Why are so many working-class people gravitating towards right-wing populism?

In the UK, US, France, in Russia (in terms of the cult of Putin), and other parts of Europe.

You all have your own theories, but I think this is the impact of automation, and the squeeze on jobs and thus living standards and our sense of pride, which often comes from our jobs. Unfortunately, this manifests in hate towards immigrants, because it's far easier to demonise and attack a living breathing Syrian or Mexican etc, than it is to blame an algorithm, or even the faceless braniacs in Silicon Valley who are getting rich off the gradual erosion of work.

Do you think it could have anything to do with attacks and rapes committed by immigrants and their culture and ways dragging neighborhoods down?

That's one of the larger reasons. Women are getting raped all over the place in Europe now and they fear just going out of the house. Most European nations irrationally prevent owning most types of guns, but the ones which don't have restrictions have seen a massive increase in women buying them to protect themselves from attacks.

The migrants flooding into these countries is just a symptom of greater globalism however. There are people of tremendous power who think it's a good thing to ignore borders and other regulations because it's great for business. Then they flood the media companies they own with beratement for those who don't agree with them.

There are people of tremendous power who think it's a good thing to ignore borders and other regulations because it's great for business. Then they flood the media companies they own with beratement for those who don't agree with them.

The Soros Bilderbergers aka "Illuminati" and their wholly owned MSM lackeys.

Why are you so keen to commit cultural suicide?

I'll answer, because I couldn't give two wooden nickels about so-called white european 'culture'.

Spoken like a true entitled, ignorant, spoiled brat. If you don't like it, leave it. Go enjoy the cultures of South America, Africa and Asia. When you're there, be sure to ignore all the advancements in society they took from white european culture.

Here's where you defeated your own statement. There was an exchange of cultures and benefits between cultures.
And no, I'm not taking it back. I feel as a Jew I can give european culture the bird and laugh given it's treatment of my people. Things come around huh?

At this point, I don't even understand why anyone would want to live in a white-majority country. They are filled with racists and xenophobia.

And all the technologies, medicines and freedoms.

Is there one out there that you'd prefer?

One with better food.

Italian food is pretty good. Otherwise I agree.

what you call right wing populism was just standard nationalism 100 years ago, people drifted away from it because of the nazis and mussolini and other fascists, but new generations dont remember all that so theyre returning to normal

Those who do not learn from history....

No. We're all a mob of mouth breathing, knuckle dragging, sexually confused, un-educated, xenophobic, sexist, bedwetters.

That's the only answer most people want.

That's the truth.

Some of you are, but not all of you. My OP should have made it clear that I'm sympathetic to the problems being experienced by some of the people who back Trump, Brexit, Putin, and even Le Pen.

The fact that neo-liberals are such loons has a lot to do with it.

More accurately, many more people are recoiling away from the left rather than towards the right.

That's an important distinction that the left would be well served to realize.

But why aren't they embracing social democracy, and leftist politics that focus on economic populism, without the nasty xenophobia and racism favoured by right-wing populists?

We can be sceptical and critical of some of the OTT 'SJW' antics one hears from many liberal arts college campuses, without gravitating to racist, Islamophobic nationalism redolent of the Third Reich.

I thought Bernie Sanders did speak to a lot of those people in Rust Belt?

Anyway, Russia is different than these Western European countries and the U.S.A, no? They have had socialism and totalitarian communism (which was evil). In fact, Putin was a former agent of that totalitarian communism and I think nationalism was always part of their agenda, whether left or right. Under communism, they forbid religion and required them to be loyal to the state.

Whether it is Russia, Western Europe, or the United States, I think a lot of it is just racism. In modern Western Europe, as the people become more secular and anti-religion, they have become more Islamophobic. I think in France there are laws that, while not necessarily enforced, prohibit hijabs and crosses. There was a huge news story not too long ago about how a public school expelled a Muslim student for wearing one and people defended their "secularism." It's clear that they see religion to be counterproductive to what they want for their nation, which results in xenophobia.

In Russia, the far right is coming back after the far left and with that, far right Christianity, which is very anti-civil rights. Note their recent thing of decriminalizing domestic violence.

