It's complicated: Freedom and Order
How to prevent the fascists from taking over a democracy?
The late efforts of the far right to reach power motivate this first late-night post, hastily typed on my phone. I will sketch a thought here that I am convinced is crucial to the understanding of the political landscape and has never been discussed.
Meet humans where they are
We all know humans have a hierarchy of needs. When the basic needs are fulfilled, higher-order needs appear. Food and shelter come first. Pursuing your passion of collecting figurines of your favourite MARVEL heroes comes later.
Values are hierarchical too
The argument has been extended to encompass our human values. The need for order comes first, knowing who is friend and foe, who belongs to your clan. Freedom and the deconstruction of the values of your society comes later, when you can rely on the basic functions of society. Let's accept this as truth for the sake of this blog post.
It is evident that for us westerners, our sense of security is threatened. The Ukraine war, economic turmoils, multipolar world, global warming, yada yada. The news is basically doomsday on repeat, 24/7.
Chaos looms over us, and people suddenly don't care that much about racism and sexism and their right to vote. They care about Order with a big O and start voting for fascists. We are chimps, and we need our big chimp to tell us that the other chimps over the hill are the problem and that we need to subdue them, wipe them out or worse, and everything will then be in Order, Order with a big O again.
No one party owns "Order" or any other societal value
The thing is: why do people think that fascists own "Order"? It makes no sense. Hitler and his goons were a chaotic gang of corrupted lunatics and cynics, out-competing each other at creating new militias, pursuing blatantly idiotic ideas such as using occultism for warfare and carving out privileges for themselves while Europe was burning to ashes.
The Left somehow owns "Peace", except that they always have justified reasons to start a war. The Right owns "Fiscal Responsibility" except they always have justified reasons to increase government debt.
In short, I argue the following: the assignment of political values to political movements is random. The values are only the flags they carry. They do not guide the policies of those parties once they are voted into power. I'm not a cynic. People in political movements share values. I'm saying the world is chaotic and that once you are in power, a war is a war and a mortgage crisis is a mortgage crisis, and you have only limited options to tackle those problems, and to hell with your flag. That's just real life. Your parties' values are no more than your rallying cry. Moving on.
Own it!
So. People want order. Give it to them. The playbook to kick the fascists out has to be one where a democratic (in the sense of "committed to democracy") party reclaims the "Order" value and succesfully labels fascists as Chaos.
Leftists are lost on this one. Compassion, Freedom, yada yada. Important values, and also my values, but not the flags you need on today's battlefield. Get used to it, bite the bullet.
Conservatives across western democracies have kind of understood it, but also not quite, and thus fail equally and perhaps more dramatically. They think it all goes through fighting the fascists on their turf, getting into d*ck measuring contests about who is the toughest on immigration and whatnot. By doing this, they just validate the fascists and their positions, since they just say they would be better at putting the stuff into practice.
But how?
"Well then, how do you want to do it?" In my opinion, it's doable. Step 1: Stop. taking. the. bait. I repeat. Stop. taking. the bait. Step 2: Call out the BS, as harshly as possible.
When someone starts an argument about drag queens trying to read books to children, don't volunteer your opinion. Say something like: "You're starting this discussion to rile people up against each other. I care about the economy, jobs, taxes, making sure the law is upheld and bridges don't collapse. The Russians are at our door and I will fight them naked with my bare teeth and my limp d*ck if I have to. Are you trying to sabotage the country?" Flip it on them. Don't take the bait.
Take a hard stance in the sense that THE LAW is THE LAW. Punish the rich like they're subs at a BDSM party when you find out that they evade taxes. Show no f*cking mercy. And say it. THE LAW is THE LAW. If someone tries argumenting for the rich, use the same argument that you used for the drag queens. Don't take the bait.
When an immigrant commits a crime, say it again, with the serious face and the toughness of a young Clint Eastwood. THE LAW is THE LAW. If someone tries the fascist playbook about immigrants, use the same argument you used for the drag queens. If someone tries the immigrant compassion playbook, do so again.
Name your party the Order Party for Order and Orderliness or similar. NEVER take the bait on culture war issues. Ridicule the extreme left and extreme right mercilessly for their stances on culture war issues while never discussing your own. Ridicule the culture war itself. Talk about bridges you are preventing from collapsing. Find a common enemy to enforce in-group thinking. (Hint: it's a militaristic totalitarian state and they speak Russian there.)
When it comes to the environment, you should know the drill by now. Don't argue about numbers and whatnot. Don't take the bait. Repeat the argument about divisiveness, ridicule them for their culture war fetish, and don't discuss the details. It's not going to be productive anyway. Don't argue with the pigeon sh*tting on the chess board.
In short, be hard on existing societal rules and laws, whatever their flavor and whom they benefit. Fight the culture war itself, not culture war issues, whatever the current issue is. Promise to get broken stuff to work again, whatever the stuff is and whom it benefits. Regardless of what your actual plans are for issues not covered by this, this should be your platform. No one cares if we're number one in biotechnology or space lasers. Do what you need to get there, but only talk about the LAW is the LAW and FASCISTS ARE CHAOS-SEWING TRAITORS during election period. This is what you need to do to win.
People want to recognize their country. People want the things they always had, and they want them to work. People want order.