The far-right might seem to be on the march, but in reality the majority of people in all countries cannot abide what it stands for. It is not the new normal.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
The far-right is not the new normal.
If you listen to Donald Trump and if you listen to many commentators around the world, you would believe that overnight his election changed everything and the far right are now the dominant force within politics, the world over.
That's not true. Most people did not change their political opinion because Donald Trump walked into the White House.
The majority of people in the USA are already showing significant disquiet with what he is doing. The backlash is growing against the Republicans, but the Republicans are not yet swayed.
They believe that hate is the new normal, but it isn't.
They believe that attacking migrants is the new normal. But it isn't.
They believe that destruction as represented by the activities of Elon Musk is the way to build the future, but it isn't.
They believe that criticising experts and denying the truth is now normal. It isn't because most people demand evidence-based truth.
They believe that equality is bad, but most people instinctively believe in it, as they have done since they were children, who evidence that this is the normal state of human nature.
They believe that indifference is the basis for policy. And most people don't. Most people care. Most people want to ensure that everybody has at least some opportunity in life, even if we can't create equal opportunity for all.
There is therefore nothing normal at all about what Donald Trump and the Republicans are doing, or what Nigel Farage and the Reform party in the UK are doing, or what the AfD in Germany is doing. I could go on. Around the other countries where we are seeing a rise in right-wing rhetoric, sentiment and electoral support, these people are out of touch with reality. This is not how human nature is.
But that said, they have caught the zeitgeist in one way. People, the world over, are fed up with normal.
Normal has been neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is the philosophy that was introduced by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in 1980, which swept the world and removed the Keynesian logic, which had existed from 1945 until 1980, and which delivered the longest period of sustained wellbeing and growth in human history.
Neoliberalism has not done that. Its belief in free markets, in privatization, in globalization, in austerity measures, and in individual self-reliance has actually led us to the situation where we are stagnating; where the state is undermined. But there is nothing to replace it in terms of delivery of services where people know that they're paying taxes without getting value because too much is being diverted to the resources of private companies who are profiting as a consequence, and they want change.
But what do they want when they talk about change? They could, of course, stick with the normal, but we know that that is history.
We could move to the far right, which is the chaos, which Trump and all his lookalikes around the world are offering, and that is not consistent with what human beings want.
They want stability.
They want sustainability.
They want fairness.
They want justice.
They want order, and none of that is being offered by what Trump and Co are delivering.
Or they could want managed change.
We are at a point where what we are seeing is a political system that is demanding change, but which only the far right are offering.
The difficulty is that there is no moderate agenda for change, and that is the problem we have.
We know that the normal has failed.
We know that the far-right can't offer any solutions.
The problem is how do we get something better? A people focused, sustainable vision of politics.
A vision that puts policy outcomes rather than policy differences as being the priority.
A politics that looks at solutions which deliver for people as being the essential definition of success, rather than simple point scoring between parties.
A system that actually says inequality is the curse that we have to solve because unless we do, we will leave far too many people behind at a cost to humankind as a result that is unsustainable.
A system that recognises that we don't just live in the moment, but which recognises that we live in a time continuum, and therefore we have to take into consideration the fact that our current actions have consequences, including climate change.
A system that says there has to be a recognition of differences so that people with different viewpoints on a subject will have to find common ground to develop solutions that are acceptable to most, which implies that electoral change is required in countries like the USA and the UK, where polar opposites are supposedly the basis of party politics, although the reality doesn't quite always look like that.
And a system where in the end, what matters are people more than anything else, meaning that the emphasis upon finance, which has dominated neoliberal government thinking has to come to an end because finance is our servant, not our master.
That's a massive change.
The far right is not normal. Caring in the way that I've just described is normal.
It was denied by neoliberalism. Neoliberalism was created to quite deliberately increase inequality, increase wealth for a few and focus upon the way in which business could be emphasized, and the power of banking could be developed at cost to the many. It was a political system designed on the basis of prejudice to produce unequal outcomes.
The new normal has to be the opposite of that.
The new normal has to be about literally fairness for people.
The new normal is not the far right.
The new normal is not neoliberalism.
The new normal is waiting to be born.
The new normal is going to have to be a world where people come first, planet comes second, and finance comes decidedly last.
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A great post.
Money should serve everyone – it is not an aim unto itself. It is a resource, criminally and deliberately withheld for the majority and amassed it seems to me by legalised thievery, never mind hard work.
Neo-liberalism – the more I think about it, the more it seems to be just an expansionist and hegemonic tool of American capitalism, getting sovereign states to surrender assets and sovereignty so that they can be owned and asset stripped by Americans.
It can be hoped therefore we are in the middle of some form of epiphany although it could be a rather drawn out one.
I agree entirely with you. Thatcher started the ‘greed is good ‘ attitude, but even those who have succeeded (in monetary terms) seem unhappy and always wanting more. How do we make such people see that caring for others is ultimately rewarding and makes the world a better place?
‘You know what? You have a point too.
I’ve never seen anyone inside a high end SUV looking happy.
They always look thoroughly miserable as sin to me.
And angry
So angry….
Why?
Somebody just put these two quotes side-by-side in my Mastodon feed…
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”
– Elon Musk, Feb 28, 2025
“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trials 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
– Captain G. M. Gilbert, the Army psychologist assigned to watching the defendants at the Nuremberg trials
Thanks for highlighting this
I will have more to say
On the subject of empathy, there is a growing body of evidence in psychology which has identified a “Dark Triad” of personality traits. The word “dark” is used because these traits are considered to be malevolent. However, the Dark Triad is not classed as a mental disorder, as an individual is not mentally ill.
