Interrogating Emergent Narratives from the Year of Elections
Original illustration by Anne van den Boogaard for FineActs
Only 46 hours after Donald Trump won the US elections, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán addressed 42 fellow European leaders and proclaimed that “history is accelerated. With the American elections, a chapter has closed. The world is going to change, and change in a quicker way than before.” A few months earlier, India’s Nareendra Modi waxed even more poetically that the next quarter of a century, which he calls Amrit Kaal (The Elixir Age), will decide the future direction of India for the next one thousand years. With those speeches, both Modi and Orbán wanted to paint a picture of the world to come; they are, first and foremost, meaning-makers.
Elections are by no means the be-all end-all of political and social change, but they are crucial moments. They can reshape the political landscape, influence alliances, and set the direction for future policies. Just as important are the narratives that emerge to make sense of the elections—narratives shaped by politicians, but also pundits, writers, academics, activists, and individuals collectively grappling with new events. These voices shape how we understand what has happened and what should be done next. Their ideas can either expand or limit our imagination, sometimes offering clarity and sometimes reinforcing misconceptions. As ideas shape our collective interests and inform strategic choices, we must closely interrogate our assumptions and challenge them as pertinent irrespective of how widespread, lest we misguide our actions.
A changed political landscape
As 2024 comes to an end, what has been described as the largest election year in history (with about two billion voters eligible to vote) has resulted in important changes in the political landscape, although how permanent these changes are remains to be seen.
When Trump first won the US presidential election in 2016, anti-democratic and nativist forces were largely isolated as extremists in Europe. Over the past two years, authoritarian populist parties have emerged victorious or come close to power in Austria, Slovakia, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Sweden, and in regional elections in Germany, to name a few.
At the EU level, authoritarian populists’ collective gains have emboldened them (in turn expanding their collective power) and shifted the center of political gravity towards their exclusionary and nativist agendas. Where a cordon sanitaire (a strategy of isolating and excluding certain political parties) and concern over their success previously existed, we now see centrist and right-wing parties teaming up with extremists across the board, be it adopting and mainstreaming exclusionary and deadly migration policies or watering down climate legislation.
More than anything, the success of authoritarian populists this year reveals a new reality of mass popular appeal for nativist, exclusionary, and populist politics, a level of democratically expressed support previously unseen in the US or Europe. (To be clear, though, votes for these movements cannot necessarily be read as majoritarian support for their agenda, as I’ll explain later).
Still, while authoritarian populist movements that combine nativism, anti-pluralism, and populism have been rare for decades, it is important to recognize that they are not new. The Freedom Party in Austria, after all, has been operating since 1956, Le Pen’s French National Rally was founded in 1956, and the Great Replacement theory was popularized by a French author in 2011, inspired by ideas from the Nouvelle Droite of the 1960s. It is not until now that they have moved from the margins and consolidated as formidable political forces in elections, as a confluence of both local and global factors have coalesced.
Concerningly, this year has marked the return of authoritarian populists to power in some cases, such as the United States. For those who took comfort in the belief that their failures in office would prevent reelection, that illusion should now be dispelled. Historical and comparative analysis—such as the experiences of Hungary or Slovakia—shows that authoritarian populists often use their second term to learn from past mistakes and entrench anti-democratic changes, undermining the balance of power within their states. Assuming that future political change will be as straightforward as voting in the next election is dangerously naive. While these leaders are unlikely to eliminate elections altogether, they are highly likely to further skew the political playing field in their favor, making genuine competition–although not impossible– increasingly difficult.
Emergent Narratives: Anti-establishment, anti-incumbent, and realigned?
Electoral periods are important in many respects, not just in how they tip or shift the power balance. They expose ongoing injustices and highlight the stark reality that, despite being labeled democracies, many countries fail to achieve the equitable balance between individual power, collective power, and political power that forms the foundation of popular sovereignty. Instead, the distribution of power continues to be unequal, perpetuated by structural barriers to voting, unfair electoral systems, representation gaps, and campaign financing rules and lobbying that result in the wealthy having far more influence than the rest of citizens.
The narratives that take hold during electoral periods shape our self-understanding and of the world and articulate our view of what ought to be done and is possible. These narratives (driven by post-mortems, electoral analysis, or a deluge of op-eds claiming to know the cause that explains the results) form the common ground we stand on and from which new strategies emerge.
