Rhetoric Against Liberal Democratic Values with James McAdams.

With a presidential campaign in the US just around the corner and populist and authoritarian thinkers gaining broader platforms, University of Notre Dame political scientist A. James McAdams shines a light on the terms being used today by the Far Right to undermine liberal democracy. How successful are these thinkers in changing public views? And how worried should we be about what they are doing? These are among the topics McAdams addresses in his conversation with RBI Director John Torpey.

McAdams’ most recent book (co-edited with Samuel Piccolo) is Far-Right Newspeak and the Future of Liberal Democracy (Routledge, 2024).

John Torpey 

Thinkers on the far right have in recent years appropriated the language of liberal democracy, but with the aim of superseding it. They’ve grown influential in certain circles. Are they a threat to democracy? Should we be worried about them? Welcome to International Horizons, a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly and diplomatic expertise to bear on our understanding of a wide range of international issues. My name is John Torpey, and I’m director of the Ralph Bunche Institute at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Today we discuss the role of far right thinkers in the contemporary political landscape, with Jim McAdams of the University of Notre Dame James McAdams. His full name is the William M. Scholl Professor of International Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. For 16 years, he was director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies there. He’s written widely on European affairs, especially on Central Europe, as well as on global communism. His books include Germany Divided; Judging the Past in Unified Germany and Vanguard of the Revolution: The Global Idea of the Communist Party published by Princeton University Press, first in 2017 and that book was named by Foreign Affairs is one of the best books of 2018. He’s recently published a volume on Contemporary Far-Right Thinkers and the Future of Liberal Democracy and will soon publish and edited volume, Far-Right Newspeak and the Future of Liberal Democracy with the political theorist Sam Piccolo of Gustavus Adolphus College. Thanks for being with us today Jim McAdams.

James McAdams 

My pleasure.

John Torpey 

Great to have you. So you’re about to publish this book on Far-Right Newspeak and the Future of Liberal Democracy, it seems to me certainly very much like a continuation of the work that you did in the previous book on contemporary far right thinkers. Can you tell us what you mean by far-right Newspeak, and who uses it?

James McAdams 

Sure thing, first of all, the book is out and I have it right here on my desk. So it’s available to everybody. The difference between the two books is that in the first we were shining a light on a major contemporary far right intellectuals who some of whom were known, or some of whom were understood well, and we tried to prepare them in a systematic way. This is the follow up to that project. In that we’re focusing on a substantive theme, which is the use and abuse of the language of liberalism and democracy in such a way that it’s propagators they undermine or hollow out Liberal Democracy. Far right is fake? Well, it is a reference to George Orwell but with a twist. What’s interesting, if you compare our use of Newspeak or right Newspeak and Orwell’s is that Orwell was concerned about the replacement of the old speak language of liberalism and democracy and those values with a Newspeak emphasis on dictatorial values. In contrast, the people we’re talking about, are using the language that Orwell was so determined to defend. They’re using the language of liberalism and democracy in ways that all of our contributors believe represent a serious threat.

John Torpey 

Okay. And I note that the book is coming out in a series that has the term fascism in it. And I have to say, I’m always kind of uncertain about the use of that term and what it means. I mean, I tend to be a, I guess, a purist of some sort, who thinks of fascism as a particular history, kind of unique historical event coming out in particular circumstances, the First World War and the clash, basically, of communism and fascism. So I wonder if you could talk about to what extent you see this contemporary far right Newspeak as coming out of a similar kind of contest or is it a backlash against what’s going on the left, and how you see that context.

