If all the outcasts who once died holding red banners high, fighting for a workers’ revolution, were to return to Earth today, they would likely look around in disbelief, unable to recognize the political heirs of the left they once championed. The same would hold true for the believers in traditional right-wing ideals.
Just like Christ in Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor” — rebuked for hindering the Church’s mission upon his return to Earth — they, too, would likely be told by their political successors that they are disrupting ideological orthodoxy.
The political left and right, as traditionally understood, have effectively swapped poles — much like the pseudoscientific theory that predicts Earth’s magnetic north will one day switch places with the south pole is, and vice versa. So much so that the definition of the folk saying “doesn’t know where left is” from the popular site Vukajlija, which indicates a person who has lost contact with the surrounding reality to the degree that they can no longer navigate their environment, can be applied to them. The average voter truly can no longer distinguish between left and right, as new trends in global politics have completely shifted ideological boundaries.
Thus, the right, once a defender of conservatism, economic liberalism, nationalism, and similar ideas, now addresses “the prisoners tormented by hunger,” namely the working class, the victims of inflation and other economic crises, which is more than evident, for instance, in Germany, exemplified by the Alternative for Germany (AfD), or in France, with figures such as Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella.
Conversely, the left, which once fought for workers’ rights, is now far closer to large corporations, staunchly supporting significant investments in armament and the military industry against which it previously protested on the streets (the case of the Greens in Germany), to the benefit of those same corporations.
This is not an exclusive model of Germany or France, nor is it solely a European model (it should not be repeated that China, a communist state, is an example of capitalist economic functioning); a similar situation is occurring in the United States, where Donald Trump, as a candidate of the Republican Party (conditionally right in the area of workers’ rights, industry, and the economy…), won by promising the average American a better standard of living, more jobs, and so forth.
According to Hajram Luis, a history professor at Brigham Young University in the United States and a former researcher at Stanford University, who, along with his brother Verlan Luis (a political science professor at Utah Valley University), is the author of the book “The Myth of Left and Right,” the roots of such changes run deep and have been present for decades. The Luis brothers note in their book that “left” and “right” are not essentially real categories but a set of social issues to which certain political movements decide to give priority.
When asked whether the right has taken over the representation of the working class while the left has become closer to large corporations, Luis states that this is certainly the case in the United States. As an example, he notes that corporations have generally taken a stand in favor of the Black Lives Matter protests, thereby enhancing their reputation among Democrats while diminishing it among Republicans.
“However, the roots of this change run much deeper and have developed over decades. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, American politics was essentially one-dimensional: there were those who wanted more government intervention in the economy (left) and those who wanted less (right). Corporations generally favored less government involvement, hence they identified with the ‘right.’ But when social issues came to the forefront in the 1960s and 1970s, the working class, which was more likely to adhere to traditional Christian values and be stricter toward law violations (including illegal immigration), began to identify with the ‘right’,” explains Luis.
Luis argues that viewing politics through the “left-right” spectrum is misleading. To illustrate, he cites Donald Trump as an example.
“Although I am not a supporter of President Trump, I am grateful that his presidency has illuminated our thesis and prompted many to recognize (now quite evident) the truth that ideology is social rather than a substantive category,” Luis states.
He explains that elements of “right-wing ideology” that were once regarded as key or substantive are now routinely dismissed as “leftist,” and notes that this is particularly evident, for example, in recent Trump administration actions in trade policy.
“During the Obama administration, low taxes and free market principles were considered fundamental tenets of the ‘right,’ while today we have a president labeled as ‘extreme right’ who has enacted one of the most dramatic tax reforms in American history aimed precisely at intervening in the free market. If ideology were a fixed category, people would say that Trump has shifted the Republican Party ‘to the left,’ but ideology is not fixed. It evolves. Thus, Trump, like his predecessors, has simply redefined the notion of ‘right’ according to his own actions. Left and right represent coalitions that are constantly changing and lack substantive definitions,” says Luis.
He recalls that during the Obama administration, “conservatives” continuously criticized his executive actions as “an abuse of power.”
“It was commonplace to hear ‘conservatives’ assert that the substantive conservative principle was opposition to the ‘dictatorial’ presidential model of governance. Yet now that their ‘tribe’ is in power, their principles regarding executive power have reversed. This once again proves that ideology is based on tribal affiliation rather than principles. Policies associated with ‘the left’ and ‘the right’ are perpetually shifting, so what persists is not a ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ worldview, but simply tribal identity,” states Luis.
Dr. Neven Cvetićanin, a research advisor at the Institute for Social Sciences, president of the Forum for Strategic Studies, and a former parliament member, tells NIN that “the left and right no longer exist in their classic forms as they were established during the French Revolution, peaking during the Spanish Civil War, when they existed in their pure forms.”
