Voting for the far right: ideology or psychology?

When Trump first became president of the United States, New York Times posted a comment saying that when you turn politics into a three-ring circus, there's always a chance the dancing bear will win. I was thinking the other day, reading here theinterview with writer Melchor Comes, who, speaking of his latest novel, states that "the far right should be attacked more for being clowns than for being fascists." In fact, part of the current debate about the rise of the far right (an issue we should consider so that it doesn't become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that's why we could start, for example, by not taking the results of a survey for granted) tries to find out what leads some people to vote for a group of politicians characterized by ideology or psychology.

Regarding ideology, I still think the analogy with the fascisms of the 1930s is inaccurate. We are in a very different historical moment, we live in societies incomparable to those of that time, and the far right seems to have other objectives: for starters, instead of strengthening the state, what it wants is to weaken it. On more than one issue, it's also incompatible with the "purity" advocated by the Nazis: for example, many of these parties, such as Geert Wilders's in the Netherlands, defend the rights of LGBTI groups (as opposed to Muslims, admittedly), and some of their leaders, such as the leader of the AfD, and immigrants. So, is being an extremist more a way of being than a way of thinking? The journalist Sebastian Haffner, an exile from Nazism, had said something similar: voting for Hitler was driven more by character than ideology.

Naturally, giving primacy to the psychological component should not make us forget that all these parties have an elaborate agenda of regressive policies in all areas, from social rights to human rights. In the simplicity of their message, from which all reference to complexity and, worse, to the truth is eliminated, a pernicious ideology is spread, which coexists—particularly in the case of Trump—with the solipsistic, narcissistic, and, above all, vengeful personality of the leader. Is it his thirst for revenge that makes Trump attractive? Is it his audacity in saying the wrong things that is seductive? Is it his desire to enrich himself through politics that we would like to imitate?

Or, ultimately, is it a false dilemma, and what counts is the voter's perception of their own economic and social situation? "It's the economy, stupid!" said an advisor to Bill Clinton in 1992 when discussing election campaign slogans. Indeed, we can all agree that rising inequality and the inadequacy of public services to address the impact of immigration are behind the rise of the far right, with associated issues such as rising insecurity. A generic insecurity, which extends into a future perceived as problematic and even dystopian. But this, which may explain the causes of social unrest, may not be enough to explain why a significant percentage of the population chooses such an untimely outlet to express it. From this perspective, the electorate's discontent is channeled into a protest vote, where what their leaders say is not as important as what they represent: the revolt against the establishment.

The evil of our time, as political scientist Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca has pointed out, is characterized by the crisis of the intermediation between the people and political power. A double crisis, because it affects the instruments that traditionally served for this mediation: the media and political parties. In the American case, and speaking of the leadership of the Democratic Party, journalist Ezra Klein—author of a recent and controversial book in which he advocates, from the left, a less regulated "politics of abundance"—says that many of those who voted for Trump had felt rejected by the Democrats. He states: "The most important question for voters is not whether they like that politician, but whether that politician likes them." The debate is ongoing, but perhaps one certainty emerges, and that is that a substantial part of the far-right vote is not an ideological or programmatic vote: it is a vote of punishment.