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ABSTRACT
Worldwide emergence of strongmen leaderships and eroded or failed democracies suggest that the era of unchallenged neoliberal hegemony may be winding down and that alternatives are rising. The presidential election of Donald Trump has inspired rightwing populists at home and abroad. This paper will analyze the Trumpist fusion of authoritarian ethnoracial nationalism with neoliberal adventure capitalism and the broader matter of how neoliberal de-democratization opens way for right-wing populism and illiberal capitalism. The topics will be explored in part through discussions of earlier theories of Friedrich Hayek, Carl Schmitt, John Dewey, and Karl Polanyi that have been revived and deployed in the current debates over neoliberalism, populism, and democracy.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. With gratitude to Pasquale Caracciolo.
2. Rightwing populists Andrej Babiš (Czech Republic), Janez Janša (Slovenia), Jarosław Kaczyński (Poland), Sebastian Kurz (Austria), Viktor Orbán (Hungary), Matteo Salvini (Italy), and Miloš Zeman (Czech Republic) became national leaders. Others such as Marine Le Pen (France) and Geert Wilders (Netherlands) lost elections, but remained influential. ‘Strongman’ nationalists attained leadership worldwide (e.g. Jair Bolsonaro [Brazil], Rodrigo Duterte [Philippians], Recep Erdoğan [Turkey], Narenda Modi [India], and Vladimir Putin [Russia]).
3. Populism here refers to its authoritarian variant. The term also signifies egalitarian politics (e.g. Bernie Sanders) and grassroots social movements supporting social justice in liberal democracies or defending democracy against autocratic political rulers. These movements diverge fundamentally from rightwing authoritarian populism. Authoritarian populists also can come from the left (e.g. Nicolás Maduro [Venezuela]).
4. The synagogue shooter Robert B. Bowers said he was motivated by the need to stop the ‘invasion’ by the immigrant ‘caravan,’ which Trump raged about. Bowers held that the caravan was a Jewish conspiracy. Rumors had circulated on internet, were repeated on Fox News, and mentioned in Trump tweets that George Soros, portrayed the leading Jewish globalist conspirator by the anti-Semitic global alt-right, funded and directed the caravan. Trump has been obsessed with Soros’ supposed machinations (Achenbach Citation2018; Reuters Citation2018).
5. Another inspirational figure for neoliberals, Milton Friedman and his students gave substantial support to the Pinochet regime.
6. These ideas are elaborated in detail in, (Dewey Citation1987a, Citation1987b, Citation1987c, Citation1987d, Citation1987e, Citation1988b, Citation1989, Citation1999).
7. Twenty-seven percent of millennials polled approved of Trump (Pew Research Center Citation2018).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Robert J. Antonio
Robert J. Antonio teaches social theory at the University of Kansas. His current work concerns the economic, sociocultural, and biophysical contradictions of neoliberal globalization and the sociopolitical theories and movements offering alternatives to capitalism and democracy as we have known them.