SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
far-right
The Far-Right and the Crypto Scam
How Trump and his far-right allies are using these digital currencies as a strategy to rig the rules of the game in their favor.
Mar 16, 2025
Back in 2021, Donald Trump called cryptocurrency “a disaster waiting to happen” and a “scam.” Takes one to know one, right?
As he got closer to regaining the White House, however, Trump changed his mind about this “scam,” probably as a result of the millions of dollars that flowed into his campaign coffers from industry donors. To the delight of these donors, Trump promised to make the United States the cryptocurrency capital of the world. He also talked about creating a strategic reserve of Bitcoin.
After he won the election, Trump received over $11 million in contributions to his inaugural committee from the crypto industry. It’s a hallmark of pyramid scams that only the people at the top reap the benefits, and Trump has put himself at the very apex of the ziggurat in order to rake in millions for his posse and for himself.
Consider the saga of $TRUMP.
When the inmates take over the asylum, the currency becomes a way of consolidating power in the hands of oligarchs.
Three days before his inauguration, the $TRUMP meme coin debuted. Meme coins are usually based on an internet meme and are “typically characterized by their volatile nature.” Well, that sounds like a good fit for Trump! Indeed, after he promoted the coin on his social media accounts, its value surged astronomically.
Some of the biggest winners in this naked money grab were the firms that launched the coin and profited from the transaction fees, which netted them as much as $100 million in the first two weeks. One of those firms was CIC Digital, which is owned by…Trump himself.
Like all financial operations characterized by irrational exuberance, the value of $TRUMP soon plummeted. Indeed, over 800,000 investor accounts lost a total of $2 billion. Of course, they’re not the only Trump supporters who are suffering from buyer’s remorse. Even the stock market, which initially cheered Trump’s election, is having a serious hangover, a swing in mood not very different from $TRUMP’s trajectory.
$TRUMP’s deep dive notwithstanding—or perhaps because of the success of this scam—crypto remains an essential part of Trump’s economic plans. And Trump is not the only far-right leader who has dabbled in scamming the population with crypto. Argentina’s Javier Milei is now dealing with the aftermath of a corruption scandal associated with $LIBRA, a meme coin he initially supported and which left 10,000 investors over $250 million poorer. El Salvador is still reeling from Nayib Bukele’s crypto obsession, which cost his country $60 million when Bitcoin tanked a couple years ago—not to mention all the Salvadoran energy and natural resources that Bitcoin mining has absorbed.
Two years ago, I explained how cryptocurrencies function like pyramid scams. Last year, I discussed the environmental consequences of crypto.
Now I want to dig a little deeper into the politics of crypto: how Trump and his far-right allies are using these digital currencies as a strategy to rig the rules of the game in their favor.
The Mechanisms of Theft
To understand how crypto scams work, you need to know about “sniping” and “rug-pulling.”
When a new crypto product is launched, whether it’s a meme coin or a non-fungible token, a select group of speculators place a big buy to push the value higher. If enough of these “snipers” exit at the same time, the value drops, providing the snipers with short-term profits and leaving a lot of other investors holding the (empty) bag.
Of course, it helps to know in advance about a new product launch so that you can line up your bots and your AI to execute high-volume and high-speed trades—and your coordinated exit from the stage. In another context, you might call this “insider trading.”
The orchestrated sale of the crypto product is known as the “rug pull.” It can be sudden, as was the case with $TRUMP. Or it can take place over a longer period of time in what used to be known as the “long con.”
The rug pull sometimes relies on the services of a celebrity. Let’s take a brief look at the case of Javier Milei in Argentina to understand how this works.
Enter Milei
Argentine President Javier Milei is, to say the least, a heterodox economist. He pledged to cut government spending as a way of reining in inflation. He fired 30,000 government workers, eliminated government subsidies, and halted many public works projects. No surprise that Milei and his infamous chainsaw served as the inspiration for Musk and DOGE.
Inflation in Argentina has indeed fallen, from nearly 300% to around 85% in January. But the costs have been immense to the poor. More than half of Argentines now live below the poverty line, and they are dealing with increased costs for food and basic services. The economy has contracted as a not-very-surprising result of Milei’s chainsaw approach to government.
