Upper Right
Right-Wing Populism as a Class Project
Upper Right / Oben rechts
Right-Wing Populism as a Class Project
On right-wing populism as a political project orchestrated by a specific economic class
When Trump was elected president the first time around, a Richard Rorty quote from 1998 went viral. If the cultural left continued ignoring issues of material relevance, argued the noted philosopher, »something will crack«. Poorer voters would look for a strongman, and a return to Sadism seemed to be looming on the horizon. As prophetic as this prognosis was, the focus on the »woke« left and the »losers« of liberalism in the debates over Trump and his allies have produced a blind spot. If we...
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When Trump was elected president the first time around, a Richard Rorty quote from 1998 went viral. If the cultural left continued ignoring issues of material relevance, argued the noted philosopher, »something will crack«. Poorer voters would look for a strongman, and a return to Sadism seemed to be looming on the horizon. As prophetic as this prognosis was, the focus on the »woke« left and the »losers« of liberalism in the debates over Trump and his allies have produced a blind spot. If we assume that politicians like Trump also vote for their own ilk, we begin to get a glimpse of another »class faction«: conservative men who run their own companies. This milieu has not only produced predecessors like Berlusconi, but also many of their supporters.
The essays in this volume take a closer look at this group. Who do the members of the classical petite bourgeoisie vote for? How have their networks laid the foundations for this »vibe shift«? And why is this faction only now becoming the focus of attention since Elon Musk entered the political arena?
The essays in this volume take a closer look at this group. Who do the members of the classical petite bourgeoisie vote for? How have their networks laid the foundations for this »vibe shift«? And why is this faction only now becoming the focus of attention since Elon Musk entered the political arena?
2025, 160 pages
Persons
Thomas Biebricher
Author
Thomas Biebricher, born in 1974, is Heisenberg Professor of Political Theory, History of Ideas and Economic Theory at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. In 2018, his study Geistig-moralische Wende. Die Erschöpfung des deutschen Konservatismus caused a sensation.
Thomas Biebricher
Author
Thomas Biebricher, born in 1974, is Heisenberg Professor of Political Theory, History of Ideas and Economic Theory at the Goethe University in...
© Heike Steinweg
Lukas Haffert
Author
Lukas Haffert was born in 1988 and is an associate professor of comparative politics and political economy at the University of Geneva. For his research work, he has received both the German Thesis Award from the Körber Foundation and the Otto Hahn Medal from the Max Planck Society.
Lukas Haffert
Author
Lukas Haffert was born in 1988 and is an associate professor of comparative politics and political economy at the University of Geneva. For his...
Anton Jäger
Author
Anton Jäger was born in 1994 and is a Belgian historian whose work focuses primarily on the history of economic thought. He completed his PhD at Cambridge in 2020 and is currently a postdoc research fellow at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Jäger writes for publications such as the New Left Review and Jacobin.
Anton Jäger
Author
Anton Jäger was born in 1994 and is a Belgian historian whose work focuses primarily on the history of economic thought. He completed his PhD at...
Dieter Plehwe
Author
Dieter Plehwe was born in 1963 and is a research fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, where he is part of the »Globalisation, Labour, and Production« research group. His research focuses include the history and sociology of neoliberalism. In 2022, he co-edited Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, The Road from Mont Pèlerin, and Neoliberal Hegemony: A Global Critique, which was published by Princeton University Press.
Dieter Plehwe
Author
Dieter Plehwe was born in 1963 and is a research fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, where he is part of the »Globalisation, Labour, and...
Moira Weigel
Author
Moira Weigel was born in 1984 and is an assistant professor of comparative literature at Harvard University. Her most recent publications are Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating (2016) and (together with Ben Tarnoff) Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do - and How They Do It (2020), both with Farrar, Straus and Giroux. In 2016, her essay "Political correctness: how the right invented a phantom enemy" was published in The Guardian.
Moira Weigel
Author
Moira Weigel was born in 1984 and is an assistant professor of comparative literature at Harvard University. Her most recent publications...
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
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Year of Publication: 2023
Thomas BiebricherYear of Publication: 2023
Centre/Right
»Everything must change for everything to remain the same.« The famous quote from the novel The Leopard is somewhat of an unofficial motto of moderate conservatism. Parties like the CDU came to terms with change and proved to be anchors of stability. Today, it is no longer certain that the centre-right will hold: Do its representatives continue to rely on balance...