Jacobin Magazine: Making Politics Possible Again

Probably the most successful protest, both in terms of numbers and inclusive spirit, was the series of “no-logo” demonstrations known as the “Chain of Light,” where organizers explicitly banned political emblems. [...]

To the great surprise of most of those involved, the mobilizations ended in success: the president conceded and vetoed two out of three of the bills drafted by his former party, a decision which must have been — both politically and psychologically — extremely difficult. It seems unlikely, as some have speculated, that Law and Justice orchestrated this turn of events, which has left them weakened. Even if they had, they could not have anticipated the scale of social mobilization. [...]

That is precisely why the recent mobilization to save an independent judiciary constitutes an important breakthrough in our political landscape. It was a multi-dimensional, politically varied wave of protests, which catered to a wide layer of social actors who were together in expressing their anger and readiness to act. And it succeeded — in ways few would have expected. [...]

Maria Janion, an eminent literary and cultural critic, for many years argued that the Polish economic transformation has not been matched by an evolution of symbols, rituals, and cultural practices.

She stressed that the emotional movement of the masses needs to mature into an intellectual movement, or else it inevitably devolves into frustration and chaos. The Polish left has to analyze this situation carefully and draw lessons from both the new, unexpected co-operations and stark rifts that emerged in the process.

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Vox: Everything you were afraid to ask about white nationalism’s new place in American politics

At a time when unabashed racists are elated at the possibility that the president-elect will take action to create the “white country” of their fantasies, and people who share their policy views but have no hate group affiliation are being empowered, the current battle of words is an important one. Fueling it is the risk that the wrong language choices could cloud Americans’ understanding of what’s actually happening. Complicating things is the sobering reality that the threats nonwhite people face don’t change depending on what we call the people responsible for them. [...]

But there was a twist: Bannon insisted he was not a white nationalist but rather an “economic nationalist.” Trump went even further, telling the New York Times that Bannon was neither racist nor “alt-right.”

Another tug of war over labels followed when Spencer made it known that he wasn’t fond of the terms “racist,” “Nazi,” and “white supremacist” being applied to him. Instead, Spencer, who led the “Hail Trump!” Nazi salute and heads a group that promotes “America for white people,” told the Washington Post he prefers to be called an “identitarian” — a reference to a movement that has more momentum in Europe but all the same associations with racism and xenophobia. [...]

Bjork-James’s concern about the term “alt-right” is based on similar thinking: It creates the risk that more white people may become radicalized by the group. “If we help to normalize these ideas as just part of the political spectrum, then it can make it seem less radical than they are and less connected to racial violence — because if people espouse racist ideas and racial rhetoric, there’s always some kind of a correlation to racist violence,” she said. “And if we don’t describe them for what they are, we’re kind of giving other white people a path to think these are legitimate ideas and a chance that more white people will become radicalized in adopting these ideas.” [...]

The New York Times’s Amanda Taub pointed out a similar distinction, explaining that what makes the alt-right different from white nationalism is that many of its members’ first priorities and entrees into the group aren’t related to race. “The alt-right is ideologically broader than white nationalism — it also includes neoreactionaries, monarchists, and meme-loving internet trolls,” she wrote.

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The Atlantic: Take the Statues Down

As of August 2016, there were still more than 1,500 public commemorations of the Confederacy, even excluding the battlefields and cemeteries: 718 monuments and statutes still stood, and 109 public schools, 80 counties and cities, and 10 U.S. military bases bore the names of Lee, Jefferson Davis, and other Confederate icons, according to a tally by the Southern Poverty Law Center. More than 200 of these were in Virginia alone. [...]

There is a reason why statues of Confederate generals are still powerful political symbols; a reason why a candidate came a hair’s breadth from securing the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Virginia by campaigning to preserve them. The statues in public squares, the names on street signs, the generals honored with military bases—these are the ways in which we, as a society, tell each other what we value, and build the common heritage around which we construct a nation.

The white nationalists who gathered in Charlottesville saw this perhaps more clearly than the rest of us. They understood the stakes of what they were defending. They knew that Lee was honored not for making peace per se, but for defending a society built upon white supremacy—first by taking up arms, and then when the war was lost, by laying them down in such a way as to preserve what he could. [...]

The myth of reunion was built around this understanding, that the nation should treat both sides in a war that killed three-quarters of a million Americans as equal, or at least not inquire too closely into the merits of each cause. And that unity would come not from honestly grappling with events, but from studiously ignoring injustice, and condemning those who oppose it as hateful.

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Social Europe: Authoritarian Nationalism, Not Populism, Is Real Threat To Democracy

First, populism is not a core ideology of political parties or movements in Europe. Neither populist parties nor their voters tend to give much weight to issues of democratic reform. Dissatisfaction with politics is a marginal reason for voters in Western Europe to vote for radical right-wing parties, and dissatisfaction does not play a role at all as a motivation to electorally support left-wing populist parties. Like their voters, populist parties do not give much salience to issues of democratic reform. For radical right-wing populist parties, for instance, proposals to introduce direct forms of democracy or to reform the judiciary tend to be instrumental to anti-immigration policies and security issues. Nationalism and authoritarianism are much more important ideological sources for these parties than populism. For left-wing populist parties, it is still to be seen whether they aim to reform liberal democracies into popular democracies.

Second, not all populist parties are against liberal democracy. Some parties are merely rhetorically populist. The Dutch Socialist Party (SP), for instance, is widely regarded as a populist party. Certainly, the party often contrasts the good people to corrupt elites like bankers, but the SP is also committed to a liberal democracy. This is in contrast to Geert Wilders’ radical right-wing Party for Freedom (PVV) that is not only rhetorically populist, but also shows little commitment to liberal democracy.

Third, the pressure on liberal democracies is not restricted to populist parties. Policy proposals and legislative initiatives that are in tension with or defy fundamental freedoms are also coming from mainstream parties. Systematic comparative research is still lacking, but a case study of the Netherlands makes clear that policies that are in conflict with the rule of law are not restricted to populist parties.

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The Atlantic: The Problem With Confederate Monuments

Towns across the American south are reckoning with whether or not to tear down Confederate statues in public spaces. For New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, taking down the monuments felt like a necessity, despite the tension it brought forth in his city. “I didn’t start the problems with race in this country, but I did force the people of New Orleans to confront them,” Landrieu reflected in in this short interview at the 2017 Aspen Ideas Festival.