# taz.de -- Spotlight Populism: Should We Talk About Fascism? | |
> The word populism has become a kind of container that serves almost | |
> everything you do not like. | |
Bild: Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, priests of the 'more-market-and-less… | |
„Populism“ has been the word of the year 2016 in Spain according to Fundéu, | |
the foundation that promotes the good use of Spanish in the media. If there | |
was a time when this originally neutral word was used to define, today it | |
is used to qualify and always with negative connotations. The fact that it | |
has become the word of the year indicates its use – and also abuse – in a | |
short period of time. Indeed, last year populism grew in stature in its | |
most varied forms both in Europe and in the United States. However, we are | |
not dealing with a political phenomenon coming out of the blue, born | |
suddenly, nor it is a one-time phenomenon. | |
Populism has had a long period of incubation in the last decades, since the | |
concepts of right and left began to lose their original content with the | |
supposed disappearance of ideology being replaced by a single religion, the | |
Market, imposed by the conservative revolution of Margaret Thatcher and | |
Ronald Reagan under the mantra of 'more-market-and-less-state’. | |
The European left did not know how or did not want to avoid that neoliberal | |
agenda. Social-Democracy began to walk along the „third way“ theorized by | |
British sociologist Anthony Giddens. It took on the neoliberal postulates | |
and in some cases, as in several policies imposed in the United Kingdom by | |
the Labor government of Tony Blair, went further than the original | |
conservative ones. The left allow herself to be dominated by financial | |
elites and was dazzled by a supposed modernity. | |
They were times of economic growth, of fat cows, of social progress. There | |
was a visible socialization of benefits in the growth of public services | |
and in the expansion of a middle class with numerous graduations according | |
to the different schools of sociology. However, the cycle came to an abrupt | |
end and a very painful one for most of the people. It was discovered how | |
banks had swindled small savers, how corruption had become systemic in many | |
countries, how in others it had kept its citizens obscure on issues that | |
affected them. How they had to pay for the excesses of the others. | |
To that first confusion, that of a left taking on ideas and policies of the | |
right, another one has been added, opposite direction. Now it is the right | |
that usurps approaches of the left in the social field. It claims to defend | |
the disadvantaged, even at the cost of condemning other more disadvantaged | |
people like refugees or immigrants, and proposes, at least on paper, to | |
give greater weight to the state although there seems not to be much | |
interest in the return of Keynes. | |
Populism has its best breeding ground in confusion. If it is a question of | |
fighting it, it must be done from clarity. In our postmodern world we are | |
told that the ideological division between left and right no longer exists, | |
that the axis is another one, but let us not fall into a delusion. This is | |
not the same thing, a right-wing policy or a left-wing one, a conservative | |
or a social-democratic one. The old axis continues to exist. We must | |
confront it and turn around the old neoliberal mantra. We must demand | |
'more-state-and-less-market’. | |
Clarity also passes through an adequate use of language. Unfortunately, the | |
word populism has become a kind of container that serves for almost | |
everything you do not like. This wide and varied use makes its real meaning | |
trivial while avoiding to call other things by their proper names. Why do | |
we talk about populism when we should talk about fascism on so many | |
occasions? Why do we use that word as synonymous with demagogy? It is the | |
same perverse mechanism that invents a neologism and thus we speak of | |
„post-truth“ when in all languages there is a word for it: „lie“. | |
Rosa Massagué, Senior Analyst on Foreing Affairs at [1][El Periódico de | |
Catalunya]. Former correspondent in London and Rome. Author of 'El legado | |
político de Tony Blair’. | |
8 Jun 2017 | |
## LINKS | |
[1] http://www.elperiodico.com | |
## AUTOREN | |
Rosa Massagué | |
## TAGS | |
taz in English | |
taz international | |
Spotlight Populism in Europe | |
Populismus | |
Europa | |
Demokratie | |
taz in English | |
USA | |
## ARTIKEL ZUM THEMA | |
Alleged visa-faking ring in Ghana: The fake fake US embassy | |
According to the US government a crime ring issued fake US visas out of an | |
inconspicuous building in Ghana. The people living there are mystified. | |
A student exchange to provincial USA: Do you believe in evolution? | |
At age 17 our author – a left-liberal, big-city Berlin girl – wants to go | |
to New York, and lands up in rural America amongst nothing but Trump fans. | |
What now? |