On the one and only – Anton Jäger in NYT:

‘At the end of his 1981 book “The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.,” George Steiner asks his readers to imagine the unimaginable. The year is 1980, and Mossad agents have just taken an implausible prisoner in the Latin American jungle: Adolf Hitler.
In the novel’s alternative timeline, the former dictator flees Germany after 1945 and escapes into trans-Atlantic hiding. Held captive by a squad of Nazi hunters, the now 91-year-old delivers an exculpatory speech reflecting on humanity’s future. “In a world that has tortured political prisoners and has stripped the earth of plant and animal,” Hitler exclaims, “the ‘one out of hell’ was thought to have been extinct.” One day, however, his kind would return, and their “crimes were to be matched and surpassed by those of others.” It is difficult to miss the contemporary resonance in Mr. Steiner’s sentences. Four decades after his novel was published, the far right is once again on the march.’

(…)

‘But in the wake of the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, an important shift has taken place. Rather than mere electoral contenders or shapers of public opinion, Europe’s far-right parties now appear as plausible and normal forces of government. Long a purely oppositional force, they are moving into the halls of power.
What explains this new and alarming development? After the votes for Donald Trump and Brexit in 2016, followed by electoral breakthroughs for Ms. Le Pen and the Alternative for Germany party, many sought to explain the far-right’s rise through the concept of populism. Yet the explanation always hid more than it revealed. For one thing, it implied that the far-right leaders were authentic representatives of a forgotten people — even when the politicians in question often had elite backgrounds. For another, it seemed to blame the rise of right-wing forces on irrational voters, overlooking those that have held power on the continent in the past 30 years.’

(…)

‘In contrast to the 1930s, when fascist street violence flourished, the contemporary far right thrives on demobilization. Ms. Meloni’s party won a majority of votes in an election in which nearly four out of 10 Italians stayed home, with turnout down by almost 10 percent from the country’s previous vote. In France, Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally has long received its best tallies in parts of the country that have the highest voter abstention rates. And in Poland, the Kaczynski family behind the Law and Justice party rules over a country where fewer than 1 percent of citizens are members of a political party.’

(…)

‘In a world that destroys “plant and animal,” as Mr. Steiner’s Hitler predicted, the “one out of hell” seems to have made his return. Yet he has hardly come in the guise we expected, presenting dangers that are wholly new.’

Read the article here.

I’m always happy to see references to ‘The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.’ on of the better George Steiner books.

There is a slight problem when we see the rise of the extreme-right just as a result of the ‘ruling parties’ causing havoc in their countries: ‘Inequality rose, economies malfunctioned, and public services began to wither.’ This differs from country to country, also within the EU, and it’s not a given that things were so much better three or four decades ago.

Sure, the grand promises of 1989 melted away quickly, some would argue that a few opportunities were wasted back then, but most people nowadays don’t live in a disaster zone in those countries were the extreme right is rising. Quite the opposite.

So, it’s not just the economy.

The dichotomy between rational and irrational is a bit outdated as well, as Mr. Jäger points out. Although it’s clear that we should not overestimate our rationality, and it’s also clear that it is not easy to define rationality.

I have argued a few times that boredom is more important than most people think, also in politics. There’s this attraction to pyromaniacs.