Is climate change driving the global rise in populism? If so ... how? If not ... what is?
Preamble ... this is another rambling, jumbled soliloquy that may or may not make any actual points ... or, you know, sense.
"Climate Change is causing the rise in populism".
That is a theory I have entertained for many years -- going back to before the 2016 US Presidential election. And--confirmation bias being what it is--since I believe the theory, I keep seeing anecdotal evidence all over the place connecting the two.
But, thinking about it this morning, looking at it logically ... I still think there is probably a connection, but I'm not really sure. It may well just be a coincidence of timing. And even if there is a connection, I'm just not quite sure what it is. If it is true ... why? What is the actual connection?
So ... why do countries keep electing populist "Trump-like" leaders?
That's already a hard question to answer clearly, without quickly descending into personal attacks and ad hominems and such.
Plus, of course, generalization is problematic ... we're talking about different countries, different cultures, different histories driving each vote. It's not all the same. And yet, over and over again, election after election, it sure looks the same.
I think the main reason is a tribal "fear of invaders" reaction, mostly against the rise of immigration, particularly immigration from (to paraphrase Trump) "the shit-hole countries". Maybe it's an even more basic "fear of change" reaction. But I definitely think, in the US, the rise of Trump was a direct result of the illegal immigration issue -- not exclusively, but that was a big piece of the puzzle. In particular, Trump equating Muslims with terrorists, and Mexican immigrants with criminals, etc.
Here in the EU, immigration -- particularly the 2015 refugee crisis caused by the wars in the Middle East -- was probably the top reason for Brexit, as has been most of the populist surge over here since then. One country after another here keeps electing right-wing leadership based on the "we'll keep out the dirty immigrants" campaign promises. Hungary, Italy, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, the list just keeps going. I live in Germany these days, and I gotta tell you, there is nothing scarier than seeing a huge surge in popularity in the German far-right.
The other top reason that seems to be driving it is some kind of sense of nationalistic self-determination. People feeling like their country--their home--is being changed by Outside Forces, and trying to lock it down, trying to find a way back to the good old days when the white people ran things and the brown people cooked and cleaned for them.
In Hungary, Orban routinely gets massive support with his constant rants about "Brussels" (meaning the EU) trying to force their gay liberal anti-Christian agenda down the throats of decent God-fearing Hungarians, and I see variations of that theme in most of the populist movements.
Right now, I want to say the populist trend is a response to (or rather, a denial of) the consequences of Colonialism and resource depletion. I think (again, over-simplified), people here in the Industrial Western World do not want to hear that the problems in the rest of the world are our fault, and that we have a responsibility to the people there, to try to help address some of the problems we've helped cause ... and instead, people are electing leaders who tell them the rest of the world is going to hell but it's not their fault and if they just lock down their borders, everything will stay "nice" in their country.
Something like that, anyway.
Okay ... so, resource depletion and a backlash against the consequences of Colonialism.
Does that seem like a fair and reasonable generalization of what is driving the rise in populism?
Because none of that is really connected to Climate Change. Sure, it depends on "which" resources we're talking about, but even in a magical hypothetical world where burning fossil fuels doesn't cause the planet to heat up ... wouldn't we still be seeing just about the same results from the Colonialism-and-resource-depletion issues?
But then again, at a global level, everything is pretty much connected to everything else. I feel like, coming at it from that angle, I could make a fairly good argument that Climate Change and resource depletion are pretty closely related, regardless of which resources you're talking about.
Oh yeah ... one more wrinkle. I'm primarily talking about populism in the US, Canada, UK, EU. I actually know a lot less about the situations in other regions. Asia. Latin America. Bolsonaro. Millei. I know there are others, but names elude me at the moment, and I don't have an understanding of why they are getting elected. Are they part of this trend? Do they blow a hole in my logic? IDK.
tl;dr
Okay ... I guess that's my new thesis -- populism is primarily being driven by a denial of the consequences of Colonialism and resource depletion ... which may or may not be closely related to Climate Change itself; I'm still just not sure.
Or, more broadly, more Climate-Change-inclusive -- populism is about people seeing that the world is dying, and electing leaders who A) tell them it's not their fault, and B) promise to save their country, even as the rest of the world burns.
Thoughts?
I really think it's as simple as the Internet + social media + smartphones.
The timeline matches up: ~2010 is when social media and smartphones got big, and the whole world started going crazy just a few years later.
Agreed. They are incredibly powerful information-sharing tools that share helpful and harmful information equally well.
They've also helped to create digital and real-world bubbles. We don't spend as much real-world time with anyone anymore. I think a lot of people, particularly those on the further right and left ends of the spectrum, avoid pretty much all contact with ideas that they don't agree with.
In today's day and age, you can engage entirely with media and literature that affirm your views without ever running out of content to consume. Wasn't always like that!
