This past Sunday night, Europe suffered yet another blow in a short span of time: Poland, too, elected a eurosceptic president. Karol Nawrocki won the nail-biting election race with his conservative-nationalist platform, defeating his pro-European rival, Rafal Trzaskowski. Poland’s shift to the right once again raises the question: what explains the global turn toward (far) right-wing ideologies? Economic or cultural developments such as globalization or emancipation movements are often cited. But the real explanation — and the solution — for the “shift to the right” lies much closer to home.
On May 25, de Volkskrant published a particularly interesting interview with political scientist Vicente Valentim. After years of research, the Portuguese scholar concluded that far-right preferences have always been widely held among citizens, but for a long time were suppressed by a social norm that condemned them. Now that the social consequences of expressing far-right views have diminished — in part due to the normalization of controversial ideas on social media — more and more people feel free to voice these beliefs. Far-right politicians are capitalizing on this shift because they see that there is, in fact, an electorate for their ideas — and they are running for office (with success). The growing number of seats for far-right parties, then, is not because their platforms better match economic or cultural realities, but because voters and politicians are increasingly finding each other.
According to Valentim, “the genie can’t go back into the bottle.” Bolstered by global electoral success, far-right movements — contrary to what is often thought — will not collapse under their own weight. What must be done — and by “we,” I mean everyone who is concerned about the xenophobic and anti-democratic course that far-right leaders are charting — is to once again give voice to the spirit of human rights and democracy, which for a long time seemed to have been swept away by the storms of our time. This spirit must reclaim a visible place in public discourse.
Achieving this goes beyond ridiculing far-right politicians and their supporters. A strong electorate for centrist or left-wing parties forms when people increasingly mount real resistance against anti-democratic trends. The Red Line demonstration of May 18 — the largest protest in the Netherlands in twenty years — was a good example: it made clear that there is a silent majority that does not support the erosion of human rights under the current right-wing government, in this case concerning the destruction in Gaza. Such massive expressions of political preference send a powerful signal to left-wing politicians: there is substantial public support for an alternative, progressive party platform. At the same time, centrist parties will feel less pressure to be drawn into right-wing rhetoric and more inclined to adopt the kind of rhetoric people clearly desire: that of humanity.
Sometimes, I still catch myself thinking: this too shall pass. And indeed, it passed — when, this past Tuesday, the Schoof government unexpectedly fell. That collapse creates momentum: a chance to move from passive endurance to actively shaping a new course. As Valentim emphasized, the far-right tide will not turn on its own. It requires action from the silent majority — until that majority is silent no longer.
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