James McAdams 

John, we completely agree about the nature of fascism, the full title of the series is Fascism and the Far Right and, like you, I understand fascism, or at least most of its manifestations, to be historically specific, particular to the period of the 1920s to the 1940s. Which is not to say that there weren’t fascist parties afterwards. But that we’re talking about something very different. And, in fact, anybody who looks at the thinkers that we cover in this book, will find that, at least in our view, none of them can be legitimately, should be legitimately called fascist and just to give you and others a sense of how I look at this, historically, and both of us are historically minded social scientists. Fascism emerged, at a time when liberal democracy was not well established in at all in which it was weak, and in which the defenders of liberal democratic ideas, values, institutions, were incapable of finding the support they needed to maintain their fledgling regimes, particularly in places like West Germany. The circumstance is very different today and this is why it’s so important not to have fallen to the temptation of describing these things. Because now there are other people that one could talk about it legitimately called fascist. But the people that we cover are, you know, after all, people who have grown up in societies in which liberal democracy is well established. It’s not, at least until recently, it has not been threatened in the way it currently is and so at least for the people we cover, it’s important to emphasize that they are a part of the world after World War Two. Now, what’s also interesting to recognize here, and I consider very important, is the fact that certainly there were fascist parties after World War Two, we can still find them. There were extremists of that ilk. And, you know, these people were around, are around, they use words like democratic. But until recently, they could not reach audiences. Whereas the people we’re calling far right, and it’s a tricky term, but the people we’re calling far right, are notable because they have reached very broad audiences using this language, the language of liberalism and democracy. And importantly, those are, those audiences are mainstream. And that’s where we see a very different threat. So mainstream audiences who vote, mainstream audiences who would normally never throw their support to people that in fact, are racist. People who are propagators of hateful politics based upon hatred. Normally, these audiences wouldn’t support them. So a good way of thinking about the contrast is, if you think about somebody like Alexander Dugin, for example, there, it’s clear there are many traits of toucans, thinking that are easy to call fascist. And in fact, Dugin argues that his goal is to create a truly Fash a truly fascist fascist, as if it weren’t realized before. But he’s very different from the people we look at people like Marine Le Pen, like Tucker Carlson, like Jordan Peterson, like Peter Thiel. These people are not appropriately called fascists, I think.

John Torpey 

Right. Well, I’m glad you mentioned Tucker Carlson, because I know we’re both interested in Europe and Alexander Dugin is familiar, certainly to people who pay attention to Russia, but maybe not so well known here. But maybe you could talk about a little bit about Tucker Carlson and his use of this newspeak and who was he appealing to successfully? And, you know, that kind of thing?

James McAdams 

Yes. Well, I mean, it’s great contrast with Dugin because, you know, Dugin interest intellectuals, but otherwise, people don’t listen to him at all. Hundreds of millions of people are interested in Tucker Carlson, he has tremendous weight in American politics. He uses fascist tropes, on occasion, like the great replacement theory, he deliberately and consciously interviews, fascists like  whom he does not tell his audience that these people endorse slavery, for example. But Tucker Carlson is primarily a person and an opportunist, who uses the language of liberalism, to reach audiences who are for a variety of reasons, agreed. So Tucker Carlson will say, I am completely for equality and I believe that everybody should be equal in the United States, everybody should have equal rights. And it’s fine, that we’re paying attention to people of color, and other minorities, to guarantee that they have equal rights. But then Tucker Carlson will say, because I believe in equality, what about white rights? What about white people? Aren’t majorities equally? Shouldn’t they equally be guaranteed the right to equality? And it’s a fascinating position, because it is essentially subversive. Because what Carlson does not talk about is the fact that the people in the majority have the power and they have the ability to define agendas, that people without power do not have. And that’s why we have programs like Affirmative Action, for example, which Carlson would, has certainly criticized, all diversity and inclusion programs he’s certainly criticized. But again, let’s get back to the idea of the appeal. So, when Tucker Carlson  to his audience, don’t fight people have rights to, shouldn’t everybody be created, treated equally. What he’s doing is he’s tapping into a constellation of liberal values, and all the contradictions within those values, in a way that appeals to mainstream audiences. Because one can imagine many Caucasians who are unemployed or underemployed, or having a job, hard time getting the job that they feel they deserve well can immediately imagine these people saying, well, yeah, I have rights. I have the right to equality, too. So why are all these other people being treated equally? And I’m not. And that’s Tucker Carlson’s power, but it is a language again, far right news, big concept, that Sam and I have coined far right Newspeak. It is a way of using liberal language to undermine the values that undergird liberal democracy.