Among his many economic enthusiasms, Milei has relentlessly attacked the country’s central bank and advocated for the adoption of the U.S. dollar as the national currency. During his first year in office, he didn’t put crypto at the heart of his economic platform. But his efforts to displace the central bank has been accompanied by a push to lift restrictions on currency exchange, which would give cryptocurrencies a big boost. Argentinians are already leading adopters of crypto, largely as a hedge against the volatility of the Argentine peso (frankly, they might as well buy lottery tickets or play slots at the casino).
As for Milei, the real purpose of his economic program has been starkly revealed by this scandal: a transfer of money from the poor to the rich.
But that’s changing as a result of the $LIBRA scandal.
At the instigation of several fast-talking meme coin boosters, Milei endorsed $LIBRA when it was released on Valentine’s Day this year. But the value of the meme coin tanked within mere hours as top investors pulled the rug out from under it. As “Cryptogate” spread, Milei scrambled to deny any connection to the fiasco.
But that was hard to do given the evidence of several tweets showing Milei, with his trademark glower and two thumbs up, posing with those boosters, including an American named Hayden Davis.
Davis runs Kelsier Ventures, which was part of the sniping and rug-pulling around $MELANIA, the spousal counterpart to $TRUMP, which followed a similar trajectory of jumping high off the diving board and then plunging into the empty pool below. Davis did the same thing with $LIBRA, making off with around $100 million. He has promised to refund some of that money to the people who lost big. Don’t hold your breath.
“This is an insider’s game,” Davis has said about these meme coins. “This is like an unregulated casino.”
As for Milei, the real purpose of his economic program has been starkly revealed by this scandal: a transfer of money from the poor to the rich. His popularity was already on a downward trajectory in early February before the scandal, with 53% of the population disapproving of his policies (compared to 43% in favor). Cryptogate could be an anchor that pulls Milei down to the bottom of the sea.
Trump Also Goes Big
It’s no accident that the administration’s government-cutting initiative, DOGE, shares a name with a leading cryptocurrency. Cutting government oversight, eliminating regulations, and empowering the already-powerful private sector all benefit the crypto industry. But Trump is not just cutting government—he is putting his own people into positions of power.
That includes right-wing financier David Sacks, who’s in charge of both crypto and AI in the Trump administration. Sacks comes out of the same political milieu as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel (with whom he led PayPal). As with so many of Trump’s appointees, the opportunities for corruption abound. As MSNBCreported at the end of last year, “Sacks launched an artificial intelligence company called Glue this year and is known to be a major investor in cryptocurrencies, which would seem likely to create some conflicts of interest if he’s steering the administration’s AI and crypto policies.”
Trump is also staffing the Securities and Exchange Commission with crypto loyalists who have already begun to deconstruct the oversight of the crypto sector. As The New York Timesnotes:
Federal officials declared that so-called memecoins would not be subject to strict oversight. A series of investigations into major cryptocurrency firms were halted. And the Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to pause a fraud case against a top crypto entrepreneur. Just over a month since President Trump’s inauguration, U.S. regulators have almost entirely dismantled a yearslong government crackdown on the crypto industry, a volatile sector rife with fraud, scams and theft.
Meme coins, of course, are the $TRUMP and $MELANIA scams that have already bilked thousands of investors. The reduction of oversight on crypto, meanwhile, is likely to increase the pool of victims. Burwick Law is the firm trying to claw back money for those who were scammed by $HAWK (promoted by influencer Haliey Welch) and also 200 clients from various countries who lost money in the $LIBRA scandal. Dubbed the “ambulance chaser of crypto,” Max Burwick is going to face a deregulatory headwind coming from the Trump administration.
But the biggest crypto project of the Trump administration is its crypto strategic reserve, an idea promoted hard by the crypto industry. It’s the culmination of the right-wing’s push for U.S. businesses to invest in crypto and also state governments buy up the currency. A strategic reserve of crypto makes no sense. Such reserves are meant for valuable assets like oil and gold. Why doesn’t Trump consider a strategic reserve of Amway products or Tupperware?
For the time being, the two reserves (one for Bitcoin, the second for other digital assets) will contain only crypto seized in criminal or civil forfeitures. The crypto industry was disappointed that Trump didn’t mandate federal purchases of the currencies. But that will probably happen in the future. The new initiative calls on federal agencies to come up with strategies to buy more Bitcoin. And there’s now a bill in Congress calling on the government to buy a million Bitcoin.
So, basically, such a reserve is just a gift to all the crypto loyalists who have supported Trump. Let’s call it what it is: a first step toward state capture by crypto oligarchs.
