As is usual with trends of all kinds, some recent electoral successes for far-right parties in Europe have been extrapolated into a narrative in which the rise of the far-right is just about unstoppable.
That narrative took a blow with the recent Spanish elections in which the far-right Vox party performed poorly and its coalition with the traditional conservative Popular Party failed to secure a majority. Possibly as a result, the leader of the German CDU backed away from a suggestion that his party might go into a similar coalition with the AfD. And a similar coalition government in Finland appears to be on the verge of collapse.
From the other side of the world, it’s hard to know what to make of all this, but important to try to understand it. So, I’ll toss out some thoughts and invite readers closer to the action to set me straight.
As I wrote a few years ago, the rise of a Trump-style far right has been driven by the collapse of the neoliberal consensus that dominated politics throughout the capitalist world from the 1970s, with power alternating between hard neoliberalism (represented by traditional conservative parties) and soft neoliberalism (represented by formerly socialist and social democratic parties). As the failures of neoliberalism became undeniable, there was no longer enough support to sustain two neoliberal parties, and alternatives began to emerge on both left and right.
The most dramatic manifestation of this process on the right has been Donald Trump’s takeover of the US Republican party, which is now well to the right of any of the European far-right parties (with the possible exception of Fidesz in Hungary), and still commands around 50 per cent electoral support.
In Europe, though the more common party has been the rise of a far-right party commanding around 20 per cent of the vote. In most cases, this doesn’t look to me like an upsurge in the popularity of rightwing ideas. Rather, this 20 per cent has always been there, waiting for the circumstances in which views that are normally unacceptable can gain political expression.
In my own home state of Queensland, for example, the racist One Nation party scored more than 20 per cent of the votes in a state election in 1998, before fading back into single digits.
A 20 per cent vote for the far-right enough to make it difficult for traditional conservatives to win government in their own right, but usually not enough for the far-right to lead a government of their own. Hence, the contortions mentioned above.
A lot of attention has been focused on the neo-fascist origins of some of the far right parties. But some parties with fascist roots seem to have shifted towards the centre as they got closer to office. By contrast, Fidesz and AfD, which started out as ordinary centre-right parties, are now thoroughly anti-democratic and look more like old-style fascists.
What is needed is a convincing left alternative, which is far from being evident. Marxism has proved to be a dead end. The traditional centre-left parties have yet to recover from their embrace of soft neoliberalism. Greens have more appealing ideas, but have yet to break through in most places. Perhaps the need to respond to the climate disaster will finally generate some real change. We can only hope.
John Quiggin 
I don’t know about an unstoppable rise, but the European far-right (cf Actually Existing Nazis) seem like a minor but ever-present danger. Every once in a while there is a convergence of opportunity and mildly competent leadership, and suddenly fascists are in government and bringing in punitive, anti-immigrant policies. The FPÖ and the Danish People’s Party spring to mind.
The suggestion of Merz was just to accept the AFD in municipal coaltions as a partner. That is rather far away from forming a federal level coalition.
My recent experience with social democrats has been rather depressing. I have yet to see a member below 50 without a Master degree or anybody with any personal experience of living on welfare besides myself. Many seem more concerned with “non nice language” of the right wing parties than with their substantial repetitive lies and bad policy.
Not quite literally true my claim about the demographics of social democrats and my sample of peoples who´s educational/ social background is known to me with reasonable confidence is neither independent nor large, still astonishing.
Piketty sure got something going for this thesis that left parties largely represent educational elites and right wing ones capital owners with no one particular responsive to at least 90% of the population.
The fraction that complains more about language than political substance of the right would probably say that thesis makes me and Piketty part of the conspiracy crowd. One lawyer even gave a speech saying as much on a protest against racist/conspiracy politics.
Looking concretely at where the Australian Greens currently stand, it seems to me that a key strategic decision they need to make is whether they aim to become something approaching a majority party in their own right, or whether they aim to be an agenda-setting party that acts as “the leaven in the lump” and shifts the Overton Window in the desired direction by prompting other political actors to take up its concerns and perspectives, without necessarily growing its own vote much above its present level.
“Perhaps the need to respond to the climate disaster will finally generate some real change. We can only hope.”
It’s not looking too good in the critical near future. A short round up of climate being in retreat in numerous polities:
https://inqld.com.au/politics/2023/07/25/sorry-albo-theres-some-territory-to-cover-yet-before-we-call-full-time-on-climate-wars/
The current leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, never spoke about contemplating a coalition with the extreme right party AfD. The Guardian translated his words as:
“Of course we are obliged to accept democratic votes,” Merz said. “And if the head of a district authority or a mayor is voted in who belongs to the AfD, then of course you find ways to continue to work in that town.” [The Guardian, 24 July 23]
In a sense, Merz was stating the obvious. As long as the AfD is not outlawed, one cannot declare the outcome of an election as invalid when an AfD member is elected as mayor of a town (as was the case in the State Turingia, in former East Germany).
There was immediate and strong criticism coming from within his own party. Merz, being a lawyer by profession tried to ‘explain’ his comment by noting that district authorities and towns don’t have legislative powers. It didn’t work. Two CDU state premiers and one former CDU state premier (collectively accounting for about 30 million out of about 83 million people) expressed concerns about Merz being a suitable chancellor candidate, nevermind his often repeated sentence that the CDU will be a ‘fire wall’ against the AfD and his confidently expressed opinion he will half the AfD vote if he is elected as leader. Setting all else aside, the opposite happened; the AfD gained votes, particularly in the former East German states. In Thuringia the AfD scores around 30% in recent polls. This is the state where the AfD, led by Bjoern Hoecke, is officially classified as extremist and the party is observed by the local equivalent of ASIO.