In the U.S., a significant portion of whites have always been uneducated, ignorant, and bigoted. Always. Unfortunately, they tend to vote, too, and most U.S. citizens supported that Muslim ban.

This^^^

I think it boils down to what people, especially working-class people, want and need - stability. Even if the right offers options that are troubling and more oriented to benefiting the wealthy, they also offer greater stability for society, in general. The left, the Democrats, are no longer the party of the working-people, but are, themselves, divided in their loyalties - to Wall St. and the rich, and to the idealism and PC of the poor and working-poor. They no longer represent the majority.

Working people are thus torn between 2 evils, just as they were in the election just passed. Self-survival always comes out as the first priority, and stability serves that end.

I personally believe that the right offers faster and more short sighted routes to jobs.

I think the left has better plans in regards to job creation overall, however they are far slower and longer lasting.

But for people who are desperate, a job right now sounds pretty good. "Who cares what will happen in 2 years, I need a job now to feed my family."

Because the left have made it clear that they don't care about the working class (unless they happen to be black, female, gay or trans).

They're not even hiding this now.

^ That pretty much sums it up as the left have abandoned the working man in pursuit of identity politics and the culture war.

Unfortunately, this manifests in hate towards immigrants, because it's far easier to demonise and attack a living breathing Syrian or Mexican...

We don't hate immigrants, we hate the left.

The reason why Mafia like tactics still work is because people are still
too stupid and uneducated to see it for what it is.

The border wall and the racism have been a long time coming.
Even while George W. Bush was president, a group of Texans near
the Mexico border started raising Hell to get a border fence installed.

Then the plan moved forward to force everyone else who is not a racist
to show racist tendencies by taking away their jobs and slowing the economy.
This was done by millionaires accumulating massive amounts of money and
not spending any of it or allowing it to gather interest in a bank.

So these rich people keep massive amounts of money in their homes
in the form of gold coins or gold bars, effectively removing all
of that money from the economy until jobs become so scarce as
to become almost non existent.

It isn't any accident that the only jobs left in the U.S. are
either working for the oil industry or joining the military.

So these rich people keep massive amounts of money in their homes

in the form of gold coins or gold bars, effectively removing all
of that money from the economy

The up side to all of this is that while it is a federal crime
to rob a bank, the homes where rich people stash all that gold
don't have any such legal protections.

Thus making robbing a rich gold nut much more attractive than
robbing a bank, given the current economic state of the U.S.
not that people need that kind of excuse to despoil the
rich who are causing all these economic problems.

So in a twisted messed up sort of way, crime could actually
improve the economy because thieves spend what they steal
instead of just sitting on all that money like gold nuts do.

I really wish more people would just come out and say that the overwhelming majority of people are pretty dumb, don't know what they're talking about and easily manipulated.
The biggest problem being the myth of the upward-mobility of the 'American Dream' that people still naively believe.

The biggest problem being the myth of the upward-mobility of the 'American Dream' that people still naively believe.

I will never understand that outlook.

There are new $Millionaires every single year.

Just because the majority of the poor choose to repeat the behaviors that they grow up around, it shouldn't be proof that upward-mobility is a myth by any means.

And how many of them are there compared to the population overall?

It's akin to being pro Republican policies when you're working class because 'well I might win Powerball'.
The problem with the American Dream idea is it's become skewered and it is an unfair system now. It used to work, but now there's a gap between rich and down and out and the middle class is shrinking all the time.

It's not necessarily about drugs and factors like that, it's about a cycle or rut where upward mobiity is difficult and the only people who seem to get a fair shake are the educated elites and the pre-existing wealthy.
This 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' mentality is just a myth.

I agree.

It's not necessarily about drugs and factors like that, it's about a cycle or rut where upward mobiity is difficult and the only people who seem to get a fair shake are the educated elites and the pre-existing wealthy.

And again, I'll point out that there are new $Millionaires every single year.

So it's not a myth. It happens. Just because the vast majority of poor stay poor, doesn't mean they can not break the cycle.

The American Dream isn't just about becoming Mark Cuban either. It's just having enough freedom to pursue your own success to be better off than you were.

I grew up in a family with 5 kids. 3 of us are much better off than where we started. The other 2? Well, it's fairly easy to see how and why they've struggled.