The exclusive interaction within bubbles is a huge problem. I don't have to like a person or their opinions to be able to engage professionally, cordially, or find something common to talk about. Definitely an art that is becoming lost.
On one hand I'm with you. I have coworkers, friends, and family whom I love but disagree with on just about everything.
That said, I find it incredibly difficult to engage with some people I used to respect. Sometime early in the Trump era, a lot of them became so hateful and nasty that I can't find anything to talk to them about anymore. Even when they're willing to talk about other things, I just keep remembering that I'm talking to someone who would gladly become a Nazi in the right circumstances. I don't think that's hyperbole either. These are the people who, as far as I can tell, are easily fooled and have no empathy for humanity on the whole. They are not the people who fled the Nazis or stood up to them in a different life, but are instead the guards, soldiers, and secretaries who went along and made it all possible. If Trump were smarter and our democracy more fragile, I know plenty of people who would have followed him all the way to the bunker in 2016, no exaggeration.
There are definitely people who are deeply unpleasant because they constantly bring up controversial or unpleasant topics, but I'd say they are the minority barring certain bubbles. Being able to hold a cordial, casual conversation with an airplane row mate, or other random encounter seems to be a skill on the decline. Likewise, being about to have a deep conversation that reflects differences of opinion seems on the decline.
I like your example of chatting with someone on an airplane. You're right. That's a great skill to have and it's declining.
I have the gift of gab and can chat with whoever. It is a nice little superpower.
Funny thing is, it's always a lucky draw.
I'm generally open to starting conversations with fellow passengers, but I recently met a man who was explaning to me how colonization was actually good for bringing civilisation to all corners of the world. Respectfully told him to stop talking, lest he wants to get punched.
Though, to be fair, that ship more or less sailed with the mass deployment of TV starting in the 50's.
The Notel study showed that it didn't matter if there was only 1 TV station or 5, or more....pretty much all residents stated watching TV 20+ hours a week and cognitive problems developed.
I will agree that constant portable distraction in pocket has exacerbated things however. It helped wipe the slate of all the 'little moments' that still existed in between home and work.
This would make a good post on its own.
Unfortunately I can't find the source right now, but I read a - to me credible - article espousing that part of the reason people seem angrier is because the Internet exposes people to fewer bubbles than "real life" did. This creates conflict and anger.
Before the Internet you saw your "crazy racist uncle" once a year. Now you see his posts daily. Close friends - such as those you tend to see more often in person - are more likely to share views than distant friends - with whom you're more likely to interact online.
Even tildes.... This is much less a bubble than my rl friend groupings, and I'm regularly exposed to and interacting with this community. I think that's healthy.
RIP the fairness doctrine.
I have voiced similar questions here on Tildes and elsewhere about why the shift toward the right / populism is happening "everywhere" and not found a satisfying answer or (really what I am looking for) an answer that lets me respond in some meaningful way.
I also think its worth seeing the difference between what the leadership wants to achieve and why appealing to these things is effective as establishing a base of power.
I'm reminded of something in The Orange Wave by Brad Onishi, an exploration of the rise of the religious right in the US. I forget the person's name, but he is one of the architects of the movement, and he basically said that they chose abortion as the hot button issue because it moves the needle with voters more than other issues they had tried. He didn't feel strongly about it at all, he was just looking for a lever.
I think the things you've identified – fear of the other, denial of Colonialism, denial of the human causes of climate change, and (for the US) denial of a history of racism – these are the effective levers. We can look at why they are effective, perhaps with an eye toward undercutting their effectiveness.
But we should also look at the goals of those using them. In that area, I think the motives are even more cynical – the preservation and growth of power and wealth. Those particular levers are attractive to a certain kind of leader because they allow the leader to exploit their own base in ways that the more left–leaning would not accept.
Being more lefty myself, I suspect I have my own blind spots about the left, but it seems like a lack of ability to cohere around core principles is one of the things that is letting a resurgence of right–leaning populism be so effective.
Warning: Globe-spanning conspiracy theory ahead, albeit one that has substantial evidence in support without too much digging... Tl;dr: Fossil fuel interests are spreading populist authoritarianism to stop democratic climate action.
My answer to your climate change/populism hypothesis is that populism is a carefully nurtured second-order effect of climate change. The spread of populist politics and beliefs has been artificially enhanced through strategic spending by fossil fuel interests, with the goal of stopping democracies from taking action on greenhouse gases.
I'm not saying that xenophobia, sexism, racism, strongman worship, paranoia, class resentment, and all the other trappings of populism were manufactured from nothing. Those beliefs and personality traits have always bubbled away below the surface of human societies. However, in the era of mass communications, canny political operators figured out how to use these traits as levers of social control.
