Privileged Populists: Populism in the Conservative and Libertarian Working Class

Description

Counter-revolution has long been a tool of propagandists to redirect populist movements from achieving actual liberation for themselves. But what happens when counter-revolutionaries begin to believe their own claims of genuine revolution? What leads to such a phenomenon? And how big a role does mainstream political ideology and policy play in the mass ignorance and revisionism that has now allowed nationalism to influence national elections? Privileged Populists sets out to answer these questions while aiming to understand the organic emergence of anti-political populism within the context of late-stage capitalism in the West. This book analyses how these elements inform and validate each other as means of appealing to the growing sense of cultural angst and economic unrest within the conservative working class—and unwittingly giving undue credence to some of the most extreme right-wing ideological claims in the process. What results is a journey through the history of revolutionary thought (and how that history has been distorted over time), as well as an anthropological investigation of populism itself as a naturally occurring logic within groups—and how it can be exploited in the absence of substantive mainstream solutions to present-day economic crises. Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Figures Preface Introduction: Of Realizations and Distortions Part I: Populism in Theory and Practice: (Theoretical Frameworks) Chapter 1: Who Are the Privileged Populists? The Movements of Interest Right-Libertarianism Paleo-Conservatism The Alt-Light (“Red-Pilled” Conservatism) Chapter 2: Populist Logic and Anti-Politics Populist Rationale Spectrum Theory’s Competition The Populist Rationale Spectrum in Summary PRS Theory’s Promise for Better Visualization Evidence of PRS Theory’s Veracity Limited, Yet Specific Working-Class Support Made the Difference in 2016 Chapter 3: The Manufactured Antagonist Chapter 4: When Populism Meets Ideology Part II: Inducing an Organic False Consciousness: (Historical Contexts) Chapter 5: From Radical to Classical to Neo: The Great Liberal Distortion Chapter 6: The Original Libertarianism versus Right-Libertarianism Chapter 7: Selfishness: Making Noble a Sinister Concept Chapter 8: Systemic Deadfalls Part III: How Privileged Populism Prevails: (Modern Analyses) Chapter 9: When Ideology Meets Reality Chapter 10: Ignorance as Intellectualism: Confirmation Bias in the Lecture Hall Chapter 11: New Spins on Old, Misguided Hatreds Conclusion: Redirecting the Revolutionary Urge Revolutionary Rightists Are Largely Unwitting Players in a Larger Hegemonic Game Many Revolutionaries on the Right Have Legitimate Initial Class-Based Grievances Liberalism Is a Narrowed, Elitist, Multi-Stage Distortion of Its Former Self Modern Right-Wing Revolutionary Sentiment Shares Common Ancestry with Socialism Acknowledgments Notes Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Conclusion Bibliography About the Author Index