The traits are: narcissism, Machiavellianism and sub-clinical psychopathy. When an individual, usually a male, has these three traits, they combine in a way which is more than the sum of their individual parts.
Narcissism is characterised by grandiosity, pride, egotism, and a lack of empathy.
Machiavellianism is characterised by manipulativeness, indifference to morality, a lack of empathy, and a focus on self-interest.
Psychopathy is characterised by a lack of emotion, a lack of empathy, callousness, antisocial behaviour, impulsivity and remorselessness.
A common thread is a lack of empathy, along with behaviours such as interpersonal hostility, a lack of agreeableness and a lack of conscientiousness. Such people have no regard for how their actions affect others and are prone to dangerous risk taking. It is pointless to expect compassion or empathy from such individuals, as they simply do not have the capacity to feel either. There is only a void.
The literature makes it clear that people who possess the Dark Triad traits should never be in positions of power. Sadly, these traits tend to propel people into positions of power.
Now, who does that suggest to you?
I’m struggling 🙂
I quoted Hannah Arendt yesterday in response to that statement by Musk.
But we need to drive home to people the moral vacuum we are seeing.
Not everyone is as horrible as Trump & co and our own home-grown fascists. The actor Michael Sheen (Gabriel in “Good Omens”) has put his money where his mouth is. Bought £1million of debt and wrote it off for 900 people in South Wales!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg1ewdgk7no
Very good.
Might ruling castes be suffering from “Conspicuous Acquisition” aka. Greed, the consequences which they inflict on regular people?
Might there be a hinge point in ruling caste ideology and practice, whereby the already wealthy have to be paid lots more to work, aka “Bonus Bonanzas”, and the not so wealthy have to have their pay depressed to make them work, aka “Austerity for the Many”?
This situation has been developing fur some time.
An excellent and very thought provoking post from Richard Murphy. There is a lot to think about after reading his article. I really get the sense that Richard is quite rapidly bringing new ways of thinking about and presenting challenges to discredited political and economic frameworks, chiefly neoliberalism. Of the several strands developed in this piece that of fairness particularly resonated with me. It seems to me, for example, that many of the “legitimate concerns” claimed by Reform politicians and others about assistance for immigrants or people receiving social security benefits depend on baselessly provoking feelings of unfair treatment within communities. Yet somehow the glaring injustices created by staggering levels of wealth inequality and the concentration of power in a few hands are not reflected in widespread feelings of unfairness and injustice. For example it is widely felt that bringing the wealthiest farming estates into the CGT framework is an injustice.
I think that we need clear and compelling accounts, images and stories that people can readily grasp and share that will support wider community engagement with these challenges. We need to have images that compellingly rebutt arguments such as seemingly inarguable statement that “there is no magic money tree” so social security spending must be reduced, or contentions that “reducing taxes on high incomes frees up resources and then benefits trickle can down to the community as a whole”. Richard really does seem to me to be providing clarity of thought that can reach a wide community on these and many other issues.
Thanks
Neoliberalism is being maintained and reinforced by all forms of our ‘legacy’/billionaire news media. They all seem to operate on the same template that minimises and trivialises any alternative to neoliberalism. And also exacerbates the divisions being sown in society – by themselves as well as politicians – that help to maintain the neoliberal narrative. Think how curated any panel discussion is, whether it be QT (which includes curated audiences) or in studio. Often several neoliberal talking heads (and the presenter) against one non neoliberal. They will sustain a pretense of ‘neutrality’ with an argument that basically boils down to a claim of different viewpoints on the neoliberal spectrum. For them, that makes it ‘balanced’ since they see the non neoliberals as a monolith, not a spectrum. Part of what’s needed is a concerted effort to change this by reinventing the pre-79 differences that did (and still do) exist among the non neoliberal cohorts, even if those are just as small and nuanced as they are on the neoliberal spectrum. Panel discussions on increasingly popular new social media may be able to gain some traction in broadening the notion that it’s not monolithic on that side, potentially leading to a successful push to include more non neoliberal voices – at least in broadcast media. The papers will continue to print opinion columns by divisive ‘celebrity’ trolls.
My memory of the 1970s was that conspicuous consumption (boasting about your wealth) was frowned upon, especially that Rolls Royces were vulgar and driven by spivs. Thatcher changed it in a very short time and the city went wild with champagne and Ferraris.
I have a question for Labour MPs, particularly female ones.
Think back to when you saw THIS picture,
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-theresa-may-caught-holding-hands-white-house-photo-a7550386.html
Did you think that a few years later, a Labour PM would be talking about shared values and a special relationship with a convicted felon of a President who has expressed territorial designs on Commonwealth ally Canada, while selling us out to Russia?
Isn’t it time YOU took a public stand, and said, “NO, I cannot be associated with this treachery.” ?
Or you can stay silent, but that will make you complicit – in treachery, war crimes, and fascism.
It’s urgent, you need to choose NOW, or be on the losing side. If in doubt, have a read of your Labour party card. Or just be a decent member of the human race.
David Byrne says:
Richard, this is serious.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the author of Strongmen and other academic books on fascism and authoritarianism appears to be under attack.
I noticed that there is a move to delete her Wikipedia page; a move to silence her, perhaps.
I wonder when Google/YouTube site, and their many top class political contributors, will suffer the same fate.
I am thinking Night of the Long Knives and the Burning of the Books!
I strongly suspect it will happen.
How long will this blog survive?