First, the left is prone to talking up the threat from the right. It is a way of dramatising our own claims, and lending them the imperative of avoiding pending disaster. The European left has been exaggerating the Fascist menace for the last ten years now, with a decisive 'no-show' from the neo-Nazis the only striking consequence.
Second, a great mass of middle and working class people who identified with the Thatcher-Reagan programme of military-industrial growth, have been left high and dry. But the truth is that as a social group, these people are pretty much fucked. There is no future for them. And the likelihood that they will organise some kind of successful backlash is scaremongering. Worse still, a lot of anti-working class prejudice is dressed up as denunciations of these backward people who just refuse to get with the programme.
Third, and most importantly, this section of society has lost its relationship with the elite. They were a stage army of reaction in the eighties. But today the elite does not want to know them. For that reason, whatever there numbers, they are unlikely to attain any social weight. Of course there are modulations in all this, and occasionally you get what looks like a step backwards, but look closely and you will see the new authoritarianism is more relevant than the old.
In message <003b01bf54e4$93559780$f1a4fea9 at speedo>, Chip Berlet
<cberlet at igc.org> writes
>Doug asked:
>
>> How large a constituency do you think there is for right-wing
>> populism?
>
>Christian Right + Patriots/Birchers + Militias + Far Right
>
>Toss in a bunch of angry downsized middle and working class "producerists."
>
>There are probably 5 million people who think the government is run by secret
>elites and expect some form of tyranny. A broader crowd of right wing populists
>from the above-named sectors might number closer to 20 million. Anyone who
>listens to talk radio in most of the geographic US will hear right wing populism
>on a daily basis. Not a voting bloc, but a deep current in US politics.
>
>>Do you agree with my rather complacent assessment of the
>> Buchanan threat, for example?
>
>Nope. Buchanan can't win a national election, but that does not mean there is no
>constituency for his views. A whole (albeit minority) sector of the Republican
>Party is composed of business nationalists. NAM still has some clout.
-- Jim heartfield