“After World War II, a process of the absorption of the left and right into the liberal center began, resulting in the emergence of left and right centers, i.e., moderate social democrats and moderate conservatives, while radical left and right groups remained on the margins. Over time, rather than a division into left and right, the main division has become that of (left and right) center versus (left and right) margins. This process has particularly advanced after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and I described it in detail in my extensive book ‘An Era Beyond Left and Right,’ which I published back in 2008, when I predicted that following the global financial crisis of 2007, the process would reverse — that is, the (left and right) center would become increasingly narrow while both margins, from the left and the right, would grow stronger and eventually merge in a series of populist movements. This is precisely what is occurring in our days with Trump, Le Pen, the Alternative for Germany, and other populist movements that combine social and national rhetoric. The book I mentioned anticipated much of this, as those of us who are professionally engaged in social research had already seen this process then,” says Cvetićanin. He believes that the ideological moment is returning to politics and that new ideologies will arise. This is notably evident, for instance, in the case of Germany.
We are living in historical times
In his book “An Era Beyond Left and Right,” Neven Cvetićanin provides an extensive history of the left, right, and center as they have formed from the French Revolution to the present day, detailing all their subcurrents and mutations.
“To this day, it remains a rare comprehensive study on this issue in South Slavic languages, depicting the various forms that the left, right, and center have taken throughout history, with anticipation of precisely what is happening today when the left and right have definitively ceased to exist in their classic forms. This does not imply the disappearance of the ideological moment from the political field, for that is actually impossible, but rather the emergence of new ideologies and new ideas, which has always occurred historically when old social forms became obsolete. We are living precisely in such a historical time, and it is likely that more history will be made in the next few years than in many previous decades,” Cvetićanin states.
The so-called hard right has shifted more towards dissatisfied masses, promising them social benefits and protection for domestic production through protectionist economic measures, while the Greens have shifted towards the liberal center, precisely in the process I mentioned earlier. In all of this, moderate social democracy and moderate conservatism are dying out, and it is evident that we are facing a turbulent but creative time, during which new ideologies will emerge, as will new individuals capable of presenting them. The ideological moment is simply returning to politics, as voters have grown weary of the sameness, and undoubtedly new ideas (as seen in our case with current plenums) and new people will emerge. We will only see what will be constructive and what will remain destructive,” Cvetićanin notes.
While such a change has been present for a long time, Trump’s election has brought the ideological turn into sharp focus. Luis states that Trump has merely made something evident that has been happening for a long time.
“Prominent Republican politicians have deviated from previous party orthodoxy for decades, thus redefining ‘the right,'” Luis says. He cites examples such as Senator Taft during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration (World War II) as the most prominent rightist who opposed state intervention in the economy and foreign wars. Then in the 1960s came Barry Goldwater, who maintained opposition to government involvement in the economy but shifted the right’s approach to foreign policy by opening it to “hawkish” positions.
Ronald Reagan then arrived in the 1980s, who, as Luis explains, “further changed the meaning of the right by mixing Goldwater’s libertarian economics, hawkish foreign policy, and adding social issues, such as anti-abortion policies.” Subsequently, as he notes, in the early 2000s George Bush pursued a different policy of limited government but retained hawkish foreign policy and Christian social issues…
“Thus, it is interesting that the right in America has evolved from 1950 to 2000 into a contradiction of what it once was,” Luis says, adding that Trump has abandoned a hawkish foreign policy in his first term, as he is attempting to do now, thereby making “right” policy heavy on government intervention, “dove” foreign policy, and opposition to the health care movement and migration.
“What a longer view of history teaches us is that Trump is merely the latest in a long line of examples of changes in the ‘right wing.’ There is no lasting ‘rightist’ worldview, philosophy, or sentiment — there is only ‘tribe,’ and it changes as the ‘tribal’ leadership shifts. Trump was simply more visible and louder in his changes, clearly demonstrating how quickly ideologies can evolve. This has left many people in shock as they watch what is considered ‘conservative’ change daily before their eyes,” Luis explains.
Cvetićanin argues that Trump is a consequence of the emergence of ideological changes, rather than their cause.
“The cause is the decline of the liberal model, along with the liberal left and right, the so-called left and right center, and the rising of so-called left and right margins. It was only a matter of time before politicians like Trump emerged to exploit it. Now the question is how these populist politicians will manage to transform this dissatisfaction from the margins into sustainable political reforms, because in a situation of mass dissatisfaction, it is easier to win elections than to translate that dissatisfaction into concrete policies that will constructively reshape the political landscape rather than destructively. I believe there will be attempts and failures, and that we are facing an entirely new generation of politicians in the U.S., Europe, and around the world, and perhaps even in the Balkans, who will ride this wave. We will see if these politicians who have emerged from mass dissatisfaction will possess the capability and wisdom to not remain merely ordinary politicians drifting from election to election, but to be able to statesmanlike develop new political and economic models for the future, which is the main demand of our time, from America, through Europe, to the Balkans. Somewhat related, the current protests in Serbia are also about this phenomenon of seeking new people and new societal models,” Cvetićanin concludes.
