A Tidal Wave of Rightism
Terry H. Schwadron
July 1, 2024
While Democrats, institutionalists and progressives remain ruefully fixated on a terrible debate performance by Joe Biden, we’re missing the bigger picture.
What we’re really witnessing is an intensifying convergence of multiple right-leaning campaigns that are built on antipathy for migrants, a coordinated desire for a whiter, Christian nation in which religious principle is being pushed for all, and an insistence on tearing down “elites.”
The years-long fight on “facts” have been shoved aside for the truths of some ill-defined “populism” that substitutes personal experience for knowledge and “retribution” for the general welfare of those being left behind.
The reaction to Joe Biden’s poor speaking performance in last week’s debate — a poor monitor of performance in office but a reflection of our insistence on candidates who project a vigorous country — captured the spirit perfectly. It’s imagery over substance, of course. Indeed, Biden recovered for at a campaign rally the next day, but not before lots of Democrats, and The New York Times editorial board, called for him to step aside.
Because he stumbled less, Trump was being hailed despite a transcript that shows much of what he had to say — however well-spoken — was built on lies, over-statements, rewritten history and unexplained goals that ducked the questions. His message: But for himself, the country is in complete and ridiculed disarray. There was no covid problem, no Jan. 6 riot worth remembering, no climate problem, no economic issues, no Russia influence and so forth. What exactly qualifies a convicted felon to take office, possible from a jail cell or home confinement?
As Washington Post writer Jennifer Rubin put it, because of fumbled delivery, Biden’s recitations of record were no match for Trump’s continued lying.
What was missing from the debate wasn’t good “performance.” It was hope.
Indeed, while the political Left worries about Trump’s possible return to the White House, the broader issue is that even if Biden manages to win the November election, we’re still facing a future that is moving quite rapidly now towards a shift to the Right not only in specific policy, but in a nastiness that demeans people who don’t buy into the program. If Biden were to decide to withdraw, his successor would face the same moving granite wall that seeks its own mandates and facts.
Tidal Wave of Rightism
What is so depressing about the developments is the sheer mass of these partisan changes affecting reproductive sex, gender, identity and speech issues, environmental concerns, foreign affairs, the role of government altogether, and significant aspects of daily life. And it is arriving with a surliness to match, all in the name of evening the political scores of recent decades.
None of it will solve our real problems.
The populism campaign also is evident in France, where the far-right parties looked to be scoring victories yesterday in the first round of voting in that country, and in the recent EU legislative elections. It’s what is evident in the aligning of rightist dictators in realigning world powers. It is in the protests in Iran, China and even Israel. It is evident in the building willingness in this country to adopt a no-see isolationism and walk away from allies under fire.
The change is evident in the rollout of bunched-up, end-of-session U.S. Supreme Court decisions were upsetting the powers of the presidency and of federal agencies and undercutting the prosecution of Jan. 6 rioters. It is evident in the number of states with Republican legislative majorities (Oklahoma is the new example), emboldened by the Court, to mandate that public schools teach Christian religion as part of regular curriculum or spend public taxes for parochial schools. It is evident at universities and in hiring, where “free speech” increasingly is seen as a privilege only for those who agree with this emergent majority, whatever its changing position-of-the-day beliefs say.
To whatever degree the influence of diversity and inclusion principles have had on opening jobs, mortgage applications, university acceptances to wider racial and class membership, we’re witnessing a backlash that will snap us backwards in the pursuit of building on our American desires for more civil liberties. The effort can be peculiar and inconsistent: The Right is quick to defend Jewish students against perceived anti-Semitism on campus, but insistent on “free speech” of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Republican rallies, invites, and speeches, and supportive of efforts to make Christian religion dominant.
In very practical terms, the issue at hand beyond a presidential debate or even election. It is about a Supreme Court that has made itself into a super-legislature to rewrite the law, it is about a Congress that cannot agree on anything, prizing partisanship over problem-solving, it is about state legislatures who are running riot over actual populism in the name of their own Republican-majority agendas. It is about companies and ownerships that insist on profit over safety or over contribution to the community, and it is about the selfishness of consumers who want everything handed to them at no cost. It is about a system of beliefs — legal and moral — that has dropped accountability, empathy, and respect as values to opt for winning at any cost.
At Heart, a Values War
The cultural wars over who selects books, hires and instructs teachers, recognizes that humans don’t all come in one or two pre-made ways are not the side issue of our politics. They increasingly are our politics and our ethics — and represent our view of success as a country.
It’s not an accident nor simply a budget adjustment that Florida last week eliminated all state money for arts grants and had its lawyers talk of punishing university professors who, as government employees, criticize the governor; it is a statement of priorities just as a stamp to insist on how we teach history or how to restrict contact with gay adults.
We should learn something from Trump’s frequent attacks on migrants during the debate as the cause for crime, for the financial security of Medicare and Social Security, for “taking Black jobs” away (what does that mean, anyway?), for making the military less effective and for making us less safe?
We should learn something from a political system that rewards big donors first, good performers with swagger, with contributions from good thinkers way down the list. Those who care about more than a partisan view of the world need to navigate multiple news sources.
The flip side of a populism that rewards some and not all is a demand that certain other groups be made to pay. The real message of the debate is about us, not these two old men who had trouble at times answering obvious questions in simple, straightforward ways.
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