My interpretation of what I read and hear is the CDU is internally split between those who favour Merkel’s policy direction (in coalition with the social democrats, the SPD) and those who favour a more conservative approach. Friedrich Merz lost against Merkel in or around 2005. He left politics, worked with or for Black Rock, made enough money to have a private plane (while considering himself only upper middle class), and returned to politics only after Merkel had declared she will not stand for re-election in 2021. In the meantime the notion of ‘conservative’ has changed. I don’t belief Merz is at all sympathetic toward the AfD. IMHO, Merz lives in the era of Helmut Kohl and the Bonner Federal Republic of Germany – never more ‘conservative’ than what JQ calls ‘soft neoliberal’. (It was different in the 1950s and possibly the 1960 when former NAZI sympathisers or worse did find a home in the CDU – to keep them under control was allegedly the idea). His latest gaffe is to consider the Greens (member of the current federal government in coalition with the SPD and the free democrats, FDP) as the major opponent of the CDU. Robert Habeck (Greens), Minister for Economics and the Environment and Deputy Chancellor, pointed out that the Greens are in coalition with the CDU in several States and the CDU fails in its role as opposition to provide a conservative alternative. (Fun to watch).
The AfD started as what I would call neo-con party with an emphasis on national interests (not unlike the Tory party in the UK). The last recognisable member of this ‘economic conservative’ group, Meuthen, left about one or two years ago. One member, Beatrix von Storch, had or still has links to Nigel Farage.
As an aside, while aristocracy has no official standing in the Federal Republic of Germany, they are recognised in countries with a monarchy. So it was interesting to watch who would be invited to King Charles coronation. Two families with links to the paternal line of King Charles were invited but Beatrix von Storch with links to the maternal line was not invited.
There’s strong support for Green ideals but only on a personal level and often implicitly.
People are worried that a Green govt might make massive blunders, sow disharmony and discord – much as the conservatives do now but with less competence.
I wonder whether this reluctance to engage, to proceed, to progress, to move on is a factor of geography and demography alone and whether the obscuration of the dark truths of the nation’s evolution are more to blame.
On cue, JWH has emerged from his green and gold cocoon to triumph the glories of the now well dead British Empire.
Then why was he saying it? If I tell you that the sky is blue and water is wet, and you ask me why I’m telling you, it’s a useless answer to say ‘Because it’s true’. That’s not the point! There is an indefinitely large number of true statements that a person could make, but people don’t utter them just because they’re true, they utter them when they consider them to be (as well as true) relevant.
I don’t know what the context was in which this particular statement was made, but it must have been made in some context, and if I knew something about the context I might also be able to guess something about the probable effect of choosing, in that context, to utter that statement rather than any other. More to the point, Friedrich Merz should have been able to make some calculation of the probable effect of uttering the statement, and it’s on that calculation that the decision to utter the statement should be judged, not just on whether it’s true.
“Then why was he saying it?”
I don’t know. I asked myself the same question.
The statement was made in the context of an interview, shown in a public TV program. The video is on https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/merz-cdu-brandmauer-afd-kritik-100.html
It seems members from his own party have judged Friedrich Merz in a manner you suggest.
Gona go with J-D. That was a calculated move towards the AFD, and the legalese is only implausible deniability. Just one from rather far away that did not get a favourable response from his own party. Even with a far more positive response, that is the kind of thing that might lead to a federal coalition 10 years later, not in the nearterm.
His comments on Ukrainian refuges a couple of month ago looked like a similar intentional accident to test the water. He learned his lesson there, still claiming large scale abuse of the system, but focusing on black men now as culprits in the very same interview with the AFD comments.
I live in Spain, not that I follow national politics at all closely. The recent election has led to a hung parliament. The legacy conservative PP got easily the most seats ahead of the pale pink PSOE, but to form a government would need the support both of the neofascist and thankfully diminished Vox, and the conservative Catalan secessionist party Junts. Junts cares much more about the independence than about the conservatism, and the same is true of Vox in the opposite direction. I can’t see them cohabiting. Sanchez on the other hand can offer Junts some meagre sweeteners, mainly money, without losing his base. He is a very skilful tactical politician and rather think he will just be able to build a fragile coalition, making sure that if he fails the public will blame Junts in the repeat election.
I took a quick look at the Junts programme, available only in Catalan: https://junts.cat/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/PROGRAMA-ELECTORAL-JUNTS.pdf
340 pages of promised welfare and business goodies, to be financed by stopping transfers to those lazy Andalusians. They claim these are $16bn a year. I suspect this includes debt service, of which in reality an independent Catalonia would necessarily repatriate its share. It also includes defence. Junts has no defence policy, which will please Putin but not the EU it hopes to join, and get more money from. I don’t think they realize the cost of a single modern warship, as deployed by say Portugal and Denmark.
PS Rudimentary googling suggests a fully equipped new corvette will cost The Anti-Imperial Catalan Navy around $300m, a frigate twice that. In addition the AICN would need shore facilities. Maybe they could buy stuff from Spain, which would not be inclined to do them any favours.