Why Does the Far-Right Love Crypto?
Crypto appeals to the far-right for several reasons. It promises to undermine the state’s central authority. It offers a degree of anonymity, which can facilitate tax evasion, asset parking overseas, and plain old money laundering. And its volatility allows for the profiteering that sometimes goes by the name of entrepreneurialism.
Meanwhile, for extremist organizations that need to stay under the radar to evade surveillance, crypto is the monetary equivalent of an encrypted messaging service. According to the Anti-Defamation League, “15 white supremacist and antisemitic groups and individuals, as well as their donors, that collectively moved $142,546 worth of cryptocurrency to and/or from 22 different cryptocurrency service providers.” The European far-right is also beginning to trade in these currencies.
In countries with conventional governance—that is, not lunatics like Trump and locos like Milei—crypto functions as a right-wing weapon against the state. But when the inmates take over the asylum, the currency becomes a way of consolidating power in the hands of oligarchs.
Meme coins like $TRUMP and $LIBRA are just the side hustles by opportunists who want some of the crumbs that fall off the oligarchs’ tables. The real money is in the “legitimate” trade in crypto, the speculation in Bitcoin and Dogecoin. This is where far-right politicians create “positive synergies” between government deregulation on one side and campaign contributions on the other.
This institutional corruption is at the center of the Trump-Milei enterprise: the wholesale looting of the public sector and the grotesque enrichment of the already rich.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Capitalism’s Free Speech Trap: Bezos Shows How Billionaires Set the Boundaries of Debate
The Washington Post’s shift toward free-market advocacy is not simply an editorial decision; it is a strategic move to reinforce the dominant ideological framework that benefits the billionaire class.
Feb 27, 2025
The recent directive by Jeff Bezos that The Washington Post editorial section should promote “personal liberties and free markets” is a stark reminder of how freedom under capitalism often boils down to the freedom of economic elites to dictate the parameters of public discourse. While Bezos has suggested that social media provides alternative perspectives, thus absolving his newspaper of the responsibility to represent diverse viewpoints, his decision is part of a broader trend of billionaire media ownership shaping acceptable discourse.
This phenomenon is visible across digital platforms as well. Elon Musk’s control over X (formerly Twitter) has demonstrated how ownership can shape public debate—both through direct interventions, such as the alleged suppression of progressive perspectives, and through more subtle changes to platform algorithms. Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has faced repeated allegations of privileging certain political narratives while suppressing others, including ending its “fact checking” policy that could challenge far-right viewpoints.
Perhaps the most glaring contradiction in Bezos’ advocacy for free markets is the extent to which he, and other billionaires like him, have benefited from state intervention as part of an intentional strategy of “corporate welfare.”
In each case, the rhetoric of “free speech” is selectively applied. While these platforms and newspapers claim to support open debate, their policies ultimately reflect the ideological preferences of their owners. This demonstrates a fundamental truth: In capitalist societies, freedom of expression is often contingent on the interests of those who control the means of communication. The Washington Post’s shift toward free-market advocacy is not simply an editorial decision; it is a strategic move to reinforce the dominant ideological framework that benefits the billionaire class.
The Myth of Meritocracy and the Far-Right’s War on DEI
Bezos’ framing of free markets as inherently linked to personal liberties exposes a deeper ideological assumption—namely, that economic success is the result of individual talent and merit rather than systemic privilege. This assumption is not unique to Bezos but is foundational to the way many economic elites understand their own wealth and influence.
The logic behind Bezos’ editorial direction is similar to the arguments used by the contemporary far-right to attack Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The opposition to DEI is rooted in a desire to preserve the myth that success is determined purely by hard work and ability, rather than by racial, gender, or class privilege. By rejecting policies that acknowledge structural inequalities, The far-right seeks to uphold a narrative that justifies existing economic and social hierarchies.
This worldview is deeply intertwined with the ideology of neoliberalism, which insists that markets are neutral mechanisms that reward the most capable individuals. However, history shows that markets are anything but neutral. The barriers faced by marginalized groups are not simply the result of individual shortcomings; they are the product of centuries of systemic exclusion. The far-right’s attack on DEI serves to obscure these realities, just as Bezos’ insistence on free markets seeks to erase the role of privilege and power in determining economic outcomes.
By positioning The Washington Post as a champion of free markets, Bezos is promoting the idea that capitalism functions as a pure meritocracy. This serves not only to legitimize his own position but also to delegitimize calls for policies that challenge structural inequality, whether in the form of DEI programs, labor protections, or wealth redistribution measures.
