Make America great AGAIN. Make the Netherlands Ours AGAIN. Defender of Tradition!
Political visions have become nostalgic recounts of the past. Distorted by time and sharpened by change, we’re pulled towards a future that was better yesterday.
A ‘populism of the past’ is spreading worldwide. Trump promises a return of American superiority, like that of the 1950’s; ISIS wants to reinstate the Caliphate, last seen during the Ottoman Empire; and the AfD believes Germany should make a “U-turn” to rebuild the national pride of the Nazi era.
Popular culture reveals hints of these sentiments, too. Take the urban hipster; groomed with a handlebar moustache and sporting a pebbled leather jacket, the fashion of this vinyl-collecting-youth hark back to a more optimistic time. A bygone era of ambition and hope.
Instead of looking to the future, we’re stubbornly turned towards the past.
Why do these simplistic distortions of history resonate as credible avenues for the future?
The pace of change thrust upon society provides some explanation.
Change is often said ‘to take time’. But change is accelerating in areas of global consequence. In this sense, time is speeding up.
We see this in the physical environment, where the climate is changing before our eyes.
Source: Climate Lab Book
We struggle to fathom the exponential growth of technology and its effects on society.
Source: Data Scientia
And we feel this in our politics, with the emergence of populist leaders attacking the elusive ‘establishment’ and promising change for the common man.
Source: Ray Dalio et al. 2017. “Populism: The Phenomenon“. Bridgewater Associates.
These changes, however, transcend national borders and signal the decline of government powers. The representative institutions of ‘the people’ are hamstrung by global events; they feel their effects but are powerless to respond in isolation. This loss of power trickles down to the ordinary voter as the conventional means of influence are displaced. What follows is anger, manifesting itself in Brexit, Trump, and the AfD.
Today’s populist movements are correct that power has shifted; they are incorrect, however, in diagnosing where it has shifted to. Scapegoats are called out and vilified, whether they are immigrants, the ‘Fake News Media’, or ‘The Establishment’ (a mysterious entity that supports Clinton). The reality is that it’s unclear where power is being redistributed. Maybe it’s shifting to the tech giants who continue their meteoric rise? Or perhaps it’s being redirected from democracy and towards autocracy, considering the rise of China and Saudi Arabia? I don’t pretend to know and I don’t think anyone does.
Regardless of where the strongholds of influence reassert, change and the unknown evoke fear. Responding to threats, whether justified or not, we try to hold on to something familiar. Populist leaders abuse these anxieties. They leverage these fears and reappropriate history to create a nationalistic mythos of the past. These silent calls acknowledge fear and confirm preconceptions. They’re not lies, but they’re never true.
There are lessons in history, to be sure. But returning to the ‘good old days’ would be a mistake. Lionising the 1920’s for its optimism, the 1950’s for its industriousness, or the 1960’s for its revolutionary mood all betray the abject living standards experienced by a majority of people.
Instead, the value of history is the freedom it grants from our links to the past. The future demands deliberate plans not populist distortions of history.