Creating a New "We" in an Age of Us vs. Them
The rise of right-wing authoritarianism is sweeping the globe. From Viktor Orbán’s victory in Hungary, to the “Law and Justice” party’s ascendancy in Poland, to Bolsanaro’s victory in Brazil in 2018, in country after country, far-right parties have used populist rhetoric and anger against the effects of globalization to take control over government and overturn liberal democratic norms, practices and institutions. The anger of the people has upended how democratic politics works as traditional ways of understanding politics through ideological positions on the right and left no longer explain very much. The political world order seems perilous as formerly prosperous, stable, and rights-protecting countries tumble into the hands of tyrannical dictators. What is causing this? What can we do about it?
Ian Bremmer is uniquely qualified to orient us in these confusing times. He is trained as a political scientist on U.S. foreign policy, political risk and nation-states in transition. He is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, a leading consulting firm on political risk research. He has published ten books, including Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism which is a New York Times bestseller. He serves as editor at large for Time and writes a weekly foreign affairs column for the magazine.
Bremmer explains in his latest book Us vs. Them that the cause of this turmoil is discontent with the unequal effects of globalization. While globalization produces big winners and losers, governments have not adjusted their systems to help those harmed by these processes. Workers have seen industries that supported their fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers disappear along with the futures for their children. Inequality in political voice and in economic well-being has grown precipitously. A growing sense of betrayal has grown among large-swaths of discontented and anxious workers as they increasingly blame entrenched business and government leaders for the insecurity. Economic insecurity combines with cultural anxiety over the perceived dilution of national identity to produce a toxic resentment as populists scapegoat groups—including migrants and immigrants—for bringing this rapid change. Bremmer explains that physical and metaphoric walls (tariffs, immigration restrictions, censorship of the internet and other forms of protectionism) will continue to attract support from beleaguered workers and citizens.
Bremmer warns that things will continue to get worse, not better. As he puts it, “The sense of crisis isn’t yet strong enough, because so many globalists continue to profit from the system as it is, and the walls of various kinds will protect them, temporarily, from real danger. Things have to become much worse, particularly for the winners, before they can become better for everyone else” (2018, 166). Yet, according to Bremmer, all hope is not lost. He calls for governments to re-write the social contract to address inequality, move toward universal programs to provide the security and protection globalization has upended and to rework the partnerships between the private and public sectors to produce the security needed in uncertain times.
Bremmer seems to pin his hopes on the them—the “winners” waking up and making concessions in a newly created social contract before their own material and physical security is threatened. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pinned his hopes on the us—a cross-racial poor people’s movement to awaken Americans to what King called a “spiritual death” that deprived people of the capacity to feel and hear the suffering they cause or allow. Whether King, Bremmer, or some synthesis is right, is not predetermined. For this reason, I want to end with the prophetic words of Dr. King: “Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: too late….If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight. Now let us begin. Now let as rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter—but beautiful—struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response….the choice is ours” (King, Testament of Hope, 242-243).