Mass feeling is essential to political life. But following its uses by violent fascist and communist regimes of the twentieth century, liberal-democratic parties in Europe and the United States have increasingly shied away from affectively rousing politics. In its place, they have embraced dignified performances of an elite managerial class displaying businesslike competence. Since the 1980s, this anesthetization of liberal politics has gone hand in hand with the ascent of “the free market” as the ruling ideology, with its hollowing out of the state via privatization, intensification of economic inequality, and dismantling of a collective public vision for a shared future.
As far-right politicians gain power in the United States and around the world, and as polls suggest the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris remains a toss-up, we are reaping the consequences of this disenchanted and disenchanting liberalism. Not only do its uninspiring politics refuse to leverage mass feeling toward progressive policies, but it also frequently condemns collective affect and associated popular appeal as intrinsically right-wing, leaving it available for uncontested manipulation by proto-fascist demagogues.
Consider, for example, Hillary Clinton’s dismissal of Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables” whose irrationality, discontent, and anger did not merit engagement, or her criticism of Bernie Sanders as a deluded populist for believing otherwise. We can see a similar approach in the efforts of many prominent liberal public intellectuals with close ties to Democratic Party leadership today, like the historians Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder, who attempt to counter the threat of fascism they associate with Trump by asking…
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Auteur: Eric Reinhart