The Illusion of the Free Market and Its Political Implications
Perhaps the most glaring contradiction in Bezos’ advocacy for free markets is the extent to which he, and other billionaires like him, have benefited from state intervention as part of an intentional strategy of “corporate welfare.” The notion of a truly free market, where economic actors compete on equal footing without government interference, is a fantasy. In reality, corporations like Amazon have thrived not because of unregulated competition, but because of significant government support.
From tax incentives to government contracts, Amazon has received billions in subsidies that have allowed it to dominate the retail and logistics industries. Moreover, the U.S. government plays a critical role in enforcing corporate-friendly trade policies, suppressing labor movements, and protecting the interests of multinational corporations abroad. These interventions are rarely acknowledged in discussions of free markets, yet they are crucial to understanding the power dynamics of contemporary capitalism.
If freedom under capitalism ultimately means the freedom of the wealthy to dictate the terms of discourse, then the very concept of free speech is in jeopardy.
Politically, Bezos’ editorial directive at The Washington Post serves to strengthen a broader ideological alignment between neoliberal economics and far-right nationalism. By framing free-market capitalism as an essential component of personal liberty, Bezos is laying the groundwork for a political agenda that fuses economic libertarianism with nationalist conservatism. This is significant because it provides an ideological foundation for challenging emerging economic policies that deviate from neoliberal orthodoxy—such as the rise of protectionism in response to globalization.
This alignment between free-market ideology and far-right nationalism is not new. Historically, neoliberalism has often coexisted with reactionary politics, as seen in the economic policies of figures like former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Today, this synthesis is being revived as right-wing populists seek to defend corporate interests while simultaneously appealing to nationalist sentiments. Bezos’ intervention in The Washington Post should be understood within this broader context: It is not just about shaping editorial policy but about consolidating an ideological framework that benefits economic elites while limiting the scope of acceptable political debate.
The Dangers of Billionaire-Controlled Media
Bezos’ decision to impose a free-market ideology on The Washington Post is not an isolated event; it is part of a larger trend in which media ownership is used to shape public discourse in ways that serve elite interests. This phenomenon extends beyond traditional journalism to social media platforms, where billionaires like Musk and Zuckerberg wield immense power over the flow of information.
At its core, this issue is about more than just media bias—it is about the fundamental tension between democracy and concentrated economic power. A truly free and open society requires a diversity of perspectives, yet the dominance of billionaire-controlled media threatens to constrain the range of acceptable debate. If freedom under capitalism ultimately means the freedom of the wealthy to dictate the terms of discourse, then the very concept of free speech is in jeopardy.
The consolidation of media power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy individuals raises urgent questions about the future of democratic debate. If we are to challenge the ideological hegemony of economic elites, we must first recognize the mechanisms through which they shape public discourse. Bezos’ editorial mandate is not just about The Washington Post—it is a reflection of the broader struggle over who gets to define the boundaries of political and economic debate in the 21st century.
Keep ReadingShow Less
How Germany's Extreme Center Fueled AfD's Success
As they united around neoliberalism and an aggressive foreign policy, mainstream parties created a dangerous democratic vacuum. This vacuum can now be exploited in particular by extremist parties on the right.
Feb 25, 2025
According to the preliminary results of the Bundestag, or parliamentary, elections, the extreme right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the second-strongest force in Germany. It now has 20.8% of the vote, doubling its result compared to the last election. The conservative CDU/CSU got 28.5%. The Social Democrats and the Greens, who have been in government so far, were punished, receiving 16.4 and 11.6% of the vote, respectively.
However, the party Die Linke was able to achieve a success. For a long time, it was stuck in polls well below the 5%, which is the mark to enter the Bundestag. But in a final sprint, it was able to significantly increase the result and garner 8.7%. Above all, strong speeches by Member of Parliament Heidi Reichinnek against the anti-migration agenda of all other parties and for real social change were able to mobilize.
Now the established parties and the mainstream press are engaging in the usual complaints and soul-searching about how things could have come to this. In the face of the rapid rise of the Alternative for Germany, journalists and political commentators often say that dissatisfaction with the established parties is the reason why more and more people are voting for the AfD. The dissatisfaction is then mostly seen as created by "mass immigration," the rejection of climate protection, and a left-liberal view of society ("wokeness")—in other words, a growing front against overly left-wing, progressive, liberal politics. This is seen to be the central cause of the shift to the right in society. Politicians must now respond to this.
