It has happened as many feared: Donald Trump is moving back into the White House! The reasons for his electoral success remain the same as during his first campaign in 2016. This becomes clear from the following excerpts from the article "The Open Society is at Stake," which gbs spokesperson Michael Schmidt-Salomon wrote in early 2017 for the Piper volume "We Have the Choice" [current additions are marked by square brackets].

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(...) After the [2016] presidential election, many journalists speculated about the reasons behind Trump's success and the agenda of his administration. However, they only needed to revisit an old speech by his [then] chief strategist Steve Bannon. As early as the summer of 2014, one year before Trump announced his [first] candidacy, Bannon outlined the central goals, strategies, and prospects of the "global Tea Party movement" during a right-wing conservative congress in the Vatican (!). He described this as a "center-right movement" rooted in many Western countries, committed to the social-conservative values of the "Judeo-Christian West," patriotism, and the "free market economy."

According to Bannon, this movement is increasingly successful in fighting back against the "causes of the crisis," which he identified as follows: secularism, which, through the weakening of religious values and institutions, has left "the West" unable to defend its own principles; Islam, which, in the absence of resistance from Western religious forces, can spread unchecked; international political institutions like the UN or the EU, which aim to "destroy national identities" and curtail citizens' freedoms; and irresponsible "cronyism," which serves only the "elites" (e.g., on Wall Street or in Washington) and leads to the impoverishment of large segments of the population.

The last point may seem surprising. Bannon's attacks on financial capitalism and his expressions of solidarity with workers and the unemployed do not initially sound like new-right propaganda. However, these elements are essential to the new Tea Party ideology and help explain why Donald Trump garnered support from poorer demographics. From the Tea Party movement's perspective – as Bannon's text makes clear – capitalism has gone off the rails by operating increasingly on a global scale and taking on more multinational and multicultural traits. In response to this "un-American" form of "multicultural capitalism," traditionalists advocate a vision of "new" (in reality, antiquated, reminiscent of the supposedly "golden times" of the Reagan era) capitalism based on decidedly Christian and patriotic values. For this reason, the revival of Christian-conservative patriotism is a top priority for the Trump administration. (...)

 
Reasons for Trump's Electoral Success

Why did this outdated message resonate so strongly with American voters? A significant factor is the growing inequality in income and wealth in the U.S., where the gap between rich and poor has widened more than in most other industrialized nations. One might even describe the American social structure as "neofeudal," where elites need to do little to maintain their status, while the lower classes have little chance to improve theirs.

This naturally fuels hatred toward "the elites," which Trump exploited in his campaign. At the same time, it makes people more susceptible to religious-nationalist propaganda. Why? Because people who feel overlooked as individuals due to a lack of personal upward mobility tend to inceasingly identify more strongly as members of a group and, in this capacity, elevate themselves above members of other (religious, national, or ethnic) groups. After all, the deficits of a weakened self-consciousness can easily be compensated for by an exaggerated group consciousness. (...)

For such simplistic rhetoric of differentiation to work, however, another condition must be met: right-wing populists like Trump require voters who are largely insensitive to logical contradictions. Here too, the circumstances worked in Trump's favor. In the U.S. (as in many other countries), the gap is not only wide between rich and poor but also between the educated and uneducated, more specifically: between rationally thinking people who understand complex relationships and argue based on factual knowledge, and those who, due to inadequate education or ideological indoctrination, hold an oversimplified worldview, ignore empirical evidence, and fall for even the crudest delusions.

It is important to grasp the significance of this aspect. Many observers still do not take Donald Trump seriously for one particular reason: the apparent ease with which he manages to sink below even George W. Bush's intellectual level. In reality, however, this was and remains the secret of his success, because as a "presidential everyman," Donald Trump says exactly what many ordinary citizens think. In this respect, Trump truly is what he claims to be: a representative of the "common man." Like them, he too despises the "educational elite," whose arguments he does not understand but nevertheless perceives as a threat because they could collapse his simple worldview. Therefore, Trump's much-invoked "fight against the elite" is not primarily directed against the "financial elite," to which he himself belongs (...), but rather against the "intellectual elite": against scientists, philosophers, artists, lawyers, journalists, intellectuals – ultimately against anyone who refuses to shut down their intellect enough to follow the agenda of the new US administration.

