Sanders writes on rise of demagogues
At a time of massive wealth inequality, nations must build on our common humanity and do everything to oppose forces who try to divide us up and set us against each other
There is a global struggle taking place of enormous consequence. Nothing less than the future of the planet — economically, socially and environmentally — is at stake.
At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, when the world’s top 1 per cent now owns more wealth than the bottom 99 per cent, we are seeing the rise of a new authoritarian axis.
While these regimes may differ in some respects, they share key attributes: antagonism toward a free press, intolerance toward ethnic and religious minorities, and a belief that government should benefit their own selfish financial interests. It should be clear by now that US President Donald Trump and the right-wing movement that supports him is not a phenomenon unique to the United States. All around the world, in Europe, in Russia, in Asia and elsewhere we are seeing movements led by demagogues who exploit people’s fears, prejudices and grievances to achieve and hold on to power.
It’s also hard to imagine, for instance, that Israel’s Netanyahu government would have moved to pass the recent “nation state law”, which essentially codifies the secondclass status of Israel’s non-Jewish citizens, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t know Trump would have his back.
We must understand that these authoritarians are part of a common front. They are in close contact with each other, share tactics and, as in the case of European and American right-wing movements, even share some of the same funders. The Mercer family, for example, supporters of the infamous Cambridge Analytica, have been key backers of Trump and of Breitbart News, which operates in Europe, the United States and Israel to advance the same antiimmigrant, anti-Muslim agenda. Republican mega donor Sheldon Adelson gives generously to right-wing causes in both the United States and Israel, promoting a shared agenda of intolerance and illiberalism in both countries.
The truth is, however, that to effectively oppose right-wing authoritarianism, we cannot simply go back to the failed status quo of the last several decades. Today in the United States, and in many other parts of the world, people are working longer hours for stagnating wages, and worry that their children will have a lower standard of living than they do.
Our job is to fight for a future in which new technology and innovation works to benefit all people, not just a few. It is not acceptable that the top 1 per cent of the world’s population owns half the planet’s wealth, while the bottom 70 per cent of the working age population accounts for just 2.7 per cent of global wealth.
It is not acceptable that the fossil fuel industry continues to make huge profits while their carbon emissions destroy the planet for our children and grandchildren.
It is not acceptable that a handful of multinational media giants, owned by a small number of billionaires, largely control the flow of information on the planet.
It is not acceptable that trade policies that benefit large multinational corporations and encourage a race to the bottom hurt working people throughout the world as they are written out of public view.
Progressive movement needed
It is not acceptable that, with the cold war long behind us, countries around the world spend over $1 trillion (Dh3.67 trillion) a year on weapons of destruction, while millions of children die of easily treatable diseases.
In order to effectively combat the rise of the international authoritarian axis, we need an international progressive movement that mobilises behind a vision of shared prosperity, security and dignity for all people, and that addresses the massive global inequality that exists, not only in wealth but in political power.
Such a movement must be willing to think creatively and boldly about the world that we would like to see. While the authoritarian axis is committed to tearing down a post-Second World War global order that they see as limiting their access to power and wealth, it is not enough for us to simply defend that order as it exists now.
We must look honestly at how that order has failed to deliver on many of its promises, and how authoritarians have adeptly exploited those failures in order to build support for their agenda. We must take the opportunity to reconceptualise a genuinely progressive global order based on human solidarity, an order that recognises that every person on this planet shares a common humanity, that we all want our children to grow up healthy, to have a good education, have decent jobs, drink clean water, breathe clean air and live in peace.
Our job is to reach out to those in every corner of the world who share these values, and who are fighting for a better world.
In a time of exploding wealth and technology, we have the potential to create a decent life for all people. Our job is to build on our common humanity and do everything that we can to oppose all of the forces, who try to divide us up and set us against each other. We know that those forces work together across borders. We must do the same. ■ Bernie Sanders is a US Senator from Vermont. He was among the 2016 Democratic nominations for President of the United States.