Herbert Kickl, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) that won the country’s general election on Sept. 29, celebrated victory at a beer tavern in Vienna. He did so in style. First, journalists were denied entry, except those working for the many media outlets owned by the FPO. Then, Kickl had his picture taken with members of the far-right Identitarian Movement, most of whom are fiercely anti-Islamic.
It was Austria’s Identitarian leader, Martin Sellner, who caused a scandal in Germany when he visited Potsdam in January 2024 for a private meeting with members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to propose a plan for the forced deportation of millions of immigrants. Sellner is persona non grata in Switzerland and the U.K. because of his Nazi-like ideas about race and identity. This does not seem to prevent Kickl, however, from having cordial relations with the group. They are not extreme, he has often said, nor is the FPO. “We are the center,” Kickl said.
Herbert Kickl, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) that won the country’s general election on Sept. 29, celebrated victory at a beer tavern in Vienna. He did so in style. First, journalists were denied entry, except those working for the many media outlets owned by the FPO. Then, Kickl had his picture taken with members of the far-right Identitarian Movement, most of whom are fiercely anti-Islamic.
It was Austria’s Identitarian leader, Martin Sellner, who caused a scandal in Germany when he visited Potsdam in January 2024 for a private meeting with members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to propose a plan for the forced deportation of millions of immigrants. Sellner is persona non grata in Switzerland and the U.K. because of his Nazi-like ideas about race and identity. This does not seem to prevent Kickl, however, from having cordial relations with the group. They are not extreme, he has often said, nor is the FPO. “We are the center,” Kickl said.
That might sound weird coming from one of Europe’s most hardline politicians, but Kickl keeps saying that the FPO represents the “heart of society” and the “silent majority.” In his view, the extremists are not FPO members or sympathizers, but those who “have allies in the judiciary, in education, or in the media.”
Furthermore, Kickl has repeatedly said he plans to become Austria’s Volkskanzler one day, which is not a normal chancellor (as Austria currently has) but a “people’s chancellor,” like Adolf Hitler was, claiming to represent the will of “real” Austrians.
Again, all this might sound bizarre, like an upside-down world. But if we want to combat the far right and preserve democracy, we must take this view seriously. Many people vote for former U.S. Donald Trump’s Republican Party, French politician Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) party, AfD, and the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) because they perceive the world in this way. In the FPO, a party set up after World War II under the auspices of the Allied forces because former Nazis wanted political representation, this view is widely held.
In a fascinating book, Producteurs et Parasites: L’imaginaire si désirable du Rassemblement national, Belgian philosopher Michel Feher explained that far-right politicians and voters do not call those who are more moderate “extremists” in order to put them on the wrong foot. They really, really believe this, Feher wrote, because they tend to divide the world into two categories: the producers and the parasites. They consider themselves as producers, making or doing something useful and living off its fruits. Workers, farmers, shop owners, and factory owners are considered producers, too. Some are rich, others are poor. What united them is that everyone else is a parasite, not producing anything and living at the expense of the producers.
In fact, there are two kinds of parasites. First, there are elitist parasites, including speculators (who use other people’s money to get rich) and intellectuals, such as academics and journalists (who pump around false views and live off hot air). Second, there are marginal, poor parasites like job seekers, foreign workers, or refugees, who need to be taken care of either by the state or by rich producers. Most civil servants are parasites, too.
Feher’s research into RN voters is interesting. If society had a shape, he recently explained on French radio, most people would see it as a pyramid with a small elite on top. That’s the traditional view. Many RN voters, however, see it differently. For them, society is oval-shaped, similar to a rain barrel. The thick middle part is where the producers are. The parasites are in the thinner parts, at both ends—the rich elite on one side and the poor on the other.
This is what Kickl means when he said, “We are the center.” Even though his party got just 28.8 percent of the vote, even though over 71.2 percent did not vote FPO, in their mind, they still occupy the thickest part of the barrel—the “producer’s” part, and therefore the center of the political spectrum. Similarly, after receiving 23 percent of the vote in the Netherlands’ 2023 general election, Geert Wilders said, “The people has spoken.” It was as if the other nearly 77 percent were somehow not part of “the people.” Once you see this world view, you cannot unsee it anymore.
Of course, the distinction between producers and parasites is not new. It is what distinguishes labor from capital—a key element in Marxist theory (Feher, who is also a co-founder of Zone Books, a publishing house in the United States, has worked a lot on financialized capitalism). Today, however, this theory gets mixed with an element that has been taboo for many decades after WWII: ethno-nationalism. Those who consider themselves producers think parasites undermine the purity of national culture. Rich parasites do this, in their view, because they live off transnational financial flows, move around in international networks, and pick up ideas and habits abroad. Poor parasites are, of course, often migrants. Whether you are wealthy like George Soros or an uneducated worker, you are seen as a “stain” on the nation and therefore undesirable.
According to Austrian journalist Robert Misik, resentment toward “parasites” in society and toward “traitors” who minimize this danger, is growing. And reasoning doesn’t really help. In a recent piece for a German media outlet, titled “In love with resentment,” Misik touches on the question occupying the minds of many in Western countries with sizable far-right parties: Is it better to listen to complaints and problems far-right voters have and try to take them seriously, or rather to oppose them outright on principle?
Misik’s view is that the latter is better. Whether it is by listening to the far right in a public forum or by engaging with them critically on content, one ends up discussing their issues and following their agenda—with the media duly amplifying the message. Meanwhile, the far right keeps saying that no one listens to them and that the media is biased.
A victim mentality is a common trait of far-right resentment. Slowly but surely, everything that might sound shocking today, easily becomes normal tomorrow. Misik’s experience is that foreigner “becomes a synonym for criminal” and migrants “synonymous with knife-stabbers,” adding that, “When the leader shouts, ‘Deport millions,’ the audience claps their hands enthusiastically. Excited by their own nastiness. They enjoy the wickedness. The others treat the topics as ‘legitimate concerns,’ and the wickedness somehow seems commonplace.”
One gets similar insight when reading the work of French philosopher and psychoanalyst Cynthia Fleury or German sociologist Oliver Nachtwey, who have both studied far-right, ethno-nationalist milieus in recent years. Both describe a specific type of agitator whipping up racist, anti-elitist sentiments and paranoia among their followers, injecting even more poison into their minds. Fleury thinks resentment is the top threat to modern democracy. In her book, Here Lies Bitterness: Healing from Resentment, Fleury wrote that resentment stems from feelings of inferiority and obsessive loathing, coupled with delusions of victimhood. That clouds one’s judgment and perspective, and can give rise to violent impulses and the amplification of fake news and conspiracy theories. Far-right resentment, in other words, is social, financial, cultural, and racial all at once—a poisonous mix indeed, especially if the poison spreads from the end of the barrel to the center.
This is why center-right parties should stop bending over backward to the far right and stop copying far-right themes. It is a self-defeating strategy, as most center-right parties get eaten by the far right in the process. The list of examples is long: the Tories in the U.K., the Républicains in France, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy in the Netherlands, and the Republicans in the United States, among many others. Those who decided to cooperate with the far right have lost not only their identities and many of their principles, but often a sizable portion of voters, too. It’s time for traditional parties to reclaim the political center and make it clear that the world is a pyramid and not a barrel, and that the far right is not the new normal. The future of our democracies may depend on it.
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