Right-Wing Populism, the Corporate Attack on Working Americans, and the Labor Movement’s Response

2020 ◽  
pp. 34-49
Author(s):  
Gordon Lafer
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
State Level ◽  
Large Majority ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Right

This chapter argues that the problem is a corporate assault, driven not by ideology but rather by business's self-interest. Here, business as a whole participates. This chapter shows that the most dangerous antidemocratic actions and policies are supported by a large majority of corporate actors. When so-called ideologues like the Koch brothers encounter a conflict between their ideology and their self-interest, self-interest wins. The chapter argues that this corporate assault has transformed the political process at the state level and restricted the scope of democratic deliberation. It underscores how the corporate agenda is at odds with what a majority of voters want. Even in states that voted for Trump, evidence shows that the right has been unable to convince voters to support its policy agenda. Indeed, this working-class resistance and support for progressive issues provides hope that organized opposition based on issues can defeat the corporate agenda.

scholarly journals Editorial

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karina Bénazech Wendling ◽  
Matthew Rowley
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Right

Populism, like nationalism, can be found on the right as well as on the left-wing of the political spectrum. However, current political debates demonstrate how in recent years, nationalist and populist movements have advanced the preservation of Christian “roots” against a global cosmopolitanism. Right-wing populism thus tends to present itself as a guardian of Christian culture, or Judeo-Christian culture. However, there is a struggle over the definition and the ownership of this religious heritage. Whilst it is certainly possible to identify sources within the Protestant tradition that may legitimise support for right-wing populism, the questions this struggle raises often relate to particular intersections of culture, theology, perspectives on history as well as political thought. This special issue explores and critiques these intersections, employing theological, historical, and sociological methods. While the main perspective is that of cross-disciplinary reflections on the fraught relationship between Protestantism and right-wing populism, it also examines the evolution of broader connections between Christianity and nationalism through time.

Trump, Right-Wing Populism, and the Future of Organized Labor

2020 ◽  
pp. 50-66
Author(s):  
Bill Fletcher ◽  
José Alejandro La Luz
Keyword(s):  
Black People ◽  
Job Insecurity ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Media ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

This chapter argues that the core problem is not ideology or corporate self-interest but rather the rise of a right-wing populism that feeds on racism and xenophobia. When workers suffer from stagnating or declining incomes, loss of benefits and pensions, declining health and health care coverage, and increased job insecurity, the right gives them an answer: blame black people, Latinxs, immigrants, Jews, or Muslims; blame the media elites, academics, or experts, not your employer; embrace the rich in the hope that someday you can be one of them; and condemn powerless people as the cause of your problems. The chapter describes how populism draws its energy from a racist, sexist, and xenophobic framing of the impact of the economic crisis on working-class Americans while also rejecting the postwar global order in favor of a return to American isolationism. It laments the Left's failure to offer plausible solutions and to create lasting solidarity across gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. This chapter explains that no revival of labor will be possible without engaging union members about race, gender, immigration, and the true nature of right-wing populism.

Context and Consequence: The Impact of the New Radical Right on the Political Process in France and Germany

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Minkenberg
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
International Comparisons ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

International comparisons of new radical right-wing parties usuallyfocus on differences in electoral fortunes, party organizations, andleadership styles and conclude that Germany stands out as a specialcase of successful marginalization of the new radical right. Explanationsfor this German anomaly point at the combined effects of Germanhistory and institutional arrangements of the Federal Republicof Germany, of ideological dilemmas and strategic failures of thevarious parties of the new radical right, and the efforts of the establishedpolitical parties to prevent the rise of new parties to the rightof them. By implication, this means that, whereas in countries likeFrance or Austria the new radical right plays a significant role in politicsto the point of changing the political systems themselves, theGerman counterpart has a negligible impact and has little or noeffects on politics and polity.

