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Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
It really isn’t. Few Republicans of any prominence are calling for cuts to social security and medicare (Trump slapped down some who recently floated the idea), and none have proposed scrapping them. They’re the third rail of American politics.
Today’s populist right is not just regular conservatism on steroids. Look at Brexit. The City of London finance mavens - and really the entire business class of the UK - supported remain. The Red Wall of traditional work-class England had other ideas and de-camped to the populist right. The far right has made more gains in former Communist Eastern Europe than elsewhere in Europe, and the AfD is most popular in the depressed former East Germany. Economically, the policies of people like Orban don’t look a lot like Reaganite or Thatcherite economic liberalism. Part of their appeal to the working class is national control of business, and more redistributive policies.
It’s too long ago for most people here to remember, but the Free Trade debate here in Canada was highly contentious. The left were fiercely opposed to the deal, painting it as a right-wing capitalist scheme to fleece working-class Canadians and rob them of autonomy. And yet today, support for global trade deals and the free flow of money and people across borders is more associated with the establishment liberal left than with the populist right. As recently as Obama’s first term, Democrats routinely expressed opinions about immigration that would get them branded Trumpist bigots today.
The stance of the right/left over globalization and trade have basically flipped in the last 20 years. No coincidentally, this era has seen the working class shift allegiances to the populist right and the corporate class re-align to the left.
The polarization we’re seeing in the West isn’t the left becoming more left and the right become more right. It’s a fundamental reconfiguration and alignment of politics. The populist part of the populist right means anti-corporate, anti-globalist, anti-establishment. It appeals to a very different population than the prudent, middle-class conservative voter of yesteryear who wanted lower taxes and a better business environment.
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You have very valid points there.
(This could be start of an interesting conversation, if I had the time/energy to get into it.)