Publications and analyzes are multiplying, between the political dispute and the academic approach to the phenomenon, not always clear, of what qualifies as “populism”, especially in its relationship with the rise of extreme right or radical right movements in Europe and the Americas. A few years ago, there was similar agitation, although with less intensity, regarding the arrival in the sphere of power, or on its margins, of extreme left parties (with different configurations in Greece, Portugal or Spain).
Most analysts agree on the diffuse nature of the phenomenon, which can cover different realities, movements and proposals, but are quick to identify the political formations that embody it in each national situation, even if they do not always coincide in identifying the motivations of their supporters, finding them to be lacking in coherence.
However, the electorate of the majority of parties, so-called “populist” or “radical”, in the present, as in the past, is characterized by an oscillation between the experience of a reality that presents itself as hostile, whether in terms of economic vulnerability, the perception of social decline or threat to what are understood as cultural identity “values”, in different combinations, and the evident escapism of the solutions that are presented as clear and evident for overcoming these problems.
There are those who highlight the “emotional” nature of adherence to populist proposals as if it were not the result of a reaction to a concrete reality, experienced as threatening. The option for a “radical” vote is considered as something in the realm of the irrational, when what is at stake is the desire to believe in the possibility of resolving as quickly as possible the pressing problems of a daily life that cause anxiety: precarious employment, the transformation of the neighborhood, the lack of functional public health services, the loss of stable identity references, delays in the judicial system. When what is at stake is the escape from a “hyper-reality”, not exactly in the sense given to it by Baudrillard or Benjamin, but in the sense of the intensification of a daily life lived in suffering, that is, the opposite of any simulacrum. This escape, in an escapist drift, is what ends up believing in an alternative, fictional, falsely utopian reality, where there is hope in a “better world”, with less effort, projected for a future that is desired immediately.
All party formations that intend to come to Power, in one way or another, promise a better future for as many individuals as possible in search of their membership. In this respect, everyone is “populist”. The difference is that the new proposals eliminate any complexity in the solutions and promise to escape the hostile reality, immediately, creating unrealistic expectations, that is, a simulacrum of reality.
Basic Education Teacher.
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