The two profound forces of the far right
Introduction
With each passing election, the rise of the far right and even its accession to power gives rise to fears of the weakening or even annihilation of democratic institutions in many countries: Brexit, the re-election of D. Trump, the scores of the parties concerned in Holland, Sweden, Germany, Italy and France. Yet to date, stakeholders (press, politicians etc.) have failed to oppose this threat with effective arguments likely to turn voters away from these mortifying choices.
The design of a political strategy and argument to counter this threat can only be based on an in-depth analysis and understanding of the driving forces behind these political successes.
Most of the commentaries in the press on this subject, as well as the analyses offered by politicians in the Republican arc, are based on the very conventional terrain of the search for material causes of voter dissatisfaction: wages, working conditions, standard of living, etc. This conventional understanding of voters' motivations is based on generations of post-war social interaction, but it is clearly now brutally contradicted by the facts. Kamala Harris promised to lower prices, but Trump will raise them with his import taxes, and has made no secret of it: yet he won the popular vote. Popular approval of Brexit has certainly fallen since the UK's near-ruin, but only marginally. The popularity of a repeatedly re-elected Orban is certainly not based on any improvement in living conditions. And Giorgia Melloni's election victory was never based on promises of better wages. On the whole, we can see that far-right election campaigns systematically play down the themes of income and living standards: their strategy is on a different level.
More generally, it seems remarkable that the far-right's successes are not essentially explained by the electorate's motivation for any political proposals. This extraordinary situation is particularly clear for Trump, whose electorate significantly disapproves of his flagship projects on immigration and import taxes, according to a recent poll1. Similarly, it is highly unlikely that the 47% of French voters who voted for Marine Le Pen in the presidential elections are really racist, homophobic or violently anti-European.
We must therefore look elsewhere for explanations for these sometimes dazzling successes: the German BSW2 party, which started from nothing and proposed only unworkable projects, took only a few months to reach levels that would allow it to enter the Chamber of Deputies!
With this in mind, this essay proposes to provide food for thought by identifying two deep-seated, yet generally unrecognized forces that most likely contributed to these successes, with a view to devising responses commensurate with the stakes involved.
First force: the tribal instinct
A preliminary remark
An exploration of the scientific literature reveals that the term “tribal instinct” is not used naturally. Instead, we find the terms “tribal bias” or “tribal instinct hypothesis ”, which tend to weaken the archaic aspect of this tendency to organize societies into affine groups. S. Freud described the psychic mechanisms presiding over the dominance of the unconscious within a crowd, and spoke of the free course given to drives, distinguishing drive from instinct by the role of the intellect in drives. So it's not trivial to position the tribal bias between drive and instinct. However, it is realistic to note that the behaviours induced by the tribal bias in mankind more or less reproduce certain gregarious animal behaviours, which makes reference to archaic mechanisms plausible and would feed the instinctive character of the tribal bias . This is why, for the sake of simplicity, we will refer to it here as the “tribal instinct”.
During his second election campaign, Trump gave a speech in Reno (Nevada) in which he mentioned that “we no longer have Rush Limbaugh3, but we do have Hannity4”. This use of “we” was striking for three reasons:
It explicitly evoked the ceremony of face-to-face television, an image of the traditional American family, united in the company of cat and dog on the family sofa typically planted in front of the TV set. This familiar image completely symbolizes security and tranquility.
It implied that two mutually exclusive categories exist: us, and the others. It's implied that these mysterious others are very different from us, and therefore much more dangerous than the comfortable family sofa.
It produces bonding by creating a sense of belonging to a kind of extended family: we are together adoring Trump, and this unites us almost as strongly as a real family would. We're a tribe.
In short, this simple phrase in the midst of a voluminous speech containing many others of the same intent, succeeds on its own in uniting the audience around a powerful sacerdotal moment whose objective is clear: to act powerfully on the tribal instinct.
These psychic manipulations during an election campaign should make us realize that this politician is very far from the caricatures we find everywhere: according to them, he is intellectually very diminished, suggestible and not very cultured. All this may be partly true, but the skill demonstrated here also makes us understand the breadth and depth of the calculations put into play by this cunning character and excellent manipulator of crowds, all approaches and characteristics found in many far-right leaders.
