Fintan O'Toole: The populism of the far right is utterly phoney

'History", Steve Bannon told the far-right National Front in Lille last week, "is on our side and will bring us victory . . . Every day we become stronger and they become weaker." On the surface he seems right.

History certainly does tell us that when large groups in society feel insecure and when inequality breeds resentment, liberal democracy is ripe for destruction.

If not quite every day, then certainly every few months see another defeat for the political forces that built European democracy after the second World War and held it together for 60 years. In the recent Italian elections, these forces could muster no more than one-third of the vote between them.

When Bannon talks of 'our side', it seems obvious enough that he means the forces of white nationalist identity politics

Even more thrilling for the far right is the disarray of its enemies. Politically, the response of the old centre left and centre right amounts to little more than a determination to be hanged together rather than separately. The German Social Democrats, for example, know very well that going into yet another grand coalition with Angela Merkel will merely complete their long-term destruction and validate the far-right narrative that the old left and the old right are just two sides of the same clapped-out elite. But they don’t know what else to do: no one has been able to gain power with a radical counter-narrative of equality and inclusion.

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Political response

And it's not just that the political response to the rise of the reactionaries is so feeble. Where history does seem to be on their side is in the long-term weakening of the social institutions that have underpinned democracy. The trade unions that gave working people a positive identity and a place at the bargaining table are shadows of their former selves. The independent media that, for all their limitations, created at least some basis for rational public discourse, are on the ropes. The catastrophe in Syria and the upheavals of sub-Saharan Africa have created a refugee crisis that lends itself to a narrative of "swamping". And the robotic insistence that austerity for the poor and socialism for the rich were the right responses to the great banking crisis of 2008 has given immediate substance to the belief that the world is being run for the benefit of global elites.

There is a fundamental problem with the whole discourse about the rise of the reactionaries. It lies with the use of a single word: populism

So the “them” part of the reactionary dichotomy is working out really well. Where it has problems – and where there is still hope for liberal democracy – is with the “us” part. When Bannon talks of “our side”, it seems obvious enough that he means the forces of white nationalist identity politics. But those forces are neither as coherent nor as successful as he likes to pretend. One of the things those of us who cling to open democracy must not do is to play into the narcissism of the far right by taking its pomposity about “history” entirely seriously.

Beaten Bannon

For a start, Bannon addressing the National Front in France is a meeting of losers. Bannon is touring Europe because he is a beaten docket in the US. And the National Front is desperately seeking to connect to the supposed magic of Trumpism because its own failure in the presidential elections destroyed its narrative of French national destiny. If the tide of history is behind them, why are they having to cling to each other to stay afloat?

There is a fundamental problem with the whole discourse about the rise of the reactionaries. It lies with the use of a single word: populism. The term is doubly problematic. Firstly, it implies a coherence where none exists. It suggests, for example, that pro-Brexit Tories in the UK are essentially the same as the anti-Establishment Five Star Movement that has triumphed in Italy, or that the followers of Marine Le Pen are barely distinguishable from the young people who have adopted Jeremy Corbyn as their idol. A word that explains too much explains nothing.

Secondly, the so-called populism of the Brexiteers or Donald Trump or Le Pen or Victor Orbán in Hungary is phoney. It pits “the people” against “the elites”. But it is itself profoundly elitist. Brexit is a game from the playing fields of Eton. Around Trump, Le Pen and Orbán there are networks of self-enriching crony capitalists. The “anti-elitist”, anti-European National Front has been charged with defrauding the European Parliament of €5 million in bogus expenses. The Just Capital think tank in the US has been tracking the effects of Trump’s supposedly populist tax cuts: so far 61 per cent of the benefit has gone to corporate investors, 20 per cent to job creation and just 6 per cent to workers. To call this populism is to collude in a big lie.

The reactionaries have enough going for them without the rest of us stoking their egos and feeding their narcissistic sense of destiny. The Trump project is in deep trouble. Brexit is a tragicomic mess. Le Pen is mired in failure. We need to be able to make a vital distinction: to take the reactionary threat seriously without taking seriously the grandiose self-image of the reactionaries. They are puffed up by the winds of resentment. The task for democracy is not to inflate them with fear but to deflate them with better ideas.