 
Alternative Facts

The hallmark of Trump's political style is his disregard for all standards of rational argumentation. The countless contradictions in his statements, his preference for "post-factual arguments," his insistence on "alternative facts," his dismissals of legal reasoning and scientific evidence – all these are not random phenomena, but rather reveal a dangerous erosion of the concept of truth itself: For Trump, there seem to be no intersubjective truths that can be agreed upon through rational criteria, but merely subjective opinions that are either "great" if they align with his interests or "fake news" if they oppose them.

In Trump's world, the merit of an argument is not determined by logic and empirical evidence, but by whoever has the power to accept or reject arguments. This power now lies with him, which became immediately apparent in the American research and education system. For example, shortly after the transition from Obama to Trump, U.S. environmental agencies were instructed to delete all data from their websites that contradicted Trump’s position on climate change.

Less noticed but no less consequential is the (...) forced promotion of private schools at the expense of the public school system. These schools are largely operated by evangelical Christians, which from the government's perspective brings the advantage that they can ignore inconvenient scientific findings (especially the theory of evolution) and devote themselves fully to conveying Christian-patriotic values. This will certainly not harm political support among the population, for: "Empty heads are easy to drum on," as Karlheinz Deschner once put it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized this years ago. Like his American counterpart Trump, he too relies on strengthening religious-nationalist values, which is why he maintains close contact with the Russian Orthodox Church, now increasingly functioning as a state church. Putin oversaw the construction of thousands of new Orthodox churches, pushed forward the new school subject "Foundations of Orthodox Culture" and even supported the "Russian Declaration of Human Rights," which makes the validity of individual rights dependent on whether they align with "values of faith" – a frightening parallel to the "Cairo Declaration of Human Rights," which recognizes individual rights only when consistent with Sharia law.

Like the American Tea Party, Putin also advocates strengthening the Christian family model with clearly defined gender roles and enacted corresponding laws against "homosexual propaganda." And like the Tea Party, the Russian president also maintains close relationships with right-wing populists worldwide. This is not least why Putin is celebrated by Marine Le Pen as a defender of the "Christian heritage of European civilization," who, as she claimed, demonstrates his enormous leadership qualities by the mere fact that he does not submit to the "international homo-lobby" (!).

 
The International of Nationalists

Steve Bannon anticipated the success of right-wing populists as early as 2014, backing Donald Trump in 2016. Nevertheless, his characterization of international right-wing populism as a "global Tea Party movement" was misleading. Not all right-wing populist forces adhere as strictly to the market-liberal program of the Americans as Germany's AfD does. This is evident in the example of Vladimir Putin, who in his politics relies on precisely the kind of "strong state" that Bannon, Trump & Co. want to largely dismantle.

The major commonality among right-wing populists therefore is not their economic policy but their political instrumentalization of so-called "religious and national values." While the defense of the "Christian West" is indeed at the forefront in Western and Eastern European countries, this is by no means universal. Steve Bannon himself, in his 2014 Vatican speech, referenced the sweeping electoral victory of Narendra Modi in India, noting that Modi's politics are similarly rooted in nationalism and religion – except that he refers to the values of traditional Hinduism instead of Christianity. Had Bannon looked just a bit further, he would have had to acknowledge that the religious-nationalist strategy he calls for has long been in practice across the ideological divide, namely in the Islamic world. In fact, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could serve as a shining representative of the "global Tea Party movement" – if only he did not represent the wrong country and the wrong religion.

This in turn shows that the "Tea Party movement" is not nearly as "global" as Bannon claimed. What is truly worldwide is the "International of Nationalists" that has formed in recent years. Instead of a "global Tea Party," we are witnessing the emergence of a new wave of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Hindu nationalism, each expressing itself with different denominational focuses depending on the country: Catholic in Poland, Hungary, and France; Protestant in the USA, England, and Switzerland; Orthodox in Russia, Greece, and Serbia; Sunni in Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia; Shiite in Iran, Iraq, and Syria.

As is well known, some of these factions are fiercely hostile to one another – and yet they share a major commonality. They are united in their opposition to the cultural hallmarks of modernity: liberalization, pluralization, individualization, secularization, the rights of women and homosexuals, the worldview-neutral state, the principles of open society. In short: They are political refuges for those who cannot keep pace with the accelerated cycles of change in the globalized world and who, in response, seek to defend their traditional cultural ghetto against the supposedly "hostile" nature of "the foreign."