The political class is reaping what is has sown and now is shedding crocodile tears about the results.
This is a narrative that is not only convenient and leads to false right-wing solutions, but also distorts reality by blaming those who are supposedly rebelling against progressive politics and thinking backward. At the same time, the other parties and their supporters appear as a haven of reason and morality, striving to hold society together.
The thesis that a shift to the right in the population is the reason for the rapid rise of the AfD also obscures the root of the problem. Looking closer, large portions of today's AfD voters have by no means been attracted to the AfD and its better policy proposals.
Even significant portions of AfD voters agree with the majority of Germans on polls that favor a fair solution to refugee protection and a quarter believe that the energy transition is indispensable; only a few describe themselves as extreme right and "only" 40% have right-wing tendencies. Most of them demand a social policy that benefits them, as many of them are unemployed or low-income earners, while the AfD takes a diametrically opposed, extreme position on all these issues, and their neoliberal program would make the rich even richer and the poor poorer.
In fact, more and more people were driven from the so-called "extreme center" into the arms of the AfD. In some ways, the political class is reaping what is has sown and now is shedding crocodile tears about the results.
The term "extreme center" was coined 10 years ago by the British intellectual Tariq Ali in his bookThe Extreme Centre: A Warning. It essentially refers to what often is referred to as "bourgeois parties," "parties of the political center," "established parties," sometimes also as "democratic parties" or "parties capable of forming a government." In Germany, these are the CDU/CSU, SPD, the liberals FDP, and the Greens. They distinguish themselves from the "extremes" on the left and right, which they regard as a danger to society and democracy, and see themselves as a force that balances interests and creates harmony.
According to Tariq Ali, the parties of the so-called center have been indistinguishable from each other in important policy areas since the 1980s. In the Western industrialized countries, a kind of "government of national unity" has emerged. It has implemented and maintained extreme policies—including the neoliberal turn and an aggressively oriented foreign policy under U.S. leadership—against the needs of the general population.
In the process, the space for alternative policy proposals and democratic debate has been reduced to a minimum. It created a dangerous democratic vacuum. This vacuum can now be exploited in particular by extremist parties on the right.
Let's take a look at how the "non-partisan political class, beyond particular interests" has operated in Germany in recent decades. Since the 1990s (or even earlier, in the years under chancellor Helmut Kohl, CDU), various governing coalitions have implemented policies that have led to Germany becoming the country in Europe with the greatest material and social inequality.
On the one hand, the established parties created a high concentration of wealth through various neoliberal measures. On the other hand, parts of the middle class were put under financial pressure. A huge low-wage sector was built up, widespread poverty (especially child and old-age poverty) was created, and the welfare state was dismantled.
Many services that people in the country rely on to live in safety have been commercialized, privatized, and "streamlined." The state of Germany's railways, healthcare system, pensions, agriculture, real estate markets, and education systems shows where this has led. Once in comparatively good condition, these infrastructures are now dysfunctional, expensive, unjust, and environmentally harmful.
The austerity for the poor and many ordinary citizens, and the welfare state for the rich and super-rich, has led to Germany becoming increasingly divided—especially the eastern federal states that were hit hard by the inequality policy after reunification.
The Agenda 2010, introduced and enacted under the red-green government in the early 2000s, was pushed forward by massive pressure from corporate and business lobbying groups (see the tens of millions of euros spent on the so called "reform movement," including the Initiative für Soziale Marktwirtschaft led by the employers' federation of metal and electronics industry Gesamtmetall) has finally turned on the inequality turbo. As a result, the lower and middle classes have become poorer and the rich and hyper-rich fantastically richer.
This process is uncontroversial today. According to the Global Wealth Report, in 1970 the top 1% of the German population (around 800,000 people) owned 20% of the total private wealth. That, too, is enormous, meaning that Germany was by no means a balanced or even just society at the time.
By 2020, the share had risen to 35%. The super-rich, the top 0.1% (around 85,000 Germans), can now claim up to 20% of the national wealth for themselves (as much as the top 1% in 1970). The top 10% own around 67%, which corresponds to two-thirds of total private wealth. Like many large properties, corporate assets are almost exclusively in the hands of the top 1%. The lower, poorer half of the population in Germany, on the other hand, owns practically no wealth, apart from a few small credit-financed and self-occupied apartments, houses, or cars.
This extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of very few continues to grow without countermeasures being taken. For example, the number of millionaires in Germany rose from 2.1 million to 2.8 million between 2019 and 2024, an increase of 30% in just a few years. A similar curve can be seen among billionaires. In 2001, there were 69 billionaires in Germany; by 2022, this number had already risen to 212, and last year there were 249 (including extended families) who own a billion or more.
According to the Global Wealth Report and other studies, "wealth inequality in Germany is higher than in other large Western European countries. For example, the Gini coefficient [it measures inequality: 100% means that all wealth is in one hand, at zero everyone would own the same] for wealth in Germany is 82%, compared to 67% in Italy and 70% in France."
In other rich industrialized countries, a comparable process of concentration and inequality can be observed, despite slight differences. The division of society is increasing everywhere in Western democracies, deliberately set in motion and nourished by the politics of the extreme center.
The regime of inequality has been further expanded in the United States and Great Britain than in Germany. There, neoliberal programs were initiated under former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s and 1980s, and were implemented particularly rigorously in the U.S. by the business class and the political establishment.
Above all, these were drastic tax cuts for the rich and super-rich, i.e. for capital, and the deregulation of the financial industry, while the real wages (purchasing power adjusted for inflation) of the lower and middle classes fell and the welfare state, on which large sections of the population depended, was forced to retreat.
The U.S. extreme center, both Republicans and Democrats, wanted it that way. The media celebrated the policy as a dynamic growth strategy, even though growth rates and productivity were significantly lower than in the three "golden decades" before.
The direct effects of these neoliberal measures are mind-boggling. A 2020 study by the U.S.-based Rand Corporation shows that the top 1% of income earners in the U.S. have siphoned off $50 trillion (50,000 billion) from the bottom 90% in recent decades.
If the more equitable distribution of the approximately 30-year post-war period had continued, with wages rising in line with productivity, the total annual income of the bottom 90% of American workers in 2018 would have been $2.5 trillion higher, or about 12% of gross domestic product. In other words, the upward redistribution of income has enriched the top 1% by about $50 trillion at the expense of American workers.
Or to put it another way, the average income of a full-time employee in the U.S. in 2020 was $50,000. If wages had kept pace with economic output since the mid-1970s, the average worker's salary would be around $100,000 today.
But politicians and corporations blocked wage increases in the wake of the growing national income and handed out ever greater proportions of it with "reform measures" (i.e., redistribution measures) to the hyper-rich. U.S. labor unions speak of a "trillion-dollar robbery," criticizing an extremely successful "class war from above."
For decades, the extreme center has offered the right something that it continues to deny the left to this day: mobilization platforms for its political proposals.
A similar redistribution from bottom to top has taken place in Germany, albeit not as blatantly as across the Atlantic. Even though there is no comparable study for Germany to that of the Rand Corporation, most Germans would earn significantly more today if it had not been for the neoliberal redistribution policy.
The structural change, or rather the structural break, has had of course far-reaching effects. Studies show that the effects of inequality range from very negative to destructive. Accordingly, inequality generates and promotes economic crises and ecological catastrophes and intensifies conflicts, wars, global injustice, and the plight of refugees. Kate Pickett, professor of epidemiology at the Department of Health Sciences, and Richard Wilkinson, professor at the University of York, have been systematically studying the effects on living standards in rich countries for many years.
Their research, summarized in the books The Spirit Level and The Inner Level, shows that income inequality—the gap between rich and poor—has a strong influence on people's health and well-being, as well as on human capabilities and social cohesion. Inequality causes health and social problems.
This ranges from lower life expectancy and lower levels of education and social mobility to higher levels of violence and mental illness. The scientists argue that inequality hinders the creation of sustainable economies that ensure the well-being of people and the planet.
Above all, inequality undermines solidarity, provision for future generations, and social cohesion, and encourages more and more people to vote for right-wing or even far-right parties—initially as a form of protest, but then increasingly out of conviction.
In general, inequality and isolation lead to selfish, even authoritarian and irrational attitudes that lack solidarity. When a large part of the population sees a tiny minority amassing enormous wealth and bathing in luxury while many others do not know how to make ends meet in the face of skyrocketing rents and prices and a lack of public services, this is toxic for any society.
Instead of addressing these problems and their causes, the parties and the major media have chosen a different strategy to counter the growing dissatisfaction in the country. And that has created a second mobilizing factor for far-right answers, alongside inequality.