The use of tribal instinct is a classic of the far right, and can be found under the leadership of numerous political formations, past and present. A prime example is Hitler's party, the NSDAP , which used it to the point of caricature from the top to the bottom of the social ladder, even recruiting children into the Hitlerjugend. This recruitment was no accident: it became necessary precisely to maintain and reinforce the imprint of the tribal instinct in all circumstances in this fascist society.
The tribal instinct is also at work when populations deemed “different” are rejected, even though they are part of society. In this case, the tribe closes ranks around more selective markers (e.g., a low level of education) and rejects anything perceived as external: elites, democratic institutions, science, the media, vaccines. Here, however, the mechanism is different: the initial driving force is the social network, which encloses populations within homogeneous communities that effectively achieve this tightening, and extreme right-wingers then act as opportunists, taking up these themes as their own.
Tribal instinct at work can be recognized when :
populations are animalized or endowed with derogatory characteristics5 , or given racist nicknames6 ;
populations are equated with criminality7 ;
populations are claimed to be carriers of disease;
the need to “protect” the population;
the need to “re-establish border controls”, etc.
we trumpet the fact that “we're better”;
we claim that problems are due to an external cause (usually Europe) or to an external population;
we make it more difficult, or even abolish the basic rights of certain populations8 ;
the need to create “customs barriers” (taxes) against imports;
advocating inward-looking attitudes9 ;
rejecting and/or discriminating against weakened populations suffering from disease or infirmity10 ;
discrimination against minority populations11 ;
we assert the existence of “civilizational values” that we possess, and that others do not12 ;
we reject institutions, science and vaccines;
we designate a scapegoat from outside the community to blame for our “problems”.
A tangible example of the use of tribal instinct is the construction of concrete and metal walls separating the inside (us, the tribe) from the outside: the Mexican border of the USA, the wall between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
The use of the tribal instinct is powerful, and it's essential to be fully aware of it. The idea that we would be deprived of our tribe13 is deeply distressing; conversely, flattery towards our tribe is highly satisfying, soothing, even uplifting. It is because of this power that the tribal instinct is used in its various declensions throughout the speeches and writings of extreme right-wing formations and associated media, and the underlying aim of normalizing tribal thinking and trivializing segregation is very clear.
The use of tribal instinct applies to discrimination against women whenever a masculinist society pushes male pre-eminence to the point of reducing women to the condition of minority or weakened populations envisaged above.
Second force: the death drive
S. Freud identified the death drive as a destructive force, as opposed to the life drive as a creative force. He elaborated on this in , stating that “the death instinct seems to express itself - probably only in part - as an instinct of destruction directed against the external world.” In the present context of sociological and political bias, the concept of death drive will be used to denote unconscious forces tending towards violence, murder or the destruction of the existing, the “clean slate”. S. Freud observed that the death drive thus tends to reduce tensions, and it should be noted that the latter may have been generated by the tribal instinct: the two forces are thus potentiated.
The far right has always made extensive use of the death drive, more or less explicitly. The Nazis' SS brigades spring to mind, with their magnificent black uniforms and the skull and crossbones on their caps, betraying the genocide of the Jews they were also committing. But we should also mention the Soviet purges, the Maoism of the Cultural Revolution, the Pol Pot regime, the Hutus... All these regimes massacred entire populations in the name of an ideology. Nowadays, the Russian media talk every day about the urgent need to wipe Ukraine off the map in order to start again “clean”.
The prospect of destroying what is presented as a “problem” (Europe, for example, or the immigrants, or social insurance) is extremely seductive because it provides a solution, and this seduction is further reinforced by a positive presentation of this destruction. For example, Trump routinely presents the abolition of Obamacare as the great and “beautiful” solution to all social insurance problems.
Up to now and in our democratic societies the death drive is used by the far right only discreetly and implicitly. However, it does appear clearly in Trump's slogans: “Drain the Swamp”, from his 2016 campaign, in fact calls for the destruction of the state; “Make America Great Again” calls for the destruction of the existing in order to recreate a mythical past.
