Q: What's behind what seems like a global turn to the political right?
Some recent examples to consider: India just reelected Modi. Australia elected a conservative national government (Liberal/National Coalition). Italy's Salvini is organizing with European rightists.
That's not saying anything of right-wing politicians elected or reelected over the past few years, like Bolsonaro in Brazil. To say nothing of Viktor Orban in Hungary, Duterte in the Philippines, Poland’s Law and Justice party, or Trump in the US.
The way I see it, this is the inevitable result in the failure of cosmopolitain elites to recognize the limits of multiculturalism and the dictates of national culture. It's the flipside of the same coin of the failure of neoconservatism. It is that false belief that open free societies with global associations are reasonably equally valuable to all people, and that all people will inevitably assimilate those values.
What they are now facing is the reality that force will be necessary to establish that 'open' standard. IE you have to be able to say something to the effect that "There will be no minority politics or sectarianism in my society." It's a false aim. Cornel West called this 'liberal structuralism', with the understanding being that there is this expectation that everyone will seek enlightened self-interest in similar ways throughout society.
This explains to me the appeal of socialism in the US, and the triumph of Obamacare. When you can say that there can only be one way for all Americans to get healthcare insurance and the Supreme Court says 'Yes you can tax those who opt out', then this is what you are doing. You are coercing not only idea of social equality but the mechanisms of social equality, the flavor of social equality and presumably the results. But the lie is that you can keep your own doctor, or your own accent, or your own church's moral authority, or your own sense of humor. You think these can all be resolved by market mechanisms, political discipline and government fiat. What you get, when you get tired of policing all that, is ISIS. The shock and awe of cosmopolite social justice creates Scud Studs all over the place. But in the end, they'll all flee the Green Zone.
When the male transvestites start beating the shit out of women in sports, you start to realize that everybody can't be included in every way. When anti-vaxxers claim a right to infect themselves and others, you start to realize every interest group can't have a seat in the commons. When the Rawakening fails after the withdrawal of American troops, and Al-Sadr rises again, you realize every sect is not going to dissolve.
Ultimately, you are going to have to have borders, and you're going to have to enforce standards. The US and Europe have falsely convinced themselves that you don't have to have either, unless you are very 'privileged'. And so they're trying to destroy the privilege of drawing lines, discriminating and allowing people to suffer for not holding up standards.
I think the likes of Viktor Orban, whom I have listened to most of them all, recognizes in short, sweet strokes what the historical center of his nation is, and what it costs when that nation voluntarily or under coercion cede their sovereignty. I perceive also that Greece has rejected various overtures of the EU with regard to austerity on a very nationalistic basis. My goto guy on that is Mark Blythe.
We really need to examine the necessity of cultural and patriotic conformity or the concept of citizenship will die. If we don't in the US, we'll start to see more 'sovereign citizens'.
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