The Koch Network’s Long Game and Its Implications for Progressive Organizing

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Nancy MacLean
Keyword(s):  
State Level ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
Connected Network ◽  
Government Institutions ◽  
The Right

This chapter takes a long view of the emergence of libertarian ideology and the development of the Far Right. It argues that it is these ideas, promoted through a deep, broad, densely connected network of right-wing think tanks, foundations, and sponsored academics, that have driven an ideological agenda. In this way, these parties weaponized these ideas and deployed a series of policy initiatives at the state level. The chapter argues that the right knew early on that voters would reject their policy agenda, which would benefit only a minority of citizens. Consequently, right-wing activists pushed a stealth campaign of incremental changes that obscured the true motives of their radical agenda. Their goal, as the chapter suggests, was to turn America back to the way it looked in 1900—a nation without workers' rights, without public regulation, run by business-dominated government institutions free of democratic accountability.

scholarly journals Counter-populist performances of (in)security: Feminist resistance in the face of right-wing populism in Poland

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Bohdana Kurylo
Keyword(s):  
Gender Ideology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Subject ◽  
The People ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
The Face ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract IR scholarship has recently seen a burgeoning interest in the right-wing populist politics of security, showing that it tends to align with the international ultraconservative mobilisation against ‘gender ideology’. In contrast, this article investigates how local feminist actors can resist right-wing populist constructions of (in)security by introducing counter-populist discourses and aesthetics of security. I analyse the case of Poland, which presents two competing populist performances of (in)security: the Independence March organised by right-wing groups on Poland's Independence Day and the Women's Strike protests against the near-total ban on abortion. The article draws on Judith Butler's theory of the performative politics of public assembly, which elucidates how the political subject of ‘the people’ can emerge as bodies come together to make security demands through both verbal and non-verbal acts. I argue that the feminist movement used the vehicle of populist performance to subvert the exclusionary constructions of (in)security by right-wing populists. In the process, it introduced a different conception of security in the struggle for a ‘livable life’. The study expands the understanding of the relationship between populism, security and feminism in IR by exploring how the populist politics of security is differently enacted by everyday agents in local contexts.

Nazistowski mord na Żydach w prasie polskich komunistów (1942–1944).

2006 ◽  
pp. 54-75
Author(s):  
Klaus Peter Friedrich
Keyword(s):  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Polish Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

Facing the decisive struggle between Nazism and Soviet communism for dominance in Europe, in 1942/43 Polish communists sojourning in the USSR espoused anti-German concepts of the political right. Their aim was an ethnic Polish ‘national communism’. Meanwhile, the Polish Workers’ Party in the occupied country advocated a maximum intensification of civilian resistance and partisan struggle. In this context, commentaries on the Nazi judeocide were an important element in their endeavors to influence the prevailing mood in the country: The underground communist press often pointed to the fate of the murdered Jews as a warning in order to make it clear to the Polish population where a deficient lack of resistance could lead. However, an agreed, unconditional Polish and Jewish armed resistance did not come about. At the same time, the communist press constantly expanded its demagogic confrontation with Polish “reactionaries” and accused them of shared responsibility for the Nazi murder of the Jews, while the Polish government (in London) was attacked for its failure. This antagonism was intensified in the fierce dispute between the Polish and Soviet governments after the rift which followed revelations about the Katyn massacre. Now the communist propaganda image of the enemy came to the fore in respect to the government and its representatives in occupied Poland. It viewed the government-in-exile as being allied with the “reactionaries,” indifferent to the murder of the Jews, and thus acting ultimately on behalf of Nazi German policy. The communists denounced the real and supposed antisemitism of their adversaries more and more bluntly. In view of their political isolation, they coupled them together, in an undifferentiated manner, extending from the right-wing radical ONR to the social democrats and the other parties represented in the underground parliament loyal to the London based Polish government. Thereby communist propaganda tried to discredit their opponents and to justify the need for a new start in a post-war Poland whose fate should be shaped by the revolutionary left. They were thus paving the way for the ultimate communist takeover

scholarly journals The Strategic Bias: How Journalists Respond to Antimedia Populism