In principle, it is the well-known logic of "Divide and Rule" or "Us" against "Them" that allows frustration to be deflected and groups to be set against each other. It is simple but very effective: It is not the hyper-rich, entrepreneurs, and profiteers of the redistribution from bottom to top (the 0.1 or 1% class), including the political extreme center and their accomplices in the media, who are responsible for the conditions and frustration. It is "the others." They take away the prosperity of the Germans and make them dissatisfied.
This has allowed the privileges of those who own the companies and large portions of German wealth, as well as the politics that serve their interests, to be protected from real reform, while also deflecting people's anger at inequality and grievances from the causes of that frustration.
To illustrate this, Guardian columnist Fatma Aydemir cites a joke: A banker, a welfare recipient, and an asylum-seeker are sitting at a table. In front of them are 12 biscuits. The banker takes 11 biscuits and says to the welfare recipient: "Watch out, the refugee wants your biscuit."
In this way, minorities were declared scapegoats, marginalized, and stigmatized as a danger to the lower and middle classes. In the 1990s, after the Yugoslavian wars and the NATO bombings, opinion makers and prominent politicians blamed refugees from the Balkans for social and economic problems and ultimately shredded the right of asylum enshrined in the German constitution.
The same spectacle has been taking place since 2015. In major waves of campaigning, people fleeing from war, persecution, and misery have been presented by the media and politicians as the central threat to the social order.
They are portrayed as illegitimate "social parasites" and ungrateful "misogynists" (see the artificially scandalized "Sodom and Gomorrah" of Cologne during New Year's Eve 2015-2016, of which nothing remained in the investigation committee of the NRW state parliament) or terrorists and knife murderers (see the exaggerated coverage of isolated acts by mostly traumatized asylum-seekers and refugees) who want to snatch the last biscuit from the Germans.
The AfD was finally able to reap the political rewards, the grapes of wrath. In 2015, the party was in a tailspin after a desperate attempt to capitalize on anti-E.U. sentiment. Internal squabbles weakened it more and more, so that in September 2015 it plummeted to 4% in the polls and was on the verge of disappearing into insignificance.
But then came the dramatic turnaround. In the fall of the same year, the party's unstoppable rise began when the extreme center decided to spread a historic moral panic through all channels in the wake of the so-called "refugee crisis" of 2015-2016. A year later, in September 2016, the AfD was at 16% in the polls. Riding the wave of success, it was able to push ahead with political radicalization and spread "Vogelschiss" (bird droppings) theories about the insignificance of the Holocaust.
The AfD did not become what it is today on its own. It was the political class and the mainstream press that served and continue to serve up the "illegal intruders" as the perfect scapegoats for the authoritarian right. Only then did the far-right experience a rapid rise, successfully campaigning on the issue of refugees, who were widely vilified, and winning votes.
It is often claimed that the refugees, their influx, and their numbers have strengthened the right wing. The blame lies with the "migration pressure." But that is not true. As stated in the 2018 annual report of the Mercator Forum Migration and Democracy (Midem) Migration and Populism, it was not the influx of refugees that was the central factor, but the media and political discourse about the crisis.
As long as the reduction of inequality and social grievances are not placed at the top of the political agenda and addressed properly, while the extreme center keeps pursuing right-wing cultural wars as a distraction, rational answers to frustrations will have to swim against a powerful current.
Support for the AfD fell, as already mentioned, to four% in the opinion polls between 2015 and late summer of the same year (from 9% the previous year), while—calculated from 2014—750,000 refugees came to Germany during this time. Support for the AfD was indeed negatively correlated with the sharp increase in the number of refugees in Germany. During this period, more refugees actually led to a decline in support for the AfD.
From October 2015, when the discourse of crisis was launched by politicians and the media, the AfD's poll numbers rose sharply, reaching a preliminary high of 18% in September 2018. During this "AfD growth phase," the number of refugees coming to Germany and the E.U. dropped significantly, so that by the end of 2018, when the AfD reached its peak, almost no refugees were able to enter Germany thanks to the brutal sealing of the country's borders under the leadership of the Merkel government.
Hence, also during the "crisis phase," support for the AfD correlates negatively with the influx of refugees, according to the rule: fewer refugees, more support for the AfD. The actual influx of refugees is obviously not the reason for the success or failure of the AfD. What the AfD has actually benefited from since 2015 has been the political discourse of permanent crisis and alarmist reporting on asylum-seekers and "illegal migration."