All 5 have gotten a fair shake. No Masters Degrees or wealthy relatives to speak of.

I think that it isn't so much that they're "gravitating towards right-wing populism" but gravitating towards populism even when it it is right-wing.

Think about this:

If you worked at a company and they gave you the choice of picking

A. A CEO who was a racist jackass but who promised everyone job-security and a big raise
B. A person who "said all the right things" but told you that they would continue the current policies that resulted in pay-cuts, layoffs and longer hours for the remaining employees.

Who would you choose?

The Democrats have to understand that they won't win election by pandering to the rich. They have to persuade working people that the party is more interested in helping working people than they are in pandering to the 1%.

Actions speak louder than words though as the Dems are not interested in the plight of the working class.

Neither is the other side, they just pay lip service to it and don't really offer answers, just false-nostalgia to a 'better time' where 'certain people' knew their role and didn't 'ruin it for everybody'.

Neither are the Republicans. However, they're better at pretending they do.

Well if the one making all those promises is a well known lifelong showman conartist, a notorious pig hated by everyone until he got into the election, and known for even ripping off cities and a country, and workers.... I'd rather pick b. Especially when b is going to do for college affordability which I'd deeply appreciate. And that person has a rep of having worked for many people for free legal services and helped countless desperate people of all ages.

To answer the ? The alt right leaders have said they saw a group of people who felt unappreciated, and wanted to belong, they felt bitter about various things that "nerds" suffer such as girls turning them down, being bullied, etc So the highly intelligent well dressed, well privalaged, took advantage by taking them in. And now they love being the bullies getting revenge. They consider themselves conservative republicans because the alt-right is, which is laughable, because these people are mostly liberals. They were given slang and hip language, they feel kool, love to hate. But many don't even realize they are supporting White Nationals movement who have a plan to make America white, and flood the US with White Euro/German immigrants! Which is insane! Steve Bannon is the real president and if you know him, Trump's moves and psychological warfare and propaganda tactics are straight from Bannon's mouth! They say Trump is the vehicle for the movement, and Trump is new to the movement but he is now part of it.

Many of these people think Banon is not racist because he knows to take advantage of these suckers who work hard spreading fake news, conspiracy, and trolling social media making an illusion of Trump popularity. Of course none of the leaders would ever allow these suckers into meetings and the club. The leaders are ravist but they are also a lot more intelligent then almost any of us on this board!

Well if the one making all those promises is a well known lifelong showman conartist, a notorious pig hated by everyone until he got into the election, and known for even ripping off cities and a country, and workers.... I'd rather pick b.

So you'd rather be screwed by someone who claims to care about you?

Weird.

Especially when b is going to do for college affordability which I'd deeply appreciate. And that person has a rep of having worked for many people for free legal services and helped countless desperate people of all ages.

If you're talking about Hillary Clinton, you're simply wrong. Clinton has zero track record of helping people. Look at her eight years in the US Senate. In all that time, she was able to get three bills signed into law by the President. Not one of them helped college students or poor people.

As for her supposed "free legal service", I'm sure she did pro-bono work but, like most lawyers, only what she was required to do.

After the ass-kicking the Clintons gave the middle-class while Bill was President, it is small wonder that the people of the industrial midwest/northeast finally turned their backs on the Clintons.

Look, I'm not defending Trump. He's an elitist con-artist pretending to be a populist.

But my point is that this is how badly out of touch both parties are - that

Because the left wing is more concerned with the fringes than the main stream. And eventually the main stream starts to resent that.

Because the left-wing wants to flood the West with more Third World invaders. The left used to care about economic issues first and foremost and the white working class supported it, but now the left cares more about social justice, minority rights, "inclusion", political correctness and vilifying Western culture and history. Working class whites want an economically prosperous future but they also want to live in a country that resembles the place they and their parents grew up in - a place where people speak the same language, celebrate the same holidays and feel a sense of belonging. Multicultural society alienates them.

So many Americans have this apocalyptic view of Islam's spread into Europe, it isn't 1630 and the people of Baltimore are perfectly safe. In fact our murder rate is going down and unless you're a street gang member you're safer than ever before (whilst America's appears to be sky-rocketing).