I think most of us have encountered CCP Gray's Rules for Rulers, The Dictator's Handbook, How Fascism Works, On Tyranny, Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism essay, and other works concerning authoritarian governance. Populism makes a great narrative framework for those who want to centralize power. It fractures natural popular and democratic coalitions (e.g. pluralistic unions, class solidarity, open charities, etc.) in favor of loyalty to a strongman; to one's personal family, clan, tribe, or race; and to a nebulous but easily controlled religious hierarchy.
Destruction of trust in existing institutions, appeals to nostalgia and "traditional values", and demonization of enemy "others" are simple propaganda methods. So the questions become, who benefits, and how are they doing this?
Going back to Gray's model, control of wealth is the means of ensuring authoritarian political power. What's the most concentrated and controllable physical source of national wealth? Natural resources. What's the most demanded and tradable natural resource for industrial civilization? Sources of energy. The world is still massively dependent on fossil fuels, even if this state is, under democratic guidance, changing rapidly.
So let's look at who controls fossil fuel production. There are the nation state players with the most readily accessible and cheap oil and gas - Saudi Arabia and the monarchist Gulf states; authoritarian Russia, which stands to benefit from climate change. Elsewhere, there are petrodollar and coal dynasties and state-associated corporations - Koch, Rockefeller, Hunt, Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, Petrobras, et al.
In the U.S., it's well-documented that fossil fuel wealth has funded climate denial for decades. The Koch network and other fossil fuel majors expanded that into "libertarian" (read "feudalising") political funding, think tanks, university manipulation, and media control.
Well-referenced summary on global efforts here.
I won't go into detail on how Russia and Saudi Arabia have played politics and engaged in propaganda efforts to expand political power and elevate authoritarian narratives. That's well-explored elsewhere, and hardly a secret at this point. Russia has a long history of spreading propaganda in its own interests, with networks maintained and expanded since the days of the Cheka.
As to the "key holder" politics, what coddled billionaire doesn't want to believe they're a superior sort of person who should be in the ruling class, and their offspring part of an eternal dynasty? What politician or bureaucrat for sale doesn't want some of that sweet petro money?
So please tell me if I'm wearing a tinfoil hat, or stating the obvious.
Edit: China is a special case. China's civilization was shaped by millennia of high population and relative resource poverty. It's trying to escape that trap by any means necessary, including massive imported fossil fuel utilization to bootstrap local renewable and nuclear power. Authoritarian control is the Chinese historically well-paved path to avoid chaos. China exports authoritarian narratives both to undermine threats to its power and as part of a revanchist bent against eras of Western dominance.
I’ll take your “conspiracy” one step further: we have been engaged in a full-blown information war between state/non-state actors and the populaces of the world since at least 2016, when Russia and their political/economic allies such as the Kochs, Mercers, Murdochs, and Le Pens finally overcame the integrity of the Western world’s institutions enough to steal the presidency of the US.
That was a major act of war. Brexit soon followed, another campaign so insidious that people in the UK still refuse to believe it was intentional. For years it was considered a tragic coincidence that most overall polling put pro and anti Brexit positions both at 49.7%. Bolsonaro is another example out of the same playbook.
The thing is, it isn’t a simple global conspiracy run by Putin. There are a host of players working together and also at cross-purposes, including China, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea. Then there are the efforts of the West’s own intelligence services and political institutions which also often work against their own interests and at cross-purposes.
I have been saying for eight years now that first we have to acknowledge we are at war before we can do anything about this. But the curious thing about the information war is that it apparently benefits no one in power to admit it.
So we spill oceans of ink trying to define what went wrong with the world, culturally and economically and politically, all the while suffering even more attacks from our enemies who know very well that they are fighting to the death.
It's a much older information war than you think, and dates back at the very least to early colonialist oil wars and 1960's environmental regulation in the West. Since that time, petrochemical industries and states have been tampering with scientific research on climate and the environment, media narratives, and politicians. The Internet is just a new front, and the extreme authoritarianism has sponsors all over the world. As you say, it's a complex set of actors, but the commonalities are fostering internal distrust of institutions and educated elites, lies about climate, manipulation of religious traditionalism, moral relativism in discourse, and hatred of others.
Indeed. It was in 2010 on a holiday in Switzerland that I met one of the leading Russian oligarchs. His stepson was an old friend who had escaped to the States in the 90s to kick a drug habit.
The family was always indebted to us for how we had taken care of their son. In Geneva, they invited us to their mansion for a day and our daughter got to play in their pool. The stepfather was a Putin confidant and one of the top commodities traders in the world. He warned me then Russia was preparing to attack the west. He said we had lost our way and grown too soft with peace and the wolves of the steppe were coming for us.
I wholeheartedly believed him. And in the years since, I have certainly seen his prediction play itself out.