John Torpey 

I mean, one of the things that I’ve been struck by and that you address a little bit, at least in the in the introduction to the book goes beyond these issues of Newspeak to… I mean, Tucker Carlson is following in many ways, Viktor Orban, or at least many people have made that argument, the Carlson’s made a pilgrimage to Budapest, etc, etc. So, but one of the ways in which a lot of this seems to me to be playing out as a kind of global culture war. I mean, you talk about, those who kind of defend or promote traditional values, the return of the church, the promotion of the family, those kinds of ideas as against what, say somebody like Dugan sees as the destruction really in a way of the human personality that is a product of liberal individualism, right. And so I wonder, whether you could talk a little bit about that, and is that correct kind of diagnosis or for whom is that a correct diagnosis?

James McAdams 

Well, I think it’s a correct diagnosis. Certainly that’s the case. I think it’s important to emphasize, we’re talking about people like Carlson and Orban is that these people are opportunists. And they’re global, you know, in Orban’s case is to maintain increase his power and in Tucker Carlson’s case it is to massage his ego and to make tremendous amounts of money. And so it’s not so much that we have a cultural war in which both sides have declared war on each other, as it is a case in which policies have been implemented based upon values to address historical injustices and people like Carlson and Orban have swooped in, to go to war, in fact, with these positions, and they’re very, very effective as opportunists. But I think there’s a lot of shallowness to their claims. After, after all, nobody in the left is saying, Well, we’re opposed to families. Nobody on the left is saying we’re opposed to traditional values or to all traditional values. But so it’s for the right, that’s declared war. On the left, and I think grotesquely exaggerated the issues, I mean, if you take a permit of action, for example, the right portrays it as this massive injustice inflicted upon white people. And that’s just not the case. It is simply an attempt to address historical and justices. So the opportunism is huge here. In Orban, it’s very interesting and, and quite cynical. Orban talks a lot about the importance of the family, and that, you know, traditional values, and so he’s attracted a lot of fans from the West. But at the same time, Hungary has very liberal abortion laws and Orban certainly is in the position has the power to go out and change the laws. He’s great manipulator of the words in the Constitution, but he doesn’t talk about it.

John Torpey 

Right. Well, these people are not always consistent. Let’s put it that way.

James McAdams 

No, they’re not.

John Torpey 

And then, as you said, for cynical reasons, perhaps. But…

James McAdams 

Yes. the people that we focus on not maybe all of them, but almost all of them are quite cynical. Although, you know, this is a scholarly publication. And our articles are written by scholars. And I think it’s important to emphasize that we take everybody we read, we read everything. I’ve read enormous amounts of George, Jordan Peterson’s work, I’ve read his books, which is an ordeal. I’ve listened to his videos, I’ve done the same thing with Tucker Carlson. There’s one chapter in the book in which one of our colleagues examines the feminist perspectives of Marine LePen. And so this is this is scholarship, we’re not out to indict anybody or condemn anybody. We’re simply interested in how does their manipulation of language affect liberal democracy and does it threaten liberal democratic norms and institutions, in one way or another we’re all convinced that it does.

John Torpey 

 Yeah, clearly the book is concerned about our future and it’s self consciously a kind of defense or an attempt to promote the defense of liberal democracy. And one of the things that you get into at least in sort of limited sort of way is the question of violence. And it seems to me historically, fascism obviously had a lot to do with violence, the use of political violence. So I like to ask you to talk a little bit about your assessment of what’s going on particularly in the United States, but problems of political violence have been cropping up elsewhere, not least in Germany. So I wonder…I think this is a question you ask in the book, How worried should we be?

