When mainstream politicians tinker, populists win

Sunday’s presidential election in France explains everything that’s wrong with established political parties

The opponents of Brexit, Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen are often more disappointing than their supporters. It is simply tiring to keep reading articles and “surveys” blaming the rise of such politicians and movements on racism, sexism, and xenophobia.

Yes, it is true that racism, sexism and xenophobia have played a role, but they do not explain why such politicians are actually winning now. That is so because the base — maximum 20% in any country — that votes on a consistently racist, sexist or xenophobic platform is not sufficient to carry an election. In order to win, such politicians have to buttress their captive constituencies with at least another 10% votes. These 10% extra voters are not driven by racism, sexism or xenophobia; they are driven by the failure of mainstream politicians to address their problems.

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Actually, the failure is greater: most mainstream Western politicians are not even willing to face the source of such problems head-on. At best, they poke a finger in one of the holes of a dam that is leaking all over the place! They tinker, and voters are tired of tinkerers. This also explains their suspicion of “experts” who tend to advise the turning of a screw a bit to this side or a bit to that.

The French elections

If

Brexit and

Mr. Trump’s victory did not make this clear enough — by winning without any real idea or solution, but simply by suggesting a drastic change — then the first round of the

French presidential elections should have. Regardless of who wins the second round on Sunday, the two candidates who survived were the ones who managed to sell themselves as “outsiders” — one by banging on a populist rightist drum, the other by cleverly disassociating himself from all established parties while running on an establishment platform.

Marine Le Pen is almost as limited in terms of policy as the Brexit champions in the United Kingdom or Donald Trump: she can focus on the huge surcharge of grievances running through the electorate but offer very little in constructive, practical, cohesive change. This does not matter, however, as she makes exactly the noises that the Brexit champions and Mr. Trump made: noises against the status quo, promises of significant change. So desperate are many people for drastic change that they buy these noises. Interestingly, so desperate are many people for major change that they even bought noises made by Emmanuel Macron, the other successful candidate from the first round, noises basically no different from those of mainstream around-the-centre politicians for three decades now — simply because he managed to relaunch himself at the head of a fresh movement, with no traditional party ties.

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Faced with such sweeping distrust and dissatisfaction, centrists, liberals and leftists seem to have no answer but to chant the mantra of “racism, sexism, xenophobia”. It is a mantra that is based on a ground reality — there is a base of voters with such prejudices — but it does not explain the main phenomenon, which is the political distrust of voters who are not primarily motivated by such prejudices. Oh yes, they also chant “fascism” — which is off-key too, for fascism is a danger but only because the established tinkerers of contemporary politics have left people so desperate for change that they can vote in any populist who promises it to them!

Creating finance capital

At the core of this distrust of tinkering politicians and their experts lies a very basic fact: finance capital is out of control and most politicians are unwilling to face up to it. What the well-meaning ones do is tinker with a huge and leaking dam, which prevents a deluge but nevertheless slowly swamps the lives of many ordinary people. Finally, politicians are unwilling to do their jobs — which is to represent and enable their voters, not to facilitate neo-liberalism. Moral politicians talk of how immigrants are good for the national economy; immoral ones want refugees booted out. But both, in different ways, finally tax their voters to keep corporations and banks running; they inevitably convert a bit more of social capital into finance capital. The infrastructural cuts and frustration that this causes ordinary citizens are converted into xenophobic sentiments, for lack of any other target. Sad to say, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel is as much part of this problem as Mr. Trump.

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The fact that voters actually vote for someone like Mr. Trump — who is not even willing to try and assuage some of the suffering, as Ms. Merkel is — shows the suspicion and despair out there. Where are the politicians who can take on neo-liberalism and finance capital, and its pillage of citizens and immigrants alike? Where are the politicians who are even trying to make voters see the real conditions of their increasing poverty? By simply tinkering with a rotten system, they make it possible for even a leader like Mr. Trump, who is the very epitome of that system, to assume power.

The failure is not that of voters. The failure is of politicians who have become simply managers — and junior-level ones at that — of capital! They are not doing their jobs, and when the ordinary voter casts her ballot for someone like Mr. Trump, who is part of the problem rather than the solution, she does so out of desperation more often than out of prejudice. Unable to comprehend the system that is grinding her down, she can nevertheless feel — deep in her bones — that establishment politicians have failed her. And will fail her again.