Rise Of The Far Right Is A 4Th Dimension Phenomenon

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Our world today moves at breakneck speed. We live in an era of same-day delivery, of fast food and fast fashion. We listen to voice messages and podcasts at double speed, and the slightest doubt or curiosity is instantly satisfied by a quick search on our phones, bypassing any need for personal interaction or moments of uncertainty. Technology has made impatience the norm.

The same goes for the economy, which is governed by instantaneous decisions from stock markets on Wall Street, or in London or Shanghai. Even in households or at work, contingency and transience reign supreme. Wherever we look, the principle that time is money rules, and this has accelerated the pace of our lives.

Populists exploit our broken relationship with time

Right wing populism takes advantage of the fact that democracy is slow by definition, and therefore increasingly unable to swiftly address people's most urgent concerns. No other ideological current has recognized the extent to which our slow democratic politics is out of sync with the fast, even instantaneous, pace of our economies and societies. Exploiting this gap in the electoral market has paid huge dividends.

For decades, opinion polls such as the European Values Survey have been sending worrying, yet unheeded, signals for the future of liberal democracy. More and more voters agree that a strong leader who does not have to worry about parliament and elections is a good way to govern a country, and far right voters agree most strongly with this authoritarian drift. The younger generation's favorable view of“strongman” leaders adds another layer of concern about the future of democracy.

In a world where patience is an increasingly rare virtue, and political systems lag behind, what right wing populists offer is politics built around haste, simplicity and shortcuts.

This is exemplified by a raft of blunt and impractical fast-track solutions. To stem migratory flows they speak of closing borders or“repatriating” migrants . Domestic and gender violence are, they argue, made up . In countries with peripheral nationalist movements, such as Spain, they promise to prohibit“secessionist” parties outright, a measure explicitly included in far right party Vox's manifesto.

The late Spanish author Almudena Grandes saw this link between the Far Right and time all too clearly – in her posthumous 2022 dystopian novel Todo va a mejorar (Everything will get better) the populist party is called“Movimiento Ciudadano ¡Soluciones Ya!” (“Citizens' Movement, Solutions Now!”). The party's promise of instant solutions and the refusal to even call itself a“party” – instead presenting itself as an alternative to politics – are two key elements of this ideological family that Grandes singled out.

A referendum on everything

Many far right governments hold regular national referendums, notably Hungary's“national consultations” and similar measures in Poland when it was governed by Law and Justice. This is a measure to“popularize democracy” that populist right-wing parties include in their electoral programmes.