There is an article (archived here) that recently appeared in Foreign Affairs, and which has been making the rounds in Rightist circles.
Entitled “The Vexing Rise of the Transnational Right: Lessons From Interwar Europe,” the article by two individuals named Justin Casey and Daniel Nexon is just the sort of thing you might expect based on its title alone. It draws a number of, frankly, rather tired parallels between the current reemergence of a true Right, one that is worthy of the name, and the European Interwar Period that saw the rise of Fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany, to say nothing of Francoist Spain, Codreanu’s Iron Guard in Romania, and even such phenomena as Mosley’s Blackshirts in Great Britain, and William Dudley Pelley’s Silver Shirts in the United States.
The thrust of the article, for those who haven’t the time or inclination to read it, is that the “Far Right” (another of those vague, catchall labels that apparently includes some fairly innocuous conservative politicians in Europe and the United States) is bad, is fascist, is racist, and is almost certainly populated by closeted or not-so-closeted Nazis, and that the good and holy and noble partisans of “liberal democracy” can take comfort in being “more entrenched and more cohesive than their interwar counterparts.”
It should also probably come as no great surprise that the article gratuitously concludes that the moral arc of History and Progress is on the side of the “good guys” (the liberal democrats, that is) and will mystically ensure their inevitable victory.
It’s the sort of progressive, vaguely (but not explicitly) left-wing pablum that we’ve all grown accustomed to. Nevertheless, it’s a fascinating piece, if only as a window to the mindset of what I suppose should be called the Transnational Left, and which has now achieved such a position of power in the Ancien Régime—called euphemistically (and rather clumsily) “liberal democracy and the U.S.-led ‘rules-based’ (or ‘liberal’) international order” in the article—that it virtually identifies itself in toto with the United States and what many now call (with obvious derision) the Global American Empire.
In other words, these people don’t see themselves as a “Transnational Left;” instead, with amazing hubris and unbridled arrogance, they view their distorted and decadent political philosophy as being synonymous with “America” and the “West,” and therefore the “Far Right” boogeyman is the eternal foe in their strange sort of passion play.
I’d like to take the time to dissect the Foreign Affairs article, since I find the exercise instructive and…well, to be honest, there’s a certain pleasure to be had in deconstructing the rote sort of boilerplate that passes for thinking these days among the Leftist mandarins of the American Empire. As one Telegram page colorfully explained it, the article is mainly a “giant point-and-sputter type seethe post;” still, it has a great deal to teach us.
The article begins with formulaic comparisons between the “Electoral Justice Protest” of January 6, 2021, and the recent events in Brazil:
“It was hard to avoid a sense of déjà vu when supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president, stormed major federal institutions in the capital Brasília in early January. Insisting that Brazil’s 2022 presidential election was “stolen,” the demonstrators ransacked the Congress, the presidential palace, and other key government buildings. Observers swiftly noted similarities to scenes that played out two years before in Washington, when right-wing mobs attacked the U.S. Capitol in an effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden.”
Notice the key words and phrases sprinkled throughout the passage: the word “stolen” in the obligatory scare quotes, “right-wing mobs” (there are never “left-wing mobs”), “attacked the U.S. Capitol,” and “prevent the peaceful transfer of power.” All my life I’ve heard that phrase “peaceful transfer of power” repeated like a holy mantra; of course, it was always peaceful because power was never really transferred at all.
If the Electoral Justice Protest taught us anything, it’s that the American people are now aware of this fact, and so this trite phrase has lost a great deal of its quondam magic. Such a pity that the writers at Foreign Affairs are still unaware of this.
The article proceeds to note the “rising influence of right-wing populists in most Western democracies:”
“…including, for example, the ascendance of Bolsonaro in Brazil, the victory of Brexit in the United Kingdom, the growing strength of extremist anti-immigrant parties in France and Germany, and the recent rise to power of far-right parties and leaders in Italy and Sweden.”
Naturally, this is depicted as a lamentable and even catastrophic state of affairs, rather than the natural outcome to be expected in any truly democratic state. Only “Centrist” parties and political philosophies can be tolerated—by which we are meant to understand broadly Center-Left, but by no means excluding the possibility of Far-Left, governments.
In any case, the writers then observe with unmistakable horror that these groups sometimes network with, or are inspired by, their compeers in different countries:
“These groups take cues from and provide support for one another. In October, Republican lawmakers, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right [sic] member of Congress from Georgia, celebrated when Italy chose as prime minister Giorgia Meloni, who has consulted with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and called him an ‘ally.’”