Back around 2008 or so, I was the sysadmin for a company that did IT consulting, web and mail hosting. I got to observe firsthand where all the IP probes, hacking attempts, spam, and malware came from. 90+% of the time, it was Russian. A good chunk of the spam was pushing narratives that should be familiar by now. It certainly looked like the opening of an information war, and we're way past that now.
Being pedantic, but the Brexit vote happened before the 2016 US elections. The process of actually Brexiting did, however, entirely happen after that one guest star from Home Alone 2 was inaugurated as US president.
On a more genuine curiosity, do you think Trump’s primary run or his general campaign had more foreign assistance?
You don't get a tinfoil hat and I wish it was common enough knowledge to consider obvious.
Speaking here of my interpretation of the core point: The role of capital where climate change, nationalism and friends are concerned is, arguably, the most influential among a variety of contributing factors.
I think everyone kinda knows it, but somehow it doesn't feel like common knowledge.
However much of a factor it is, it's hard to imagine solving the problem of authoritatrian politics without first solving the problem of the money and propaganda machines behind it.
Ditto for climate change, the decades long fossil fuel industry sponsored manipulation of the conversation to delay climate action is approaching common knowledge now I hope? It's certainly been reported on by enough reputable outlets, and discredited by none.
I want to note that fossil fuel isn't the only stakeholder here. There are many industries with motivation to limit or delay climate action, and even more that will support whichever political movement offers the most buyable politicians. Which these days usually means the right.
I’m having trouble with the label “populism.” In my mind, populism is what drives small-d democracy, the kind of grass roots self-organization that reclaims power from the exploitive elites and distributes it to the populace (hence the name). Bernie Sanders was a populist, and a rational concern about climate change amd its consequences certainly drove his national rise <shakes fist at dnc>.
What you seem to be referring to is nationalism or maybe even tribalism. In the case of Trump amd maybe others, the nationalism wears a populist parka, and Trump may even believe he is returning power to regular folks on some level. Bit his rhetoricand the actions of his more ardent supporters are much more about our tribe, lords and serfs alike, vs their tribe.
To your greater thesis, yes climate change’s consequences are certainly contributing. The non-gouging drivers behind food price inflation include higher production costs due to climate changes, and many folks blame “them” and organize into “us” as a response.
Thanks for paying attention!
I found an old Guardian article that goes into depth about the nuances of populism and its application by various groups--scholars, media, left and right. It didn't exactly clarify things for me, but it does a good job of showing why (and to an extent, how) someone like Trump and someone like Bernie Sanders are described as populists when their goals and methods are so different.
(edited for typo)
Was Huey Long populist in your view?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long
I'm reading Kingfish. He wanted to be dictator and give the poor what they needed.
I don’t know enough to say. Based on what I do know, yes, and…more. Like Hugo Chavez.
I would guess that it's more simple than that. People are getting more upset about wealth inequality, so certain people in charge start scapegoating the usual suspects to keep themselves in power.
This is for sure part of it. I think, in economic terms, this is the demand side of the supply-demand curve. The supply is Machiavellian politicians and billionaires with corporate interests and nifty new technologies to spread their propaganda.
I mean, yes and yes but I don't know? They're both so wide reaching and unique in how they're being realized across the world that I find it tough to find a single direct linkage between the cause of one and the effect of the other.
To me, climate change as a concept is causing generalized anxiety at different stages across the world but people wouldn't blame it directly. As for populism, I think that we're overdue for change on many fronts given the length of the stable period before, changing power dynamics across the world and the rapid advancement of communications and data processing technology.
Again, I can't easily link the two but they're both major components of the same soup stock ;)
Maybe it's because of a general feeling of unease and threat that we dig in and have a need for strong leadership. Hard times, hard measures maybe? Populism is notoriously known for outspoken individuals.
If our modern day authoritarian populists are considered "strong leaders", then I'd hate to see a weak leader.
I think they appeal to people in their simple (and useless) messaging. "Things are bad right now, and I'll fight the others to make them good" is a great way to promise nothing. But if you don't follow politics or understand how one makes things good, it sounds like a sweet deal. The populist has it all figured out, I'll support them, and things will be good!
They all uniquely rely on their supporters not understanding how the government works so they can manipulate it to their donors financial benefit. They are wholly unconcerned with the plight of their supporters, just as their supporters are unconcerned with the methods used to "fix things".
I see it as coincidental, as in, these two things are companion-incidentally to each other: populism rises when times are hard for the average man, and the avg man is having a hard time due to, among many things, climate change.
Both hard times and climate change are the result of prolonged decades of deliberate decisions to line profits and ignore human needs. Both are man made disasters.
American populists don't believe that climate change exists. If climate change drives them, it is on a level below their self awareness ( or honesty ).
Aren’t populists just people that appeal to the broader population? Surely some of those believe in and appeal to climate issues.