I think the idea that anyone who opposed Hilary Clinton was a 'deplorable' ably demonstrated why people voted for Trump, Bubblers unable to understand that everyone was not like them and being condescending and remote to blue collar democrats whom they took for granted.

Because they haven't been educated into welcoming their annihilation.

The left coming to primarily care about climate change, transgendered "rights", and encouraging white male bashing doesn't appeal to them, as they're more concerned with real day to day issues that impact their lives. Turns out most people don't want Western Civilization torn down or their own countries dissolved. Go figure. Also they know socialism doesn't work from the decisive empirical verdict of the past 100 years. The left's smug, elitist style rubs regular people the wrong way too, especially when it comes to the media/entertainment industry and portions of modern academia. While leftists were busy congratulating themselves in echo chambers they were losing the debate in the real world.

Excuse me this is just a bunch off word salad of stale talking point cliches.

^ Mindless reply.

Yeah, the left would be making far better strides if they would point out that western civilization and culture has a place in the future.

Unfortunately, this manifests in hate towards immigrants,

I'll tell you one thing which does manifest in hate towards some immigrants.
When some come there/here, engage in serious crime, are not deported, or , for first time in history, we have one particular and one only cultural group which actually comes here openly brandishing hate for our countries/culture, and openly talks about harming us.
Obviously immigrant gangs and crime are far from new, but, we never brought people here who spat on us as they entered b4. Name a previous or other example?

and btw, your entire post smacks of the same kind of sneering and dismissal, that got you the result you have in the first place.
Which suggests that you really still just have not caught on.

They all do that do they?

The Marshall McLuhan monkey see monkey do Cider House Rules

How many do you want?

Point is, since you missed it, that that is the sole and only group which contains that phenomenom at all...

Who else?

Which other immigrant group comes here espousing hatred for our culture and values, and continually posing a political/religious motivated threat to us?

There isn't one.Never has been.
Islamic exceptionalism.

If they did that then none of them would have passed the vetting process.

No brainer for the US. The neoliberal run DNC has not helped the American people at all. Obama promised hope and change and delivered precious little. So lots of Americans switched sides and got roped in by the next con man.

Maybe in another four years we can do better and get someone who will actually improve things.

What happened to the OP? He got a lot of straight, clear answers to his question and he still hasn't said thank you.

I'll give you a couple of short examples: few years back most dem politicians were lobbying for a smoking ban in bars claiming it would be good for business while contradicting themselves on how it would only work if it was a level playing field. They got their ban passed and bar business went in the toilet for a couple of years and finally got a little better because so many places closed and there weren't as many options left for those who still wanted to go out. Basically they put a lot of people out of work, newspapers wouldn't print this, and claimed it was it was for the good of those "working people" who were now jobless. I won't even get into what a load of feces that whole movement was.

We used to have this tax-cut rally at the capitol every year, first year the city government called the Sierra club and had them hold a global warming rally 100 feet away. Evening news showed both crowds and said it was all for global warming, didn't even mention the tax protest. Sadly it's since degenerated into a republican vs democrat show.

Last year my state, after raising taxes every year, had a surplus. Instead of giving a tax cut the governor stated he was going to design several New programs for the money to be spent on.

Fact is this constant raising of taxes hits the working class hard as do their lies.

As far as I'm concerned when that parties done accusing every person who disagrees with them of being racist, Uncle Tom or privileged it can go *beep* itself away.

Want more examples because I could go on and on about these dipsticks pretending to be for the working man when they've done everything they accuse the republicans doing.

wait, wait, what were the programs?

...Well, well, I'll respond just for the Hunter S. Thompson quote, governor claims he wants to pump it into education and transportation programs. He also claims that lowering taxes won't help anything, because the surplus is because his states economy is booming. I'd also imagine since our state government has shut down two or three times in the last ten years because they couldn't iron out the budget and 70-75 percent of the state's politicians filed for extra per-diem pay because they had to come in on their days off, I'd be curious who's getting what under the table.

Well it's hard to argue in principle against education and transport, as those are a theoretical benefit to the taxpayer. Maybe the issue needs to be how the tax dollar is spent, not whether?
The latter part is just standard political grift, and I'm 100% against it.