But one of the most telling passages in the article is the following:
“Defenders of liberal democracy and the U.S.-led ‘rules-based’ (or ‘liberal’) international order cannot ignore the transnational character of the contemporary far right. Cross-national ties facilitate the transmission of ideas, tactics, and narratives—such as versions of the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory (the notion that sinister forces are engineering migration to deprive U.S. and European whites of majority status, influence, and power), attempts to stigmatize gay and transgender people under the guise of a crusade against pedophiles, the invocation of ‘woke culture’ as an existential threat to freedom, and groundless attacks on the integrity of elections.”
There is so much wonderful material in this exquisite paragraph that I hardly know where to begin.
First, there is that remarkable statement that enrolls the authors (and their intellectual fellow-travelers) among the “defenders of liberal democracy and the U.S.-led ‘rules-based’ (or ‘liberal’) international order;” this is clearly established as the subject of that sentence, and is construed in an antagonistic relationship with its predicate: the “contemporary far right.”
The two, then, are natural enemies, and there is certainly a great deal of truth in that; but it does not follow, in my thinking, that “liberal democracy” and the “liberal international order” must necessarily be the de facto natural state of either Europe or the United States. That just smacks of a lack of imagination; speaking only for myself, I am entirely capable of imagining both a United States and a Europe that is not at all synonymous with “liberal democracy” or the “liberal international order.”
But let us lay all of that aside for the time being. The following sentence is even more instructive. For one thing, Renaud Camus’ le Grande Remplacement makes an appearance, as was probably inevitable; but it is no conspiracy theory, nor even a conspiracy (save in the sense of H. G. Wells’ “open conspiracy”), but rather a tacit public policy pillar of all Western “liberal democracies.”
I mean, if there’s one thing we can be certain of, it’s that wherever “liberal democracy and the U.S.-led ‘rules-based’ (or ‘liberal’) international order” holds sway, it will inevitably mean the chaotic and destabilizing importation of “migrants” from the Third World as a means of waging economic, political, and biological warfare against what we might call the “legacy” or “indigenous” populations of liberal democracies.
The rest of that telling sentence is fascinating as well. We learn that the Transnational Right “attempts to stigmatize gay and transgender people under the guise of a crusade against pedophiles.” That is one way—and not a particularly good one—of saying that Rightists around the world are opposed to the homosexual agenda, and are rightly concerned and indignant about the disintegration of morals, of families, of relations between men and women, and the horrific and degenerate encroachments on the innocence of children.
According to Casey and Nexon, however, the homosexual agenda is synonymous with liberal democracy and the U.S.-led “rules-based” order; therefore, it must also be synonymous with the United States. So it seems that the “Pride” or “Intersectional” flags really have supplanted Old Glory as the American pennon; they are the legionary standards of the Global American Empire that we must now genuflect to and venerate with the appropriate displays of reverence.
Finally, the authors suggest that “woke culture” is but a racist and homophobic figment of right-wing fever dreams; that it doesn’t exist, but it if it did, it’s wonderful and glorious (a prime example of Michael Anton’s “celebration parallax”). And, my favorite, “groundless attacks on the integrity of elections”—for although the Left has been groundlessly attacking the integrity of elections for as long as I can remember, they are now universally acclaimed as the staunch and selfless defenders of Our Democracy™, and all their sordid history of bitter election denial is forgiven, forgotten, and happily memory-holed.
The rest of the article is concerned with drawing linkages between contemporary “reactionary populists” and “interwar fascists.” Perhaps most intriguing in this section is when the writers invoke a 1995 article by Umberto Eco listing the features of “Eternal Fascism:”
“With these as a guide, several family resemblances between interwar fascists and contemporary reactionary populists become clear. Both interwar fascists and contemporary reactionary populists see themselves as battling sinister international forces (variously ascribed to ‘globalists,’ international financiers, cosmopolitan liberals, international socialists, and proponents of multiculturalism) that seek to erase national identity. They blame these forces for the erosion of traditional sex and gender roles, the promotion of same-sex relationships and other forms of ‘deviant’ behavior, and the supposed degradation of national values. Both adopt narratives that present specific outsiders (racial, ethnic, religious, or whatever) as foreign pathogens.”
Fascinating.
Now bear with me, reader, for later in the article we come across the following passage:
“…far-right leaders have a habit of providing rhetorical and material support to one another. Mussolini offered aid to Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists and met with Hitler repeatedly to show solidarity. Networking also helps strengthen today’s far right. In October 2022, Trump, Meloni, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and the Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, offered messages of support at a rally for Spain’s far-right Vox party. The Conservative Political Action Conference, a conclave of right-wing U.S. politicians and activists, met in Hungary in May 2022. Later, at an August 2022 CPAC held in Texas, Orban appeared as a guest of honor.
