Panic has set in throughout the West, if one draws conclusions from the way the elections are being covered, both in France today and in the US in the fall. All this comes in continuation of the performances recorded by the “extreme right” in the recent European elections. This attitude is politically apocalyptic, while it seems that the democratic ballot box will prove to be a stronger weapon than those used on the war fronts, if it is assumed that everything aims at a political result.
Few bother to consider what the majority gather as a more convincing interpretation of the situation that has developed. The ever-widening distance between societies and the political elites who control power.
Although this power was given to them through the democratic method of elections, in recent decades a very sick mentality has flourished. The rulers and those around them, considered themselves something like enlightened Messiahs with a mission to “civilize” those who elected them. Apart from a problem that would require the intervention of the branch of medicine that specializes in mental diseases, this mentality that was developing and prospering, was at its base extremely racist.
The elected political elite increasingly claimed the right to handle affairs in white, without much accountability, or rather by replacing it with propagandistic narratives promoted through the Media. The “enlightened” ones, on the other hand, tried to project internally, an image of foreign “legitimization”, in order to convince their real principals of their performance.
The need for persuasive explanations to a society that increasingly felt uneasy with what was presented as a fait accompli, on various issues, had been replaced by a “supranational rhetoric” of a … branch of “enlightened” who had set the agenda and promoted it. An agenda with issues whose assumptions are if nothing else problematic.
The “Atlantic” impasse is evident
In any case they were not sufficiently discussed and there was no internal legitimation. It was only a matter of time before this whole situation led to a stalemate. The “political laboratory of Europe”, as France is traditionally called, is preparing to give unprecedented power to the extreme right.
The situation in the US is perhaps even worse, since in addition to the objections to the policy of the Biden administration, the leader who is running for re-election, not only does not seem capable of governing, but based on the image – and not only the one from the first teleconference – whoever hosts him cannot even imagine leaving him alone at home. This is what the average citizen understands. On the other hand, an old acquaintance… for the extreme toxicity of his character, the vindictiveness towards his opponents, the simplistic way he perceives things.
But it would be a mistake not to point out that the average voter does not decide who to vote for after considering the totality of his political proposals, but based on a mixture of positive and negative perceptions. That is, his very general agreement on a certain issue and at the same time the belief that the other side with the position he expresses pushes him further and further away.
If, for example, in the European field, on the occasion of the elections in France, the immigration issue and the wider “entitlement” of the time are examined, a simple voter who will end up in Le Pen’s party, should not be considered as by definition a supporter of… immigrants at sea and LGBTQ+ to be persecuted! The voters did not suffer a group setback and are in favor of racist and extreme solutions.
There is also the reverse reading and this focuses on the violation of some simple rules on the part of more traditional political formations. In other words, the gap in perceptions between the political forces and their traditional electoral clientele has opened up. And this brings reshuffles.
The main argument is that the traditional political forces, on the right and the left of the political spectrum, “consigned” with their excesses on either side to the “extremes”, an agenda that the majority of society tolerated, even embraced! That is why some “traditional-conservative” perceptions appear to have penetrated the entire political spectrum.
In the United States the situation is more complex, but a key feature there too is the obsessive promotion of some fundamental policy assumptions, such as for example the attitude towards Russia and the energy transition, whose destabilizing effect frightens and metastasizes internally of societies concerned about where this situation will lead.
The special weight of modern political leaders
Voters are faced with a major dilemma. The political divide is great. At the same time, they find it difficult to choose, as politicians with the caliber and ability to inspire to rally the masses around them have disappeared. This political deficit, combined with the result on the ground, within countries and in the international environment, has caused enormous nervousness.
The vote will probably be determined by the non-optimal method. The vote will be primarily anti-systemic. There has been enormous pressure on Western societies for decades, especially on the middle class that conventional wisdom calls the “steam engine of societies”, which is struggling to survive, having lost the privileges it once enjoyed.
This has led her to anti-systemic ways, since she is looking for a way to react. This fact is also exploited by anti-systemicism, which the closer it gets to power, the more it softens its political-declarative speech in various places, so that it is more compatible with a by definition unfavorable reality.
But the general modern poverty of politics and ideology, the absence of awareness of the potential consequences of angry societies and political forces, can lead to great adventures.