 
What To Do?

It would be a fatal mistake if Western Europeans were now to follow the global trend toward closed society. What is needed is precisely the opposite: we must stand even more firmly for the principles of the open society, decisively affirming the ideals of freedom, equality, individuality, and secularism. We must make it unmistakably clear that a person’s worth is entirely independent of their faith or lack thereof, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, male or female (or neither), whether their skin is light or dark, whether they are old or young, whether they were born into a wealthy or poor family, or whether their parents come from the same neighborhood or a completely different part of the world.

Above all, today we must combat the root causes that have led to the rise of the international nationalist movement: social injustice and inadequate education systems. We must close the gap between rich and poor to create greater equality of opportunity. And we urgently need to reform our schools to give children and adolescents the intellectual tools to distinguish between rational and irrational arguments.

We could likely combat fundamentalist delusions simply by giving evolutionary theory greater prominence in school curricula. It is no coincidence that evolution is discredited in many countries led by right-wing populists (e.g., Turkey, Russia, and the U.S.). The reason is obvious: Anyone who has understood the history of evolution also understands that religions and nations are merely social constructs that obscure a fundamental fact of life – that we are all connected by far more than what separates us, as we all belong to one extraordinary family whose lineage can be traced back to the first single-celled organisms more than three and a half billion years ago.

Teaching evolutionary theory is undoubtedly an excellent instrument for countering the "post-factual narratives" of religious-nationalist ideologies. Equally important, however, is strengthening the profile of a secular state that ensures, far more decisively than before, that religions do not stand above the law but are subject to the same legal framework as everyone else.

To counter the mythical glorification of the nation, it already helps to highlight how much poorer we would all be if we only had access to the products of "our own nation". The saying is apt: Foolishness and pride are cut from the same cloth – and this applies especially to so-called "national pride": Anyone who doesn't go through life wearing blinders should recognize that almost all of humanity's great achievements (whether in science, technology, medicine, art, ethics, or politics) can be attributed to intercultural cooperation.

 
Don’t Resign Prematurely!

Given Trump, Putin, Erdogan & Co (...) and the many unsolved ecological, economic, and social problems of the world, it is understandable that many people view the future pessimistically. However, such a mood should not distort our perception of reality. In fact, hard empirical data shows that humanity has made enormous progress not only in recent centuries but also in recent decades. (...)

Because we generally pay much more attention to negative news, most people are unaware of the many positive developments that have taken place in the recent past. This doesn't change the fact that a fact-based view of the world should lead us to a cautiously optimistic assessment of the global situation. There is therefore no reasonable ground for premature resignation.

Ultimately, even the rise of right-wing populists is an unmistakable sign of the progress made in recent decades. Religious fundamentalism is, not least, a reaction to the increasing gradual erosion of unquestioned religious foundations – just as nationalism is a reaction to national identities losing significance in a global village where people can freely communicate with each other. To put this in German context: The AfD, which can be understood as Germany's counterpart to the Tea Party, exists only because the principles of cosmopolitanism have now reached even the CDU, and some of its leading representatives today hold positions that even the most progressive Social Democrats would have hardly voiced publicly 20 years ago.

It is up to us which developments we give more weight to: The year 2015, when Donald Trump announced his [first] presidential candidacy, was also the year in which the United Nations adopted their "Global Goals" (such as the elimination of global poverty, education for all, gender equality, etc.) in the presence of over 150 heads of state and government. This was the first time in our species' entire history that humanity agreed on universal goals and committed to planetary collaboration to achieve them! (Anyone dismissing these noble goals as mere words on paper should consider Ludwig Marcuse's wise insight: Indeed, it is much better for "good exists only on paper – than not even there!")

Many brave, intelligent people across all nations and cultures are working today to turn the utopia of a freer, more just world into reality. People like Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who fought for human rights and was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes for it. They form a strong counterweight to the reactionary forces that want to turn back the wheel of history. Who will prevail in the end? Nobody knows, but it depends significantly on how we ourselves decide: Are we indifferent to the fact that the open society is at stake, or do we rise up against it? Do we yearn to return to the supposedly "good old days" or do we commit ourselves to a better future? Do we strengthen the idea of one humanity or do we lose ourselves in national and religious egoisms? The next chapter in humanity’s story has yet to be written – the choice is ours.

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