Tradition 

First, Eco saw ‘Ur-Fascism’ as inherently aligned with the notion of tradition. He noted “one has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers.” So, to what degree has a desire to revisit the past been seen recently in Parliament?  

Since the Tories took power in 2010, perhaps those two quintessential icons of Britishness – Albion and, to a lesser extent, Britannia – have both made a pre-Brexit come-back.

The Rejection of Modernism

The next signifier of ‘Ur-Fascism’ is how the modern is rejected by the far-right. 

“The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason,” Eco wrote, “is seen as the beginning of modern depravity.” And, aside from Michael Gove’s dismissal that “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts”, it seems that – of late – the appetite for reform (the hallmark of modernism) is most noticeable for its declining absence in Parliamentary debate.

The Cult of Action For Action’s Sake

‘Ur-fascism’, Eco noted, is also a dynamic force. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection,” he wrote.  

Since 2010 there has been certainly a drive by the Conservative Party to be the party of ‘doing’. ‘Action’ has become a repeated buzzword since they took office, only dropping off in 2017 before witnessing a pre-Brexit resurgence.

Disagreement is Treason

Apart from Daily Mail headlines denouncing High Court judges as ‘Enemies of the People’, treason has also become an increasing phrase that slips from the mouths of Conservative MPs. 

Eco would have worried about this. As he said: “the critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.” Any dissent of traditionalism is, therefore, elevated to the rank of treason, as the rising popularity of the word in the House shows.

Fear of Difference

The next area that concerned Eco was the fear of ‘the Other’. 

“The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement,” Eco wrote, “is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”  It is of little surprise, then, that the word ‘migrant’ has witnessed a steady upward trend in the last decade under Tory rule.

The Obsession with a Plot

Conspiracy – or the idea that they are under attack – is another hallmark of the far-right.  

“At the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one”, wrote Eco. “The followers must feel besieged.” So it was that ‘Project Fear’ helped define much of Conservative conspiracy in recent years.

Contempt for the Weak

Another salient feature of ‘Ur-Fascism’ to Eco was a contempt for the weak.  As he wrote, “elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”

So, whilst ‘scroungers’ and ‘wasters’ are not words commonly used in Parliamentary debate, the increasing use of the word ‘lazy’ and ‘claimants’ speak towards something profound in the political representation of the most vulnerable in society.

Selective Populism

In addition, Eco noted the importance of ‘selective populism’ in Ur-Fascism.  “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism,” he wrote, “in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”

The sharp and consistent rise of the phrase ‘The Will of the People’ then, is almost anticipated given the current government’s embracing of populism in such a selective way….

More worrying, if you look at the frequency of the time that love and hate have been articulated in the House of Commons since 1803, 2016 and 2017 were the only two years where hate outweighed love.’

For more related blogs or articles on ageing democracy, Australian politics, Communication models, Conservative, critical thinking, demography, Libertarian economics, media, nativism, political strategy, populist politics and white nationalism click through.

Language Learning, English and White Nativism

Language learning in Australia by monolingual English speakers is hardly encouraged while for many descendants of non-English Speaking Background (NESB) immigrants, their knowledge of their parents’ language is declining.  However, not only does language allow access to one’s own cultural background or preservation of heritage, learners can also do the same in a smaller world, with other benefits in outlook, creativity, soft skills, business communication and development etc..

Language Diversity Other than English (Image copyright Pexels)

Legislating for English

One would argue that this is not a passive organic process.  Till the ‘90s multiculturalism and other languages were encouraged e.g. Hamer Liberal conservative government in 1970s Victoria.  This was till the Howard government adopted white nationalist or WASP policies creating antipathy towards other languages, banning the word ‘multiculturalism’ in the PM’s Office and promoting English only, influenced by US organisations related to John Tanton, the ‘racist architect of the modern anti-immigration’ movement.

The main organisation was ProEnglish which included Tanton on its Board of Directors, lobbying Washington, and described by SPLC as:

‘Anti-immigrant hate group ProEnglish visits White House. Since 1994, ProEnglish has pushed to have English declared the official language of the United States through legislative means. The latest attempt at the federal level, HR 997, the English Language Unity Act, was introduced in 2017 by Rep. Steve King (R-IA), one of the most outspoken anti-immigrant members of Congress. ProEnglish has also pushed for similar legislation at the state level, where 32 states have some form of official English measures on the books.’

‘Australia has been called ‘a graveyard of languages’. These people are bucking the trend

ABC Radio National

By Masako Fukui for Tongue Tied and Fluent on Earshot

Gaby Cara speaks to her nonna in fluent Italian, but only because she spent a year in a Tuscany when she was nine.

“We were in this tiny little village, and because I was so young, I just picked up Italian really quickly,” Gaby says.

For her dad Bruno, a second-generation Italian-Australian, this was a dream come true.

“I always wanted the kids to experience the culture, and to learn the language at a level where they could communicate freely,” he says.

Gaby and her sister Alexia, who was five at the time, attended the local school in picturesque Panzano.

Alexia soaked up the new language “like a sponge”.

“She had a real Tuscan inflection. It was actually beautiful,” Bruno says.

“Roots migration”, or going to the homeland for an immersive cultural and linguistic experience, is how the Cara family managed to buck a rather alarming trend.

Losing your language

Italians are losing their language at a faster rate than any other ethnic group in Australia.

In the last 15 years or so there’s been a drop of around 80,000 people speaking Italian at home.

According to Census data, there were almost 354,000 people who spoke Italian at home in 2001. By 2016, that had fallen to around 272,000.

The Greeks share a similar migration trajectory to the Italians, but “there are some factors that have helped the Greeks maintain their language more,” says Antonia Rubino, senior lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of Sydney.

“One is the lack of this distinction between dialect and standard Italian.”

Many post-war Italian migrants spoke dialect as their first language, and often did not pass on Italian to the second generation, Dr Rubino explains.

“The Greeks also had the church,” she says.

The ‘monolingual mindset’?

This attitude is reflected in our education system.

“Australia is one of the most multilingual countries in the world,” says Ken Cruickshank of the University of Sydney.

Yet, language education is not seen as a high priority and “languages are not part of the core curriculum in any state apart from Victoria in the primary schools,” he says.

In fact, he says, “we come lowest of all OECD countries in the provision and uptake of languages”.

The result is that a bilingual child has a five in six chance of losing their heritage language by the time they finish high school, according to Dr Cruickshank.

Or put simply, multilingual kids go to school to become monolingual, in the majority of cases in Australia.

This monolingual mindset is totally out of sync with our multilingual reality — around 300 languages are spoken in Australia on any given day.

There are two ways people can lose the languages they speak.

The first is through linguistic colonisation, which is what’s happened to many Indigenous and minority languages around the world.

The second is linguistic assimilation.

That’s when immigrants lose their languages as they gradually shift towards the dominant language, English — itself a migrant language….

…..And that raises an important question for all of us living in multicultural Australia.

If language is key to people’s cultural identity, doesn’t it make sense that we value our rich multilingualism?

Gaby appreciates how important knowing Italian is.

Her language not only connects her to her nonna, but also gives her an understanding of different cultures.

“When we were younger, we didn’t think anything of going to Italy,” she says.

She’s now 30, and understands that living in Italy as a kid was also about experiencing a different culture, which is why she’s determined to pass Italian on to the next generation.

That would mean that four generations of Caras speak Italian — a small yet significant contribution to countering the image of Australia as a “graveyard of languages.”

 

For more blogs and posts about learning theory and the promotion of white nationalism click through.