OPINION
The past year has shown that the political agenda of various countries, from authoritarian Russia to the democratic United States, has been placing an increasingly strong emphasis on conservative scaremongering, frightening voters with vague new trends that threaten their values and culture. The LGBTQ+ community and migrants have been declared to be the main enemies. Donald Trump has been talking about migrants “poisoning the blood of our country” and eating pets, and promised to end what he calls “transgender lunacy.” Meanwhile, Russia's official ideology almost entirely consists of anti-Western propaganda that portrays democracies as dying under the oppression of migrants and queers. This agenda allows political leaders to fill their own ideological vacuum, explains political scientist Aliaksei Kazharski of Charles University (Prague). Exploiting phobias is not a new phenomenon in politics, but whereas in the past it was part of an ideology, today's political leaders no longer even bother to create an image of a bright future, having realized that it is completely irrelevant for mobilizing the electorate.
It would be difficult to find one single explanation as to why dictators are so keen on targeting the LGBT community and other minority groups, but a few factors stand out. First is the persistent erosion of established social structures — class divides have undergone serious transformations since the 19th century, and rapid change has a tendency to breed anxiety. Second is the rise of the internet and the corresponding proliferation of social networks, which help spread fear of specific “others.” Additionally, those authoritarian regimes that are incapable of producing a genuinely attractive ideology often turn to the polarizing issues of sex and gender, which serve as an ideological surrogate of sorts. These state-backed prejudices become the building blocks that are then used for constructing the image of a hostile Other, helping such regimes camouflage the fact that, when it comes to ideology and values, “the king is naked.”
A not-too-distant past?
Before we begin, it is important to address the question: are we actually looking at a new phenomenon here? Is it really true that in the “good old days” politics was primarily about sophisticated ideas and detailed party programs, while today it consists mainly of stigmatizing images and irrational phobias?
Consider, for example, that between the two world wars, Europe went through a period of political archaization that was monstrous in its consequences. It included a quasi-religious cult of dictators and a constant search for omnipresent Others: “spies”, “Jews,” “class enemies,” and the like. In this sense, our 21st-century present at least resembles the not-so-distant past. It is probably not an accident that Viktor Orbán’s Hungary was criticized for reviving old anti-Semitic tropes, while the modern Russian ruling class sometimes repeats almost verbatim fragments of Nazi ideology.
Russian pop singer Shaman, who exploits the aesthetic of Nazi Germany with sinister accuracy
It seems that our days do indeed have something in common with the interwar period. Once again, the transformation of politics is happening against the backdrop of eroding social and economic structures. Deindustrialization plays an important role, and the success of Trumpism is often explained with references to the so-called “Rust Belt.” The working class, having lost its relative prosperity, has visibly shifted to the right, and its traditional political representatives, the Democratic Party, have lost many of their voters.
While it is difficult to see Donald Trump as a traditional conservative politician, it is this hybridization of the “left” and the “right” that is reminiscent of the 1930’s — namely, of the interwar authoritarian and totalitarian regimes that combined state paternalism with nationalist and xenophobic agendas.
However, there are now new variables in the equation. The rise of the internet has led to a mass “migration” of news consumers into new realities, resulting in the fragmentation of a shared public sphere previously shaped by the traditional media. The expansion of social networks has resulted in so-called “information bubbles,” while the platforms’ clandestine algorithms — hidden from public scrutiny — have engendered powerful polarization and a notable radicalizing effect.
For example, during the 2016 parliamentary elections in Slovakia, it came as a shock to many that the most popular party among first-time voters aged 18-21 was a far-right movement whose predecessor was banned by the Slovak Supreme Court for extremism. This unpleasant surprise marked the entry into politics of people for whom the TV had never been the main source of news.
“A family is the union of a man and a woman. Stop LGBT!” - an election poster in Slovakia
It will get worse before it gets better?
It seems that as artificial intelligence and the art of deepfake production develop further, the negative impact of technology on politics will only increase. The volume of information is growing, the speed at which it is consumed is increasing, and the disappearance of established hierarchies corresponds to the tempo of the other transformations. Yet people remain afraid of rapid change.
The ontological security theory, which has recently grown more popular among political scientists, highlights the importance of familiar environments and routines. These create a sense of continuity and stability which both individuals and large groups of people need if the are to enjoy a comfortable existence. The disruption or disappearance of these familiar environments can create a feeling of anxiety and existential “homelessness.”
In this respect, some political scientists argue that “enemy” images cultivated by populists can in fact be a part of the compensatory mechanism. General anxiety brought by uncertainty can be somewhat reduced through a subconscious projection, as the sense of foreboding is distilled into genuine fear of a specific Other.
Values and ideologically empty regimes
Some political scientists attribute the rise of right-wing parties actively exploiting adherents’ fear of “Others” to an axiological conflict — in other words, to a struggle between competing values rather than competing classes. According to this model, the clash of the “conservative-protective” and the “liberal-open” mindsets is not directly related to income or opportunities. Instead, it stems from large groups of people coming to feel “axiological” — rather than economic — losers in the newly formed reality.
Images of negative Others can come in handy to non-democratic regimes that are incapable of producing the sort of genuinely attractive political ideology that might otherwise be needed in order to justify their illegitimate grip on power. Comparative politics describes so-called sultanistic regimes that do not develop strong political institutions or a popular ideology. Instead, these are built mostly around their authoritarian leader. This description obviously fits some post-Soviet autocratic regimes — particularly those that were initially preoccupied with self-enrichment and preserving the personalist rule of the dictator. Since Communism as a political ideology and the practice of a one-party totalitarian dictatorship acting in the name of the future classless society had thoroughly discredited itself, these regimes faced the challenge of justifying their usurpation of power in the absence of a grand ideological alternative to liberal democracy. This is where the earlier rhetoric of “sovereign democracy” stemmed from in Russia, just as in subsequent variations mimicked by the European “illiberal” populists.
For these regimes, the use of sexual minorities as the Other have often saved the day, allowing them to find a replacement for a missing ideology — an ideological surrogate made out of fear and disgust that is nonetheless capable of inspiring in its followers a feeling of supremacy. Since gender and sexuality concern more or less everyone — and, by their nature, also go deeply under one’s skin — exploiting them is likely the most promising survival strategy for regimes that are otherwise unable to clearly explain to their subjects why it is that they should be afraid of so-called “Western values.”
Similar strategies of “othering” are being used by both dictatorial regimes and multiple populists, who operate in democratic polities while at the same time undermining basic democratic institutions and traditions. Fear is a very effective instrument, as it allows for bypassing the kind of rational debate that lies at the very heart of true democracy. As the Hungarian statesman and political thinker István Bibó once wrote, referring to this very fear of the Other, “to be a democrat is first and foremost not to be afraid.”