2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122110226
Author(s):  
Ayala Panievsky
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Press Freedom ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Best Response ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
The Media ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Strategic Bias ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
The Right

As populist campaigns against the media become increasingly common around the world, it is ever more urgent to explore how journalists adopt and respond to them. Which strategies have journalists developed to maintain the public's trust, and what may be the implications for democracy? These questions are addressed using a thematic analysis of forty-five semistructured interviews with leading Israeli journalists who have been publicly targeted by Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The article suggests that while most interviewees asserted that adherence to objective reporting was the best response to antimedia populism, many of them have in fact applied a “strategic bias” to their reporting, intentionally leaning to the Right in an attempt to refute the accusations of media bias to the Left. This strategy was shaped by interviewees' perceived helplessness versus Israel's Prime Minister and his extensive use of social media, a phenomenon called here “the influence of presumed media impotence.” Finally, this article points at the potential ramifications of strategic bias for journalism and democracy. Drawing on Hallin's Spheres theory, it claims that the strategic bias might advance Right-wing populism at present, while also narrowing the sphere of legitimate controversy—thus further restricting press freedom—in the future.

The Spanish Church and The Revolutionary Republican Movement, 1930–1931

1962 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-439
Author(s):  
José M. Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Nineteen Thirties ◽  
Republican Movement ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
The Church

Few subjects in recent history have lent themselves to such heated polemical writing and debate as that concerning the Spanish Church and its relationship to the abortive Spanish revolution of 1931–1939. Throughout this tragic era and especially during the Civil War, it was commonplace to find the Church labelled as reactionary, completely and unalterably opposed to progress, and out of touch with the political realities of the twentieth century.1 In the minds of many whose views were colored by the highly partisan reports of events in Spain during the nineteen thirties, the Church has been pictured as an integral member of the Unholy Triumvirate— Bishops, Landlords, and enerals—which has always conspired to impede Spanish progress. Recent historical scholarship has begun to dispel some of the notions about the right-wing groups,2 but there has been little research on the role of the clergy. Even more important, there has been little understanding of the Church's response to the radical revolutionary movements in Spain.

scholarly journals Rhythm Politics in a Changing Brazil: A Study of the Musical Mobilization of Voters by Bolsonaro and Haddad in the 2018 Election

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjetil Klette Bøhler
Keyword(s):  
Political Movements ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Awareness ◽  
Public Events ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Right ◽  
Musical Rhythms

This article investigates the role of music in presidential election campaigns and political movements inspired by theoretical arguments in Henri Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis, John Dewey ́s pragmatist rethinking of aesthetics and existing scholarship on the politics of music. Specifically, it explores how musical rhythms and melodies enable new forms of political awareness, participation, and critique in an increasingly polarized Brazil through an ethnomusicological exploration of how left-wing and right-wing movements used music to disseminate politics during the 2018 election that culminated in the presidency of Jair Messias Bolsonaro. Three lessons can be learned. First, in Brazil, music breathes life, energy, and affective engagement into politics—sung arguments and joyful rhythms enrich public events and street demonstrations in complex and dynamic ways. Second, music is used by right-wing and left-wing movements in unique ways. For Bolsonaro supporters and right-wing movements, jingles, produced as part of larger election campaigns, were disseminated through massive sound cars in the heart of São Paulo while demonstrators sang the national anthem and waved Brazilian flags. In contrast, leftist musical politics appears to be more spontaneous and bohemian. Third, music has the ability to both humanize and popularize bolsonarismo movements that threaten human rights and the rights of ethnic minorities, among others, in contemporary Brazil. To contest bolsonarismo, Trumpism, and other forms of extreme right-wing populism, we cannot close our ears and listen only to grooves of resistance and songs of freedom performed by leftists. We must also listen to the music of the right.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document