It is also a time when we can—with sufficient perspective—observe how narratives pivot and shift at a vertiginous pace. Over the summer, right after the EU Parliament elections, one of the emergent narratives was that the center had held, despite the success of authoritarian populists in the election, and that the joining of forces in France could provide an alternative to Marine LePen’s party. A few months later, what we see is that in the EU institutions, rather than mainstream partners voting in block to act as a counterbalance to extremist forces, they have now become comrade in arms. After dubious political maneuvering by French president Emmanuel Macron, just this December the French government collapsed, making a new far-right government in the next election even more likely (Macron has just appointed a new prime minister, the fourth PM this year). Similarly, there was momentarily a barrage of commentary about Trump winning by a landslide in the US. Looking at the data once the full results were publicly revealed, it is clear that his victory was in fact not a landslide, especially when viewed from a historical perspective.
Which stories make sense, which need to be more closely examined, or complexified, and which ones we tell ourselves because they make us feel better thus need to be interrogated.
While some narratives have already fall into oblivion, a few transnational narratives around this year’s elections are seeming to solidify, namely that this year’s results are the product of anti-incumbent sentiment, sometimes interpreted as anti-establishment sentiment (although anti-incumbent and anti-establishment attitudes are related, but definitely not the same), and that there is a realignment of voters (significant and lasting shifts in the political loyalties and voting patterns of segments of the electorate).
In the case of anti-incumbent sentiment, it is true that 2024 has been a bad year for those already in office. As reported in the Financial Times, “every governing party facing election in a developed country this year lost vote share, the first time this has ever happened” (Mexico being the most notable exception, with MORENA party increasing vote share). What this narrative does not explain, however, is why the beneficiaries, particularly in multiparty countries, have been authoritarian populists, for except in bipartisan systems, there are multiple parties who are not the incumbents in elections and who can not be considered authoritarian populists, but they have not seen similar gains.
An explanation that addresses this conundrum is that voters were motivated mainly by anti-establishment sentiment. Thus, parties that were penalized were the incumbents and all those perceived as the elite or dominant social groups. It is understandable then that parties employing populist rhetoric and positioning themselves as anti-establishment fared better in such a climate. Of course, this is incredibly paradoxical, because whether it’s Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Robert Fico in Slovakia, or Trump in the USA, these “anti-establishment” actors have all been political fixtures in their countries for decades—not to mention often beacons of power and wealth. But they have been able to tap into valid resentments of people who are tired of a broken system and come to represent disruption, a break from politics as usual.
Some scholars finesse the anti-establishment argument and explain the paradox of elite leaders riding anti-elite sentiment by arguing that what we observe is actually a revolt against the Professional Managerial Class (PMC), the “rising mass of college-educated white collar professional and managerial workers” who are said to have come to dominate politics. This anger, in turn, is less about money and wealth but about a type of person–a symbol–and is full of potential as it can cut across both workers and capital. In fact, leaders like Trump or Orbán tap into grievance and anger while simultaneously offering a reappraisal of values such as wealth and masculinity. In doing so, they address both the frustrations and aspirations of their supporters (as scholar Eva Illouz has investigated, populists touch on the four key emotions: fear, disgust, resentment, and love, by providing easy answers to simplified problems and belonging to a community).
Especially in the United States, there is a lot of discourse around a realignment of voters, shifting loyalties amongst those who were assumed to vote for either Democrats or Republicans based on racial identity, education, orincome. The reality that “demographics are not destiny” is something that—I believe—has been well understood for years (although maybe knowing it and acting strategically in accordance are two different things). It is true that, in the US, in the most recent elections we observe several shifts in terms of voting patterns of certain groups, with an increase in support from working class and Latino voters for Trump. These changes are remarkable and should be noted, although I will admit that something feels off about always placing the burden of the blame for the success of extremists on working class people, especially considering the disproportionate power that the wealthy and powerful have in the electoral process, even if they are less in number.
But talk of a permanent realignment is premature. First, the electorate is not static (no one is, individuals are inconsistent and constantly change!), and making inferences based on one (or two) electoral cycles is irresponsible. In fact, similar talk dominated political analysis in the United Kingdom after Boris Johnson’s 2019 victory, when the so-called “red wall” of solidly Labour supporters turned blue in support for the conservatives. This year’s UK general elections’ results showed that if those changes constituted a realignment, that realignment is rather fragile, as they have in fact reversed.
What’s more, “realignment talk” misses two important points. For one, it does not consider the anti-incumbent effect. And perhaps even more importantly, as mentioned earlier, deducing that electorate shifts can be interpreted as full buy-in for the winner’s agenda is fraught, as actors like Trump (or the Alternative for Germany) are succeeding largely by mobilizing politically disengaged voters who are not attuned to either much of the rhetoric nor policy proposals of these parties. To that one must add the extent of misinformation and what the organization More in Common has identified as the priority gap: Americans’ significant misperceptions about what “the other side” actually prioritizes and believes in. As my colleague Joshua Clark explains, “Probably the greatest root cause of bad electoral takes or bad election analyses is analysts not grasping how different they are from the vast majority of voters in the country. Most American voters do not follow campaigns, conventions, or policy platforms. And I don’t just mean those who don’t vote. I’m talking about the people who ultimately decide most close elections in this country. Most voters who are truly up for grabs—who might vote A, B, or not at all—are people who aren’t searching out political information, and don’t consider it interesting. Many try to avoid political news. These voters make sense of their choices through information and messages that find them. That is the Rosetta stone for understanding the voters who swing elections. Too many election analysts act as though all voters make the same types of evaluations of the same information as they do, and it just isn’t close to true.”
