It’s never nice to spend a Monday morning sweating over the fall of democracy. Even worse is having these fears compounded by the first hour of Jeremy Vine’s Radio 2 show.
Vine’s programme has a knack of wedging petty squabble stories between major world events. At quarter past the hour, you’ll hear from a war correspondent on the West Bank. At quarter to, it’s over to a National Trust park cracking down on public urination.
Today, there were examinations – in equal measure – of the rise of the far-right in Germany, and the lack of car parking in the Peak District. Call it a reach, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something sinister linking these two stories.
Here are a couple of direct quotes from the Peak District story:
“Campervans are taking the space that cars could have. Apart from being an eyesore, they’re parking for nothing. I’m not saying all the people in the campervans are bad people, but some of them are chucking rubbish in our fields and using the fields as a toilet.”
“The problem is not just campervans, it is the Instagram and Tiktokers who want to catch the sunrise at Mam Tor without putting in the miles.”
Every caller had their own version of what the problem was, who caused it, and how it should be resolved. With a running theme of resentment, scapegoating and generalisation, it was a small example, albeit a silly one, of how debates of all sizes are settled at the moment.
And so to Germany, where yesterday 1 in 5 voters crossed the box of the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
Or are they far-right? Are 1 in 5 Germans fascist? Is it right to label democratically-elected political parties as neo-nazi? For half an hour on Radio 2, many contributors had a go at answering these questions. I thought: what if the answer to all of them is yes?
These things can all be correct, even if many of these voters were social democrats or conservatives at the last election. Or if they’re just concerned about the future of their town’s industry.
Unpleasant as they may be, there are reasons why respectable citizens feel compelled to vote for the far-right. We have seen the same patterns in practically every democratic state, including the UK.
Rather than drop your jaw and despair at the sight of these election results, it is important to give your specs a wipe and see clearly how it’s so easy for people to ‘become’ fascists.
Sure, 20% of German voters are not neo-nazis – at least in the way the term is usually applied. But as of yesterday, they would in fact like to see a party in government which, given the power to do so, would strip German democracy away and make life intolerable for social & ethnic minorities. Evidence therefore paints a bleak picture. But this isn’t to say fascists cannot revert back to a more moderate worldview. Political views are not set in stone.
The sad truth is that the AfD gained popularity by providing very clear and uncompromising ‘whats’ (depreciating living standards), ‘whos’ (immigrants) and ‘hows’ (leave the EU, send migrants back) concerning the problems Germany faces. These are the same tactics we have seen all over European democracies.
The even sadder truth is that we are all being played, because what fascist leaders really want is for you to be suspicious of as many of your countrymen as possible. Good, if you think Middle Eastern immigrants are terrorists. Great, if you think transgender people become murderers in public toilets. Even better, if you think young people ascending a hill in the Peak District obstruct your ability to park a car.
That last example may seem like a joke, but think for a moment about what is associated with the very flippantly peddled stereotype of Gen-Z entitlement. It implicates school teachers and university professors, ‘woke’ media, the benefits system, workplace safety and anti-discrimination. All these things contribute to the downfall of our society, which the next generation – too ‘woke’ to realise – will no doubt hand over to foreigners for peanuts.
All of this masks the actual underlying causes of our dissatisfying lives. But if you want to cut corners, it is much easier to pin blame on people who in the grand scheme of things are powerless. If I don’t check myself, I could begin a crazy trip down the line of thinking that takes me from ‘Deliveroo riders do not respect the Highway Code’ to ‘my government permits undocumented entrants to serve multinational corporations which undercut British businesses’.
I will finish off by listing some common lies fascists tell. Which – and no judgement by the way – you may have once fallen for.
“People are finally being listened to” – no, people are being thrown unrealistic answers to their questions. Working people of all backgrounds are pissed off with elites because of how unfairly wealth and power is distributed. To protect themselves, elites in politics and business pick scapegoats. It’s not billionaires hoarding wealth and cutting jobs, it’s the Syrian refugees…
“These are legitimate concerns” – no, they are totally overblown concerns. I wonder how many AfD voters have met and spoken with a Middle Eastern immigrant or transgender person recently, if ever. Maybe if they had, they would empathise better with how hard life can actually be for these people. And indeed, how we all share much of the same struggles on a daily basis.
“They can’t be fascists if they respect democratic elections” – no. Besides violent revolution, there is no other way for these parties to gain power than through elections. Once in power, history shows how quickly they dismantle democratic institutions and rebuild them in their image.
In the end, fascism plays out as a top-down system, not just in law and policy, but the diffusion of ideas. The only kind of democratic legitimacy it gets is buy-in from people who are fed up with the status quo and want quick fixes. Scarily, that could be any of us.
Chris Perrin 