How the Smug Politics of COVID-19 Empowers the Far Right

This blog post has been turned into an article for The Atlantic.

I’ve been thinking a lot in the past week about why it is that the far-right has been able to (at least in part) have growing influence in the construction industry and broader parts of the working class. I cannot help but conclude that this is due, at least in part, to failures of the institutional left.

Before I begin, I’ll make a note about what I am talking about when discussing the institutional left, because I always get in trouble talking too broadly about the left. Here I’m specifically referring to those in powerful mainstream organisations – particularly in the ALP, elements of the Greens, unions, left-wing think tanks and progressive campaigning organisations.

The institutional bodies that make up much of media and public discourse associated with “the left”, alongside those who follow their messaging (particularly on Twitter). Of course, there are people in these groups who differ from the discourse I’ll discuss below, but I need to generalise somewhere.

There’s been a lot of debate about the Melbourne protests, and whether they are all far-right Nazis. It seems clear to me that there is a mix – genuine tradies with genuine issues and right-wing grifters who lactched on the the movement. But those two can be the same, with an influence of the right in the construction industry.

How is that possible? It is absolutely true that the far-right are often good at recruitment, and they spend a lot of time working on their recruitment tactics. But focusing entirely on this ignores another factor – why the right are having successes here, but not the left?

Tradies (the workers, not the bosses) should be a core constituency of the left. They have often horrendous working conditions, bosses who care more about money than safety, and they face low pay and lots of job insecurity.

It’s true of course that a constituency is not homogenous, and working class people have always been a mix of right and left-wing. But, I think part of the issue here is that the institutional left have basically abandoned this group, and the working class more generally.

In Australia, this started in the 70s and 80s, when Labor (both the party and the movement) were the key architects of neoliberalism. As document by Liz Humphrys the Accords cut conditions and have resulted in long-term wage stagnation. They also resulted in a strategy where union leaders focused more on being ‘at the table’ than being on the factory floor.

Just as importantly, the Accords, and subsequent legislation from both the ALP and Coalition, have made strikes extremely difficult (see this excellent article from Bruce Knobloch on this issue in the latest Green Agenda).

This has taken away a key means through which the working class have been able to express their discontent and to improve their pay and conditions. It has been a shocking loss, that has rarely been a focus on the left.

In addition to these structural changes, the institutional left has increasingly adopted what Jeff Sparrow has called a “smug politics”, one which increasingly looks down upon the working class.

As Sparrow argues “rather than treating working people as an agency for change or a constituency to be served, they publicly declared them a problem to be solved, and explained racism, sexism and other forms of bigotry as the consequence of the public’s lamentable ignorance.”

This politics is particularly based in paternalism – that we middle classes lefties need to paternalistically control the bad behaviours of the working classes. They cannot be trusted to live their lives or make risk-based decisions. We and technocratic experts need to do it for them.

Of course, conservatives do this too, and this is particularly prominent in welfare politics. Yet, parties like the ALP have lined up with this really strongly, taking a similarly paternalistic approach to welfare and the working class more generally.

This is particularly problematic when you combine with the ongoing failures of these institutions. Governments and mainstream have failed at increasing people’s wages and conditions and have cut their social welfare blanket, but then at the same time turn around and tell people how to live their lives. Of course much of the working class doesn’t trust them.

I think all of this has become much worse during COVID-19. As lockdowns have dragged on people have naturally become frustrated. As I said in this article in the Canberra Times, It is not surprising for example that these protests are happening in Melbourne – the city with the longest, and often harshest, lockdowns in the world.

However, when people get frustrated or complain, they are immediately told by those in the institutional that they simply want to kill grandma. A weird binary developed in the last where you were either for harsh lockdowns or 'let it rip'. There was nothing in between.

While there have been some really good campaigns to provide essential support for those struggling during lockdown, big chunks of the institutional left have focused most of their energy on how harsh things can be. Suffering has become a virtue, and freedom something easily given away.

Moreover, genuine concerns have been mocked. This whole thing started when tradies protested peacefully about the loss of tearooms – which is a major OH&S issue they were told they are having “man baby tantrums”.

Where is the empathy? Where is the solidarity?

Let’s ask a serious question, who would respond well to that? What person is going to turn around and say “yes, I am a man baby throwing a tantrum!” There is no actual theory of change here, just a rhetoric that pushes people further away.

One thing to note here that is particularly relevant to the construction industry is that there is a long history of over-policing there – particularly through the ABCC. This naturally would increase suspicion about regulations implemented quickly and without consultation, as well as the policing that has occurred. It further increases distrust in authority.

For any other protests this would have been taken into account – but in this case it is ignored. Instead, construction workers, who are often in insecure, lowly paid work were labelled as ‘privileged’. There was no solidarity at all.   

Of course, in saying all of this, the Coalition is just as bad. While they often try to direct their rhetoric toward the working class, their policies are abhorrent. They implemented the ABCC for example. They have failed during the lockdowns. But this is not about the Coalition.

This is why the far-right can be successful. What they are doing very well, at least in some segments, is tapping into genuine anger about long-term institutional failures and directed individuals toward far-right groups.

This is why COVID has been such a boon. After decades of failures from Governments and other institutions we have been told we must trust them blindly to implement some of the biggest social changes ever experienced. Of course some people are going to be suspicious of that, it is entirely natural.

Hence you get people who aren’t actually ideologically aligned to far right ideas joining these groups. This has been documented very clearly by Kimmel – who showed a lot of people join the far right first for the community, with ideological commitment following after.

I really worry that a similar trend could happen here. Much of the left has abandoned the working class, and this has gotten worse during COVID. Some stick around, but others will head in other directions.

When I think about how to counteract the far-right, I often think that the best way to counteract them is with something better – solidarity (as Hannah McCann says). The left is absolutely failing to do that. “You are throwing man-baby tantrums” just ain’t gonna cut it.