The Far Right Has Arrived... And It Could Take Washington!

Donald Trump has brought far right politics into the mainstream of U.S. politics. He is the first far right presidential candidate of one of the two major political parties in the U.S., at least since the end of the Second World War.
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Last Fall I taught my course "Far Right Politics in Western Democracies" at the University of Georgia. As usual, my students had little idea what the "far right" is and, as far as they associated it with any organizations, linked it to marginal groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) or to historical phenomena like Adolf Hitler and National Socialism. Given their almost complete lack of knowledge of non-US politics, references to Marine Le Pen and the French National Front (FN) or Geert Wilders and the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) didn't help much and neither did historical US examples like George Wallace or Pat Buchanan. In previous years students would leave the course with the idea that far right politics is mainly a European phenomenon. Not this time.

Donald Trump has brought far right politics into the mainstream of US politics. What Wallace and Buchanan were never able to achieve, despite gaining significant electoral and political influence, Trump has achieved. He is the first far right presidential candidate of one of the two major political parties in the US, at least since the end of the Second World War. And, despite some half-hearted opposition by Ted Cruz, his candidacy was accepted and endorsed by much of the GOP leadership. This directly makes the US one of the western democracies with the most popular far right politician - together with Austria (Norbert Hofer) and Hungary (Viktor Orbán).

Yesterday's speech created huge enthusiasm among the far right in the US. For example, former Klan leader David Duke, like Trump not a man known for his modesty, tweeted that he "couldn't have said it better" - I'm sure Geert Wilders felt the same. The speech was a combination of Alabama tolerance and New York nuance - incidentally, how ironic that the speech for the ultimate political outsider was written by a lifelong insider, Stephen Miller, a 30-year old with 9-year experience on Capitol Hill (working for far right Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, and one of the first high-profile Trump supporters in the Republican Party). It had the apocalyptic fever of far right speeches, full of elite betrayal, alien threats, and authoritarian 'solutions' - all covered in an onslaught of lies and half-truths.

Most striking about Trump's form of far right politics is its combination of elitism and populism. Paradoxically, the country with the strongest populist tradition has a far right politician with a relatively weak populist discourse. Sure, he claimed to be "your champion in the White House" and pledged (in capitals in the original text): "I'M WITH YOU - THE AMERICAN PEOPLE." But, this seems mostly a way to attack Hillary Clinton, pitting his slogan "I'm with you" to her slogan "I'm with her." Much more importantly, he also stated, as he has done many times before, "Nobody knows the system better than me. Which is why I alone can fix it." In other words, The Donald is the unique savior rather than just one of the (common) people.

Most liberals believe that Trump cannot win the presidential elections. His unfavorability numbers are simply too high. I used to think so too, but then again, I also thought that Trump could never win the Republican nomination and that Brexit would not get a majority. I no longer make predictions on Trump. In the old world he would have stood no chance, but this is a scared new world. A world in which established politicians no longer inspire but are instead met with popular disgust and distrust - no one more so than the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, whose unfavorability ratings are rivaling Trump's.

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