I'll give you a couple of short examples: few years back most dem politicians were lobbying for a smoking ban in bars claiming it would be good for business while contradicting themselves on how it would only work if it was a level playing field. They got their ban passed and bar business went in the toilet for a couple of years and finally got a little better because so many places closed and there weren't as many options left for those who still wanted to go out. Basically they put a lot of people out of work, newspapers wouldn't print this, and claimed it was it was for the good of those "working people" who were now jobless. I won't even get into what a load of feces that whole movement was.

One year after a smoking ban was implemented at the bars in my city, the newspaper did a story about how business was affected by this. Bars reported some grumblings from customers that they now had to step outside, but there were no closings that occurred that blamed the smoking ban as the cause of it.

They printed the same BS here when the truth is just about every single place suffered a hit and closings following a ban went up 400 percent, there used to be a list someone kept, equal amount of closings the following year. The only thing the newspaper called out the anti-smoking zealots on was when the partially public funded anti-smoking organization went to conduct some bogus quality check on the air in bars three to five years later, claimed it was safer, but the number of the customers there from their previous test 3-5 years earlier was about half of what it was prior.

It's that kind of selective vision that drives me crazy, too.

Never mind that they used the Govt to force private businesses to suffer for their cause. Either they're spending other people's money or they're costing them money.

I don't think there is much more to say in here other than from a social point of view, I think people in the US are just tired of the politically correct attitude of the left. It's like if you disagree with them then you are racist, homophobe, xenophobe, islamophobe, ..phobe, ...phobe, ...phobe. They have a "phobe" for just about anything and everything you can think of. It just gets old after a while. People have a tendency to push back when confronted with this garbage.

Plus, people are starting to catch on to the lies from liberal media too. It's like everything they say is just a blatant lie or has some kind of spin to it.

There are some left wing populism growing but the left needs to offer more other than telling the white guy who is working two minimum wage jobs to check his privilege.

The thing is when you do get someone progressive and isn't a corporate democrat to talk to them, they like what they hear mostly.
The problem with most establishment democrats is they talk down to them or treat them like untouchables it's easier to ignore and just preach to the choir.

They are evil.

its not a right or left wing issue as right wing governments require cheap foreign labour. so right wing (capitalists) want cheap and split ideological labour with less chance of rising against the machine.

the problem from the public is globalism, which is happening and a direct problem of that and a major burden is the loss of communities that existed and came together and shared common principles - other problems is that with free movement - is that everyone flocks to better run nations - which puts huge strains (not on just communities) but social services..

which is actually part of both extremes (right and left) and islamic ideology.(globalisation)

The left wing was always about looking after our working class better , this philosophy doesn't work in a free market (labour and trade), because the better you look after people the more that come looking for the same benefits

it only works in a right wing system that reduces labour costs through competition for jobs , and the fact that the cheap labour has different ideologies the better for the current system - .

When the proletariat were yesterday's peasants who flocked to the big cities and had no place in the framework of classes, guilds and clans, they turned to the Left who promised to champion their cause.

But as the Western civilization developed the worker's movement no longer needed a revolution. What people who work hard for the living want is to be hold on to their wages and not have their government spend it on highly doubtful causes motivated by their rulers' ideological beliefs and their wish to buy votes of unemployed and immigrants.

That's the main reason.

The working class is always impacted the most by unchecked immigration. The difference between a white man with no education doing manual labor for a living and Latino/Arab is about 30k.

Big business always wins.

Still boggles my kind that the white working class voted for a NYC billionnaire in bed with big business, but whatever. If he doesn't deliver, trump will lose on 2020.

Donald Trump Supporters - Klan, Kremlin, Koons

Probably because those working class people like to see their hard earned tax dollars actually put to good use to benefit everyone... not just giving special handouts and privileges for those who choose to milk the system.

The right has no problem with immigration. They have a problem with illegal immigration. It's the 'illegal' part that the left always conveniently leaves out of the issue.

The left tends to forget that low skilled immigrants will be competing directly with the working class for the same jobs and they are usually willing to work for lower wages.