James McAdams 

I think we should be very worried about the future of liberal democracy. And I’ll say something about that in a minute. But most of the people they’re covered in our book couldn’t be accurately described as advocating violence, it would be more appropriate to say that they are laying the ground, the ideational grounds, if you will, for people who, who are very much interested in committing violence. And so what we’re talking about here is a recrafting, of the language of liberalism and democracy in such a way that it can be tapped into, for just about any systemic attacks on on the system that one can imagine. And, you know, it goes without saying that Donald Trump is much taken by this language, he argues that he’s the real Democrat and Joe Biden isn’t the real defender of democracy. But of course, Donald Trump has clearly played a major role in inciting violence, with his language. And also nowadays, pretty much laying the foundations for it’s the grounds for its legitimation. So if you look at the way that January 6 is now described by him, and many Republicans, it says if it were, you know, some noble patriots who simply walked into the Capitol, and, you know, in good patriotic fashion, defended American democracy, by standing up to a, you know, a vote on an illegitimate election. So we can see there how that the language can spill over in ways that make liberal democracy. Well, that we can liberal democracy, and potentially Bratton, you and I know as historically minded sociologists that there’s no guarantee that liberal democracy will be with us forever. In fact, historically speaking, we know it won’t be. So the question now is simply how long does it last? What kind of staying power does it have? And, you know, in our book, one of the major themes that we emphasize is that institutions are not enough, that democratic institutions need to be infused with liberal values, and liberal attitudes, or they can be easily undermined.

John Torpey 

I mean, I guess, let me try this on you. Since we’ve raised the Trump issue. It seems to me that what Donald Trump has done above all is to assert a kind of notion of homo economicus, is the only kind of human being that really is around that everybody basically has an angle. And there’s no sense of the greater good or the common good that those are for suckers and losers. And what he’s done is to destabilize people’s belief in these institutions, which I certainly agree with you are crucial to maintaining this way of life called liberal democracy. About that, and a common is that are not common to I mean, in some ways, I think it’s unlikely to be very common to various European populations at least,that this is not something most people not the way most people would think about the world. But in the United States, he succeeded in destabilizing people’s belief in a common a common…

James McAdams 

Well, that’s absolutely right. I mean, it is the case that in my view, and from my experience traveling to Europe regularly, things look much higher, in fact, much worse here in the United States than in in Europe. Which is not to say that everything’s great in Europe, because it’s not. I think, what you’re describing, the case of Trump, is cynical manipulation of public institutions to serve, you know, his private purposes, its cynicism and opportunism. And the other thing that I’d add here is simply that, you know, it isn’t simply one individual, or a group of particularly dangerous individuals. But it also reflects what has happened with liberal democratic institutions in recent years. So if parties, if politicians are bought out, because it’s the only opportunity, money is the only opportunity that they have to get reelected, then they’re easily manipulable. And we see this particularly now. I have my concerns about the left. But I think, particularly now on the right, that, you know, cynicism has been turned into a virtue. And many people, many Republicans, who would, under normal circumstances in this country be much more moderate, much more reasonable, I feel that they have no choice, but to take the stance that they do. And so amidst this climate of cynicism, we can see why this far right newspeak work today, and couldn’t have worked in the past. I mean, if you took, you know, a far right extremist view of people like David Duke, in the past, and he used this language, everybody would still say his racist. But today, if you use language, which is in fact racist, millions of people say, well, that’s not racist at all. That language is about equality, it’s about defending fundamental liberties and so we’re going to vote for it. And so, here you see this kind of, you know, incestuous relationship, developing between the desire to gain and maintain political power on the one hand, and the corruption and abuse of language.

John Torpey 

Well, thanks for that uplifting conclusion.

James McAdams 

I tell my students, it’s also important to be hopeful. Yes. You know, I think I mean, we live in a world in which it’s easy, easy to follow, falsify false optimism. And it’s easy, you know, to be pessimistic, because after all, all things end on the other hand, if we emphasize hope, then we can motivate people, particularly the younger students that you and I teach, to go out and defend our values.

John Torpey 

And I think the book is helpful in understanding the ways in which the path as I think you said is plowed towards real problems down the road. So, so thanks for taking the time to talk to us today.

James McAdams 

Great pleasure

John Torpey 

I want to thank Jim McAdams for sharing his insights about far right Newspeak in the contemporary political landscape. I want to thank Oswaldo Mena Aguilar for his technical assistance and to acknowledge Duncan Mackay for sharing his song International Horizons as the theme music for the show. This is John Torpey, saying, thanks for joining us. We look forward to having you with us for the next episode of International Horizons.