We recognize the death drive when :
it is proposed to leave institutions (Europe, the Euro) ;
it is proposed to get rid of the cause of a “problem”: immigrants, for example (or AIDS sufferers, etc.);
we animalize populations that we are going to massacre;
we propose to abolish social advantages presented as “unbearable”;
we positively describe the notion of sacrifice for a cause (homeland etc.);
positive descriptions of deadly situations such as war;
proposing the destruction of an institution, such as Radio France or the Public Broadcasting Service in the USA;
we propose to create additional difficulties in people's lives (administrative complications);
The death drive is often used in tandem with the tribal instinct: this skilful approach can be found in proposals such as destroying the media, the state etc., in which case one reinforces the other: the tribal instinct is summoned in order to destroy. The implementation of the death drive by the extreme right can thus be understood as the promise of a solution to the “problems” created by the tribal instinct. This back-and-forth pairing is a classic:
We call for the rejection of immigrant populations (tribal instinct) and propose their deportation and confinement in camps (death drive)14.
A scapegoat is designated (the Jews, for example) and then disposed of (Nazi extermination camps).
The anguish initially created by the application of tribal instinct is then resolved by deportation or massacre.
Conclusion and outlook
It should be noted, again, that the tools used by the far right are completely free of any tangible programmatic content. Nor are they tied to any specific geographical or historical situation. As such, they apply unchanged to all the parties concerned, be they Russian, Italian, French or American.
The framework provided here could easily be used to generate quite plausible extreme right-wing rhetoric: the power of the framework lies not in the complexity of the mechanisms at play, but in the fragility of the target, which is the unconscious.
Unfortunately, the democratic political world seems to be at a loss when it comes to constructing a theory and a thesaurus to deal with the situation. The democratic left, in particular, still remains on a causal terrain, with arguments and programmatic content that are certainly quite honourable in terms of democratic improvement, social justice, values of tolerance and inclusion, but all this remains weak compared to the forces brought into play by the extreme right. It's up to sociologists and political philosophers to get to grips with the current state of affairs and build sufficiently attractive tools to counter the threat.
1 Marquette Law School Poll : https://www.marquette.edu/news-center/2024/marquette-law-poll-national-survey-finds-trump-approval-at-recent-high-biden-approval-all-time-low.php
2 This party forked from « Die Linke » does not describe itself as far right, but shows all the corresponding features (pro-Poutin, anti-immigration, nationalism etc.) and demonstrates often complicity with the AfD.
3 Well-known ultra reactionary TV pundit in US television in the 1980-2020 period.
4 Well-known ultra reactionary TV pundit in today’s US television.
5 It was President Jacques Chirac who, in his speech on June 19, 1991, mentioned the "noise and smells", inconveniences caused, according to Chirac, by certain immigrants in France.
6 President Emmanuel Macron stated in 2023 that hospital emergency rooms are “full of Mamadous”.
7 President Nicolas Sarkozy's speech of July 30, 2010, for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic explicitly affirmed a link between delinquency and immigration.
8 For example, access to AME (state medical aid), the abolition of which has been loudly demanded for years by the right-wing LR and the RN.
9 "The earth does not lie." - Marshal Pétain.
10 It was Jean-Marie Le Pen who ostracized “AIDS sufferers,” but it was Trump who ridiculed the disabled several times in public.
11 Rejection of LGBTQ+ people in particular.
12 This is one of the great refrains of Russian propaganda.
13 This is the concept of the “great replacement”.
14 We recognize one of the major points of Trump's program.
Bibliography
VUG01: Mark Van Vugt, The Tribal Instinct Hypothesis, , https://www.professormarkvanvugt.com/images/files/TheTribalInstinctHypothesis.pdf
FRE01: Sigmund Freud, Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse, 1921, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30843
BEG01: Laurent Bègue-Shankland, Le biais tribal, 2022, https://www.cerveauetpsycho.fr/sd/psychologie-sociale/le-biais-tribal-23442.php
LEY01: Robert Ley, Organisationsbuch der NSDAP, 1936, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Organisationsbuch_der_NSDAP_%28IA_organisationsbuc00nati_0%29.pdf
FRE02: Sigmund Freud, Jenseits des Lustprinzips, 1921, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28220
FRE03: Sigmund Freud, Das Ich und das Es, 1923, http://psychanalyse.lu/Freud/FreudIchEs.pdf
LAU01: Monique Lauret, La pulsion de mort dans le champ du fanatisme idéologique, 2019, https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1066192ar