No, it's not just the economy

[Cyborg Girl]

This article is long, heavily documented, and IMO very very important.

http://www.vox.com/2016/9/19/12933072/f ... ump-brexit

A brief summary...

While "common knowledge" is that far-right extremism is fueled by economic hardship, with citizens fixing on isolationism as a solution, most research in the field completely fails to support that. There is no significant positive correlation between white working-class economic loss and support for far-right parties. In fact, there is negative correlation in some cases, with business owners and those with long-term jobs more likely to support racist nationalism.

In other words, those things that suburban liberals say about "poor white trash" are privileged bullshit. And so are the things conservatives say about the only real lefties being bourgeois. This is a phenomenon overwhelmingly tied to racism and religious bias, far more than to the economy.

The coming century is going to be a long, long uphill fight.

[Thumper]

The coming century is going to be a long, long uphill fight.

As are they all...

[SciFiFisher]

Interesting article. I don't entirely agree that the economy is not connected to the increase in populist movements. As for far right ideology there is a belief among social science types that populism is a seed bed for the radical right. I think that xenophobia does go hand in hand with racism, misogyny, religious bigotry, and other radical right creeds.

I think people in the lower economic strata have a sense of being entitled and wanting to keep the status quo. i.e. if I work at a job at McDonald's and I lose that job because the economy goes south it will be very easy for me to blame the immigrant I see behind the counter at my local McDonald's for "stealing my job". I may live on the bottom of the dung heap. But, I don't want those uppity minorities to get one step higher on the dung heap than I am!!

[Sigma_Orionis]

Interesting article. I don't entirely agree that the economy is not connected to the increase in populist movements. As for far right ideology there is a belief among social science types that populism is a seed bed for the radical right. I think that xenophobia does go hand in hand with racism, misogyny, religious bigotry, and other radical right creeds.

I think people in the lower economic strata have a sense of being entitled and wanting to keep the status quo. i.e. if I work at a job at McDonald's and I lose that job because the economy goes south it will be very easy for me to blame the immigrant I see behind the counter at my local McDonald's for "stealing my job". I may live on the bottom of the dung heap. But, I don't want those uppity minorities to get one step higher on the dung heap than I am!!

I also think that the Economy has a lot more to do with this than what the article says. As for populism, I think that the social science types are wrong. It's not the bed for the radical right, it's the bed for authoritarianism from either side of the ideological divide.