Ep.132: The Velocity of Extremism

About this episode

How did far-right politics go mainstream so quickly? Pundits frequently cite distrust of elites, concerns about migration, and economic anxieties. But these factors alone don't adequately explain how illiberalism and identitarianism spread so rapidly and take hold so firmly. More plausibly, the far right's rise isn't really about people suddenly changing their minds. Rather the velocity of extremism down to people who already held these views, and who've lost their shame about saying so out loud once a skilled politician shows them it's safe to do it. That's the argument of a book called The Normalization of the Radical Right by political scientist Vicente Valentim. We're re-running that conversation now because far-right insurgents still are making significant gains. In Germany, Alice Weidel's AfD party has been polling at more than 40 percent; a win in Saxony Anhalt on September 6 would make the AfD the first far-right party to govern a German state since the end of the Second World War. In Italy, Roberto Vannacci's Futuro Nazionale has already polled ahead of Lega, the far right party he formerly was part of; Vannacci's is pushing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, herself a