There is no single front. Instead, there are a dozen different points of fracture and crisis: cyber warfare and climate change are ushering in an unknown future; a new generation of technocratic power-holders such as Facebook and Amazon seem to be above the law and wield more influence than individual nation states; networks of vested interests (think of men such as Steve Bannon and Aaron Banks) are allegedly able to skew public opinion and sow political division. [...]
But ideology no longer offers certainty: we see such counter-intuitive overtures as Trump’s admiring comments about Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un. We notice centrist and Left-leaning parties absorbing the concerns and kowtowing to the interests of the far-Right – such as their “admission” that immigration, multiculturalism and plurality of faith, heritage, colour, language and culture are to be interrogated and resisted instead of fostered. [...]
Brexit and Trump are a part of this new worrying world, but they are both signs of a broader tendency. It is suggested, by some, that the Brexit vote was racist and the 2016 US election result was propelled by misogyny against Clinton and a whitelash against Obama, and that both represent a self-righteous philistinism. But that would be to avoid the hard fact that some of the grievances which led to these results had been incubated by decades of under-investment in basic services, education, infrastructure and healthcare; by stalled social mobility, painful inequality and the destruction of workers’ rights, benefits and job security. [...]
My fear is that once Angela Merkel – the last grown-up in the room and a woman I admire for her stance on refuge and asylum – has left political life, we will not be able to turn things around. We will be over-powered by the fascist tendency. The signs are loud and clear: even where they have not ascended to outright power, the far-Right have made significant election gains across the world.
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