Social movement and their politics…
Coming soon-or already here? A progressive/rightwing convergence
Politically, these are confusing times. World events are calling into question the relevance of the old left/right political divide. Once the province of the progressive left, social movements are being influenced by ideas from the political right. Recent events, like Russia’s war in Ukraine, show that even the left itself is divided.
What happened
Preliminary reports coming out about the man who in October this year attacked US Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer, implicate him in yet another case of far-right violence in a country increasingly plagued by it. Paul Pelosi has received emergence surgery.
Assailant David Depape broke into the Pilosi house demanding to know where Nancy Pelosi was, presumably to attack her. She was out of harm’s way in Washington with her security crew, but not her husband. The US media wasted no time in investigating the assailant, speaking to his relatives and friends and checking-out his social media presence. Their investigations disclose far-right and anti-Semitic statements, assorted conspiracy theories, support for Trump and the QAnon cult. An early report cited his writing about the “ruling class”. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, one post carried the headline ‘Welcome to Big Brothers Censorship Hell’ as well as conspiracy posts about government, media and technology companies. It appeared to be the usual run of topics for those who see conspiracy everywhere.
Interestingly, and seemingly ideologically contradictorily, another early report quoted a friend or relative saying he was a Green Party supporter, however this needs corroboration. With the ideological gulf that separates far-right and greens-environmental ideology, corroborating evidence of Depape’s support for a green political formation would raise questions about social movements today.
Backstory
Without corroboration of the Green Party link we can only speculate, however if true it is a further instance of the convergence between the far-right and some in environment and socially/politically liberal movements that commentators interested in social movements started to pick up on during the pandemic.
Commentators posit two interpretations:
- far-right elements are infiltrating the environment/progressive movement to wield influence or to take it over
- some on the far-right share some of the environment movement’s concerns.
Perhaps it is a mixture of these things.
There are precedents to the political take-over theory. A leftwing version occurred with the attempted takeover of Australia’s Nuclear Disarmement Party in the 1980s. Senator Jo Vallentine resigned from the party before taking her seat, thanks to allegations of a takeover by Trotskyists affiliated with the Socialist Workers Party. Infiltration has been a tactic of formations of the radical left as much as it is a tactic of the radical right, however with the decline of the radical left since the 1980s and the rise of the far-right over the past ten years it is the latter than has become the focus of attention and that now makes up around half of the focus of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
Far-right influence in social organisations is abetted when members or leaders of progresssive organisations voluntarily, though perhaps unknowingly, buy into far-right messaging and ideas without overt influence from the right. I witnessed something like this, although it didn’t involve the far-right, in the 1990s when influential figures in Australia’s permaculture movement adopted neoliberal ideas without really thinking through what they would mean for people on the economic margin, including those within the social movement. At the time, I put it down to the power of ideas circulating in society to seep into the thinking of socially progressive organisations and their leaders. It was an example of the truism of how something frequently repeated can become accepted as fact.
Reacting to the rise of the far-right and how, during the pandemic, it used restrictive government measures to sow dissatisfaction, Anthony Kelly published a brief paper on far-right interventions in social movements in Australia (and here).
An example of how rightwing influence on otherwise socially and politically progressive organisations happens occurred during the pandemic last year when members and some leaders of the permaculture movement, a predominantly greens-oriented social movement (to judge by the political orientation of social media posts over recent years) marched in demonstrations against government measures to stop the spread of the virus along with far-right elements and others.
The controversy that followed was divisive of the movement and brought to the surface hidden reticence about the direction some who are influential in the it had been taking. Conspiracy theories common to rightwing groups around vaccination, the Covid virus, Big Pharma, government, Bill Gates and the rest also appeared on permaculture social media, including posts by prominent permaculture practitioners. This resulted in an ideological split in the movement that has never been properly addressed by its leadership. It is more that it has been glossed over in the hope that things can return to what they were before. A co-originator of permaculture and its most influential spokesperson, David Holmgren, blogged about it in a couple of largely defensive posts, however there was little further discussion outside the Evidence-Based Permaculture facebook that someone set up when the issue was at its peak.
The impression coming from the incident is that permaculrture people do not want their comfort zone within the movement disrupted and would rather avoid developing a solution to the issue rather than engage in an open discussion to explore and understand it so as to get an idea of what to do next time something like that comes along, which it surely will. Some might intepret this as the provervial ostrich position.
What does it mean?
The Russian invasion and attempted colonisation of Ukraine provides another example of how the left and right are becoming intermixed. For example, a 29 October Tweet by a pro-Palestinian commentator reported the “tremendous loss” of columbian communist, Alexis Castillo, who had been fighting with Russian separatists in Donetsk for eight years.
Russia is widely regarded as an authoritarian, rightwing capitalist oligarchy that supports rightwing forces in the West, a view shared by many on the left. That a communist would fight for Russia raises serious questions about what communism has mutated into, and it has little to do with the writings of the economic philosopher, Karl Marx. It also reflects on the politics of those on the left who support Russia or who make apologies for its attack and mass killings in Ukraine by trying to reframe its actions as the fault of the US or of NATO encroachment on its borders (as if nations do not have the right of self-determination and to enter into alliances for their national security). I understand that US imperialism over the years has influenced their thinking, but giving even tacit support or making excuses for Russia’s invasion suggests they are caught in some kind of logical fallacy in regard to Russia’s imperialism.
I found it disappointing that a prominent Australian advocate for the fair food movement and local food systems ‘liked’ the post about the loss of Alexis Castillo, as he has done with other posts by apologists for Russia. I can only put this down to people being blinded by their anti-Americanism rather than taking a nuanced critique of US foreign policy.
It is also ironic that the commentator, who supports the Palestinians against Israeli colonialism, should support Russian colonialism. Other Palestinian supporters have shown similar support on Twitter, risking their credibility among opponents of colonialism and authoritarian states.
Just to further muddy the political waters comes an October Tweet attributing the blowing up of a section of railway linking Russia to Ukraine and Balarus to the Anarcho-Communist Combat Organisation. Politics is becomong very confusing.
So, what does this muddy blending of the left and far-right suggest? If a Green Party link with Depape proves correct — it has not gained media attention that I have come across other than its first reporting, so may be dropped from reports as it is not central to the attempted murder — it demonstrates how far-right and conspiracy theorists are converging with previously-politically progressive movements. I suggest this is happening inadvertently and can be partly attributed to a reaction by the left, both the radical and the light-green left, against US wars in Central Asia and elsewhere and against capitalism in general.
It is also a signifier of the times in general. Over the period from 1990, the beginning of the tech revolution and the dotcom boom, substantial change—economic, political and technological—has swept through our workplaces, out homes, our institutions and lives. Many thrive in it, adapting to the changes, but in its trail it leaves those unable to adapt and it is these, now dissatisfied, unhappy and sometimes angry people who become attracted to the far-right because it offers a seemingly simple explanation for their troubles. With many working class people in this left-behind group, their allegiance switches from their light-leftist or social democrat support to the right. We see this in federal voting patterns.
A green/environmental-rightwing convergence in thinking would have political consequences and show the old left/right polarisation to be an artefact of the Twentieth Century. In today’s volatile sociopolitical climate it could take us anywhere.
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