“American dark money supports overseas far-right forces: openDemocracy reported that, between 2008 and 2017, U.S.-based Christian fundamentalists gave $50 million to support far-right causes and parties throughout Europe (a significant sum in the European context). Russian money, bots, hackers, and propaganda have also backed multiple reactionary-populist parties. Russia loaned money to the National Front, a far-right party in France led by Marine Le Pen, in 2014 and threw its weight behind the Brexit campaign to push the United Kingdom out of the European Union. Despite his calamitous and brutal invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is still held in high esteem by some on the right who see him as a defender of traditional values. In the United States, an ongoing right-wing campaign to undermine support for Kyiv has met with some success.
“Second, far-right parties tend to emulate one another. Even as they adapt ideas and ideology for local audiences, breakthroughs in one country provide ‘demonstration effects’ that help legitimize far-right movements elsewhere and build a repertoire of practices to draw from. The events in Brasília in January showcase this phenomenon. Bolsonaro seemed to borrow from Trump’s rhetoric before, during, and after the 2022 election cycle in Brazil, echoing the former U.S. president’s conspiratorial claims of fraud and theft.”
Now, does not all of this sound like the mirror-image of Eco’s Eternal Fascists? It’s all there: defenders of liberal democracy “see themselves as battling sinister international forces” (Trump, Ted Cruz, Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orban, the Conservative Political Action Conference, U.S.-based Christian fundamentalists, American “dark money” financiers) that seek to reassert national identity. They blame these forces for the erosion of gay rights, non-traditional gender roles, abortion rights, the suppression of same-sex relationships and other deviant behavior, and they adopt poisonous narratives that present specific outsiders (dissidents, Rightists, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian money, Russian bots, Russian hackers, Russian prostitutes, and just plain Russians, period) as foreign pathogens.
So two can play at that game.
And while we’re on the topic of Russia and “gay rights,” I can’t help but quote this passage from the article, which is perhaps the most telling and instructive of all:
“Transphobic laws are becoming increasingly common. Last December, after it had passed both legislative houses unanimously, Putin signed into law an expansion of Russia’s 2013 bill banning the exposure of children to ‘gay propaganda’ (a nebulous term to denote any information that depicts same-sex relations in a positive or even just neutral light). The new amendment prohibits sharing such information with adults, as well as children, and zeroes in on speech related to transgender identity. Parts of Poland have created ‘LGBT-free zones’ that allow local officials to ban pride marches and other LGBTQ events. Hungary passed a law to discourage ‘gender ideology’ in 2021, as did the U.S. state of Florida in 2022 when it enacted legislation restricting the content of sex education for children that some called the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.”
Pay close attention, reader, for everything about that paragraph illustrates the schizophrenic nature and manifest “doublethink” of the mind of the average “defender of liberal democracy.” First, there is the uncritical assumption that liberal democracy must be identical with the homosexual agenda; this would have come as a great shock to the men who actually fought the interwar fascists, and who cherished no such assumptions. We have gone very quickly from making the world safe for democracy, to making the world safe for homosexual degeneracy. But I suppose that is the inherent nature of progressivism, and should come as no great surprise.
But what is most telling in that passage is that everything the authors describe was done in a democratic fashion, even in a liberal democratic fashion. Read it carefully; they even admit it: “after it had passed both legislative houses unanimously, Putin signed into law an expansion of Russia’s 2013 bill banning the exposure of children to ‘gay propaganda.’” This was a law that the elected representatives of the Russian people unanimously passed; this was no authoritarian diktat or imperious ukase handed down by Tsar Putin.1
The same is true in Poland, Hungary, and Florida; everything was done legally and lawfully in a democratic country, and in a democratic process. In fact, there is little about the Russian law that would have appeared controversial or out of place in the United States not so long ago. I think this is critical evidence—as if any more were needed—that when these people speak of “liberal democracy,” they do indeed mean something very different from “democracy” in its classical acceptation.2
Perhaps even more revealing is that the authors are adamant that liberal democracy and the liberal international order has nothing—no, nothing at all—to fear from the Left:
“One of the major differences between the interwar period and the current era…is the absence of revolutionary socialism. The left simply does not present a challenge to liberal democracy, in terms of its reach, popular support, ambitions, and capabilities, as it did a century ago. The lack of such a threat should improve the resilience of Western institutions and help compel right-wing movements to become more moderate.
“In the interwar period, fear of the radical left played an important role in democratic breakdown as it led conservatives and moderates to see far-right movements as useful partners. Liberal democracies are generally more consolidated in 2023 than they were in 1923, and the liberal international order is much more institutionalized now than it was in the two decades following World War I. In principle, the system can accommodate more illiberalism before democratic order itself comes under severe pressure.”
Liberal democracy simply has nothing to fear from the Left. No threat at all…nothing to see here…move along please. Perhaps that is because liberal democracy and the Left have become so integrated, so consolidated, and have now reached such a mutually pleasing accommodation, that they are virtually interchangeable.