Even today, the rise of the AfD is still associated with a conjured up second "refugee crisis." Although asylum-seekers from the southern Mediterranean region make up only a small proportion of those admitted (190,000 compared to over a million Ukrainians in 2020), they are once again the focus of media debate, which, as with the last "refugee crisis," focuses on deportation and strengthening "Fortress Europe"—a "refugee crisis" that in fact was a crisis of the European repulsion regime that was met with even more sealing off.
Meanwhile, the Germans at the bottom of society are also being discredited in order to deflect the frustration of the groups above them, especially the middle classes, onto them (and not upward, onto the culprit of the frustration). Thus, journalists and politicians discredited the unemployed and welfare recipients as "social parasites" and "work-shy" in order to push through the Hartz IV reforms to pressure the unemployed and the dismantling of the welfare state against popular resistance. As surveys show, majorities were against it and wanted a different, more solidarity-based modernization.
And while today the multimillionaires and billionaires in the country can hardly walk because of all their wealth, property, and investment portfolios, more and more money is being put into their pockets, while for those who (due to a lack of jobs, low wages, or exploding rents and prices) have to stay afloat with state support, every euro is questioned. So the political opinion makers argue about a too-high support for the long-term unemployed, the so called "Bürgergeld" (now 563 euros for a single person per month), with the adjustment in recent years barely offsetting inflation, but they don't talk about the constant pampering of millionaires and billionaires.
The mainstream media continue to spread the myth that basically everything is fine and a few Band-Aids here and there would suffice: a euro more minimum wage, for example—which would do no more than compensate for inflation and is often undermined by companies anyway.
But anyone who wants to address the extreme salaries and wealth, the capital gains of investors and companies (often parked in tax havens), is either met with ignorance (see the left-wing demands in the Bundestag) or attacked with economic doomsday scenarios.
And yet another group has become the target of the political establishment. Politicians and journalists have fueled toxic narratives on climate protection. To appease fossil lobbies and slow down the transition to renewable energy, the establishment (or rather, significant parts of it) sabotages the energy transition, denounces calls for immediate action, discredits demonstrators as "eco-terrorists" and presents climate protection as an economic burden and a brake on prosperity, especially for the lower and middle classes. At the same time, wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars are drawn into culture wars.
This makes it easy for the AfD and right-wing forces to present climate policy as an elite project and to portray themselves as guardians of ordinary people, protecting them from the burdens and costs of the energy transition. Similar things could be said about the "wokeness" debate—pushed by conservative sectors of the extreme center, while the resulting defensive reactions in the population could be used by the extreme right for campaigns.
The "political center" has created an extreme social situation, from which only the AfD is profiting in Germany. Its rise is closely linked to the failures of the establishment, which has shifted the overall frustration onto the weak, while the representatives of the political class shed crocodile tears over the popularity and election wins of the AfD. The same is true in other European countries and the United States.
The question remains as to why left-wing solutions have not been able to fill the gap created by the extreme center in the same way as right-wing extremist ones could—although the surprising election result of the Left Party on Sunday shows that this does not have to remain the case. Certainly, mistakes have been made by left-wing parties. But the real reason lies elsewhere. For decades, the extreme center has offered the right something that it continues to deny the left to this day: mobilization platforms for its political proposals.
While AfD talking points such as the threat posed by refugees, an energy transition that is harassing citizens, and a mass indoctrination of wokeness have been flooding the media for decades, a debate on progressive measures that address the social causes of frustration is suppressed.
As the asylum law and the sealing-off regime are tightened ever further and the energy transition is blocked, people continue to wait for the reintroduction of the wealth tax in Germany (suspended in 1997), a real inheritance tax for the hyper-rich, a closure of tax havens and loopholes, the end of destructive subsidies, the regulation of the finance industry, or a revival of the welfare state. If anything, Germans are put off with vague promises before elections. After that, the popular ideas are put on ice or not seriously addressed.
The progressive political climate, as it existed to at least some extent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, has been systematically deprived of oxygen ever since—a very significant process that effectively blocked democracy. However, as long as the reduction of inequality and social grievances are not placed at the top of the political agenda and addressed properly, while the extreme center keeps pursuing right-wing cultural wars as a distraction, rational answers to frustrations will have to swim against a powerful current. To the detriment of society, its prosperity, and stability.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular