The rhetoric of negation is a losing strategy

2024-11-07

Writing for Jacobin magazine in a piece titled It’s Happening Again, Matt Karp comments on Trump’s reelection:

Between the global hex of inflation, the slow creep of dealignment, and the Biden fiasco, the prospects for a Republican victory in 2024 were always large. Trump himself seemed to recognize this better than the pundit class, running a cavalier campaign that junked much of his rhetorical “populism” for an embrace of billionaire budget cutters like Elon Musk.

Jacobin has long maintained a clear position about the shortcomings of the Democrat party, which we can summarise as not appealing to the average person and working-class people. The Democrats are not leftists per se, though they do have such forces among their ranks. Still, their leadership has been committed to the neoliberal consensus, while their most obvious form of progressivism is perhaps the least substantive one: the tandem of identity politics and virtue signalling.

Harris ran on a platform of negation and empty words. Instead of talking about policies, her campaign was a mixture of tokenistic inclusiveness (basically, “vote for me because of how I look”) and name-calling of Trump. This cannot be a winning strategy. Telling voters how morally dubious the other person is does not convince them that you are necessarily better, let alone competent. There needs to be a decisive positive message that engenders hope in the hearts of people; a narrative that also highlights the skills of the candidate and not whether they check all the boxes on the political correctness list.

I watched lots of Harris’ clips and never heard anything remotely decisive from her. Every piece of footage was of her covering safe talking points, with no strong commitments, and no vision on a reform agenda. She presented herself as the bland, pro-establishment, Biden 2.0 candidate.

Trump has obvious authoritarian traits, which nobody should dismiss as a mere expression of his flamboyant persona, though he does get one thing right: he speaks to the average person and has a no-nonsense attitude that engenders trust. It is not about the content of his speech, but the manner in which he is communicating.

The class dealignment mentioned in Matt Karp’s article is no mere coincidence. This election, recent history, as well as what was evident in the 20th century, tell us that the far-right can and does appeal to the working class. This is because of how clear and relatable its messaging is compared to the typically smug intellectualism we find on the political left: it addresses everyday issues and has a message of hope. Sure, we can discuss the substantive parts, but the populist characteristics (“populist” in the sense of “pro-people”, broad-based talk as opposed to “elitist”, technocratic palaver) are always present.

Countering the juggernaut of fascism is not easy because it involves self-criticism from everyone among the opposition parties. I am concerned that the Democrats will not be introspective in this regard and will put the blame for their own failures on whatever the equivalent of “class unconscious” is to them.

What is of immediate interest to me is what is happening in Europe. The rise of the far-right is a secular trend, powered by demographic and economic pressures. It will not go away anytime soon. Financial crises do transmogrify into crises of core values and fundamental rights. We have been on this trajectory post 2008. I am afraid that left-of-centre parties have lost touch with their traditional electoral bases and that their contemporary headline issue of positive discrimination in the name of inclusiveness is not a sustainable position long-term due to the fact that it is inherently discriminatory.

The European Union is not a single country, so we will not have the same dynamics we witness in the United States of America. The intricate nature of the EU’s legal-institutional arrangements make it hard—nay, virtually impossible—for any government to unilaterally upset the status quo (e.g. a “Frexit”, else a French exit from the euro area, would lead to an immediate economic calamity for France due to the self-fulfilling cycle of currency devaluation), though we have to prepare for the inevitable rightward concerted action at the intergovernmental level.

Given how the new European Commission is so keen on Europeanising defence policy, we might end up in a scenario where we are called to defend a Europe of autocracy, not of basic liberties. It thus is of paramount importance to not be complacent and to have a healthy dose of self-criticism. Hopefully, the politicians involved will learn from the failures of the Democrats to not adopt a rhetoric of negation but to instead formulate a compelling agenda of thoroughgoing reforms that are of immediate interest to the average person.