Still, the authors caution us not to become too complacent:
“On January 6, 2021, the United States came very close to outright conflict among different parts of the executive branch, including within and among its different security services; among federal elected officials; and possibly among local, state, and federal authorities. Events on January 6 could have produced far more dangerous, far more violent outcomes. They could even have led to the end of U.S. liberal democracy.”
“They could even have led to the end of U.S. liberal democracy,” the authors write in breathless horror. We could only have been so lucky.
If nothing else, the Electoral Justice Protests established that some of the American people, at least, retain a degree of allegiance—not to the “rules-based liberal international order”—but to the old republic, even if it is dead and gone.
We are also told that “reactionary populism” poses a national security threat to the United States, leading to such horrors as “the January 6 insurrection” and “right-wing domestic terrorism.” Furthermore, it also undermines “the attractiveness of the U.S. political system as a ‘beacon of democracy’ while raising concerns among many core U.S. allies about Washington’s reliability.”
But most terrible of all, reactionary populists, we learn, “are much more likely than centrists and liberals to support policies that would curb U.S. power and influence, such as demanding the country’s withdrawal from NATO.”
In fact, this sounds less like a national security threat to the United States, and more of a threat to the liberal-democratic empire and its global clerisy that rules from Washington, Brussels, and Davos, with the United States (for the time being) providing its economic base and military muscle. To be clear, the United States and the Global American Empire are not the same thing.
Finally, in its conclusion, the article cuts to the chase in recommending a course of action, and says the quiet part out loud:
“U.S. policymaking should consistently incorporate two propositions: first, that the preservation of liberal democracy in the core U.S. alliance system is a key national security interest, and, second, that reactionary populism—both from within and without—is currently the most pressing threat to that objective. Both the interwar experience with fascism and recent examples of democratic backsliding suggest that Washington cannot afford to be overly cautious when it comes to nudging its democratic allies and partners in the right direction.”
“Nudging its democratic allies and partners in the right direction;” “the preservation of liberal democracy in the core U.S. alliance system is a key national security interest;” “reactionary populism…is currently the most pressing threat to that objective.”
Why should the preservation of liberal democracy be a key national security interest? Whatever happened to plain old democracy? Funny how “reactionary populism” is now the most pressing threat, just as Islamic terrorism has faded from the scene. Funnier still that a country’s allegiance to the gay agenda, to the destabilizing chaos of endless Third World “immigration,” and to the uncritical acceptance of liberal democracy’s patently undemocratic and fraudulent “elections,” is now considered the sine qua non of belonging to NATO and America’s security alliances.
Time was that being (traditionally) democratic, having broadly free elections and free speech, and exhibiting a transparent rule of law was enough; now all that is out the window, but one must submit to the endlessly shifting, endlessly evolving, and endlessly innovative perversions that emanate from the imperial heartland. If that doesn’t make it abundantly clear that “liberal democracy and the U.S.-led ‘rules-based’ (or ‘liberal’) international order” is merely a clunky euphemism for a Progressive or Leftist empire, I don’t know what will.
Anyhow, I’ve spoken long enough, and long-windedly, for what I meant to be a shorter essay. I encourage you to read the Foreign Affairs article; it’s a fascinating glimpse of a certain mindset.
To sum up, I can do no better than quote the post about this article from the Telegram channel Building a Third Force:
“In other words, things are going the direction we want them to and there’s largely nothing they can do about it. The best they can hope for is mainstream parties/institutions co-opt rad-right positions in an effort to moderate or neutralize the energy. But if that happens it just increasingly normalizes the positions. A lose-lose on their end.
“Very whitepilling and should be motivation to triple down and keep up the pressure.”
That’s a point well taken…
I should add that the authors’ parenthetical statement that “gay propaganda” is “a nebulous term to denote any information that depicts same-sex relations in a positive or even just neutral light” is entirely disingenuous. The Russian people must know full well by now that the depiction of same-sex relations “in a positive or even just neutral light” always and everywhere leads inevitably to the appalling transgender madness and encroaching pederasty that has overtaken the United States and elsewhere in the West in less than a single generation.
For instance, when discussing Putin—whom, we are told, “some” on the right hold in “high esteem” for his defense of traditional values—the authors observe that: “[i]n the United States, an ongoing right-wing campaign to undermine support for Kyiv has met with some success.” But is it not the legitimate right of American citizens to question their country’s involvement in yet another war (and make no mistake, we are at war)—particularly after the dismal record of its political and military leadership in prosecuting America’s other twenty-first-century conflicts? What’s really at stake here seems not to be America’s interests, but the interests of the hegemonic liberal-democratic empire.
I think the disingenuous nature of Leftists is the most infuriating thing about them. I'd prefer if they were just open and honest about what they are doing...but I suppose if they did that they'd lose mass support from delusional normies who just want to grill.