From Disruption to Transformation: Reclaiming Power, Knowledge, and Democracy
As 2024 draws to a close, and perhaps because I’ve immersed myself in too much political analysis (and indulged in more than a few hot takes, many of which were later debunked), I find myself with more questions than answers as to what is truly happening and what ought to be done. Yet, amidst the uncertainty, I’ve caught glimpses of the paths we might take—paths to follow if we want to foster belonging without othering and place human life at the heart of our politics.
Even if we take some of the narratives that have gained traction with a necessary dose of precaution or skepticism, we are confronting a reality of emboldened extremists in power. If the literature on civil resistance teaches us anything, it is that nonviolent civil resistance is more effective than violent approaches and that core to successful strategies to topple authoritarians is the encouragement of loyalty shifts amongst power holders (in academic terms, “regime elites,” also described as the pillars of support). This raises the importance of bridging and maintaining ties with those who vote for and to an extent support authoritarian populists–the economic, cultural, and military power holders. In the words of scholars Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth, “thick social networks among members of the resistance and regime actors, including members of the security forces, may produce bonds that can become very important over the course of the resistance.”
Psychology tells us that as humans we tend to have a need for what’s called “cognitive closure,” that is, a desire for clear answers and to reduce ambiguity and uncertainty. It is no surprise that in times of upheaval and high inequality, populist, reductionist, and disruptive discourses (coupled with performative provocation) muster certain appeal. As authoritarian populists develop a lens through which to interpret social and political reality that centers othering, it is also imperative that we advance a different lens to process reality that is predicated on belonging without othering and, at the same time, recognizes loss and creates space for grieving (in the words of Alex Evans in his excellent newsletter, “If we want to offer a better way of working through shared loss and the emotions it provokes, then we need to figure out how to grieve well - together.”)
That lens and a new vision of what can be (if anything, Trump and company teach us that it’s possible to dream), cannot simply constitute a defense of democracy and existing institutions, for democracy as it exists continues to fail many. Constructing a new vision for democracy requires breaking away from the notion that we are pursuing a restoration project and at the same time recognizing that we need to get collectively better at living with uncertainty and change. It also requires us to acknowledge that neoliberalism and capitalism, as they currently function, are deeply flawed economic models for achieving a true democracy rooted in belonging rather than violence. This effort calls for sustained power analysis and institutional critique, while pushing beyond critique to explore, to expand the words of philosopher Marina Garcés, how we can reclaim the vital link between power and knowledge and put them to the service of emancipation, rather than succumb to the temptations of despair and surrender, committing instead to hope and transformative action.
Although authoritarian populist leaders like Trump, Orbán, and Modi often present themselves as defenders of their nations’ interests against the dangerous forces of globalists and progressives, they operate much in the same way as the globalists they malign. Indeed, the success of authoritarian populist movements this year demonstrate the extent to which they share tactics and a transnational political agenda that aims to advance illiberal and antidemocratic policies. It also tells us that if we want an alternative, we also need to coordinate and share across borders, that international solidarity is essential.
None of the above, and I am sure, much more of what is needed, is easy. At the Forum, we would love to grapple together with these questions in the new year. Please do share your thoughts and reflections.
Happy holidays!
In other news…
Not sharing news this time but an Italian political word that seems quite pertinent. “Qualunquismo” is a word originating from an Italian political movement that emerged after WWII and tried to remove party politics from the Italian government. It has come refer to a political attitude characterized by apathy, cynicism, and distrust toward established political systems, institutions, and ideologies. The term is derived from the Italian word qualunque, meaning "anyone" or "whatever," and is often associated with a belief that all politicians are equally corrupt or ineffective.
And for the soul…
Toni Morrisson in 2005, “There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge—even wisdom. Like art.”
Connecting the Dots: Musings on Bridging and Belonging is a monthly column by Míriam Juan-Torres. In it, Míriam reflects on current events, connecting the trends and considering the specificities across countries, applying a bridging and belonging lens and translating concepts from academia for a wider audience. Join our mailing list to stay up to date on the latest of the Democracy & Belonging Forum's curated analysis from Miriam and more.
Editor's note: The ideas expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of the Othering & Belonging Institute or UC Berkeley, but belong to the authors.