The left should be concerned mass-immigration because it affects the working class more than anyone else.

you know what I never understood is the term "working class"... such a loaded/codified word? one that has definitely been co-opted by the "intellectual class". because if you take the term at face value, I would have to assume that every single one of us, including the op, are "working class". are there any amongst us who are independently wealthy to the point where we no longer must work to sustain our existence? what percentage of the population do you suppose is not "working class"?

1-5% would be my guess.

personally I think it's just a buzzword that elitists (or people who like to think of themselves as such) use to talk disparagingly about people who they think are intellectually inferior to them. i.e. "why oh why are these dum... I mean working class moro... uh, people... gravitating to trump? don't these poor idio... I mean working class folks know what's best for them"?

it has nothing to do with any measurable income level or strata of occupations. one of the biggest backhanded terms you can use in my opinion. yeah... you're working, but you're of a lower class of people in our society.

it's always funny to hear people like, for example an assistant college professor who earns somewhere around 50-60k a year refer to a plumber as "working class" when that "working class" plumber probably earns somewhere around 80-90k a year. really shines a light on how specious of a term it is.

The left wing has gotten too snobbish and elitist neglects and even derides non-urbanites.

Also, people, especially AND rightly so in Europe, are tired of unfettered immigration, legal or illegal, leading to a cultural and ethnic genocide.

Note: I think it is because Europe suffers from so much white guilt due to its proximity to the historical site of the Holocaust. The later Yugoslav-related genocides don't help. It's why an innocent and historically subjected country like Ireland suffers from white guilt.

You had me in the first part, it's 110% of why the neo-liberal Democrats got a spanking.
It's also true that xenophobia historically increases during economic recession and depressions
Where you lost me is the genocide stuff.
That word needs to be used very selectively and not thrown around willy-nilly.

Where you lost me is the genocide stuff.
That word needs to be used very selectively and not thrown around willy-nilly.

You're right. But I never misuse that term. I feel that that is what it is happening to Europe.

Brexit is not 'right wing'. You can google the left wing case for brexit. Any true left wing thinker who understands politics would have voted leave.

Tony Benn, The UK's best and leftist politician was thoroughly against the EU and advocated leaving it. Corbyn also spent 30 years making speeches against the EU...his 6 months of supporting it fooled no one with any brains.

I am not right wing and I voted brexit. Many grass root labour supporters voted brexit.

As for why the working class may be moving more toward the right...the working class does what it feels is best for itself. The working classes are pretty selfish and only care about their own welfare.

The middle classes move more to the left as they are more likely to want to help their fellow man even at their own expense. So they want to help the working class, so it becomes 'the right thing to do' to vote labour.

So we are seeing a switch around as labour is not addressing the needs of the working classes who don't like immigration taking their low paid jobs and don't like the global elite getting constantly richer while they see no improvement to their lot for a decade or more.

Conservative pary in the UK is not very right wing but have enough right wing policies to win over the working classes who now see terrorism and immigration as big threats when they previously weren't.

Immigration issues in the past used to be about racism, when it was low numbers, but those issues are now about jobs, overstretched infrastructure and a loss of cultural identity. immigration fears of the working class are not racist, they are practical.

I agree that working-class white people are selfish and do what they think is best for themselves (only they are voting against their best interests at least here in the U.S.).

Hopefully, like the hyenas in The Lion King, they will turn on Trump and murder him when he does not deliver in the next four years.

I'm wondering why folks are so concerned about the living breathing Syrian or Mexican while not screening for the terrorist, drug cartel, rapist, murderer and thieves they're trying to escape from. Cause it's just the same problem in a different location, plus subjecting the 325 million or so here to it too. Not to mention we're the third largest country, after Russia and China, so if we fall there's no one to help.

Unfortunately, this manifests in hate towards immigrants, because it's far easier to demonise and attack a living breathing Syrian or Mexican etc

Who's hating whom? As for Americans, we simply resent illegal aliens who don't give a rat's ass about America.

Why are so many working-class people gravitating towards right-wing...

First, I dislike the pejorative "right-wing", preferring "conservative". Second, so-called liberals have publicly proven themselves obnoxious not to mention violent and dangerous, and people all over the world are reconsidering "liberal" thought.