Latin America: Why is Far-Right Winning Working Class Support?

This past week, the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research launched its Dossier #79 entitled “To confront rising neofascism, the Latin American Left must rediscover itself”. In this article, we summarize the most important ideas of this document.

The dossier seeks to analyze “the advance of neoliberalism and its impact on the material conditions of the working class across the continent, and examine the ideological and cultural mechanisms of this economic model, which convinces a significant part of the working class to support a project in which they are the primary victims.” (emphasis added)

What is neofascism?

The seemingly strange connection between the right and the popular classes managed to materialize on a massive scale thanks to the upsurge of neoliberalism in the 21st century, characterized by a more radical and populist approach that the Tricontinental document defines as “neofascism”. This, they define, is “a new political, economic and cultural movement” based on several factors: the successful implantation of a neoliberal ideology (thanks to a frustrated middle class); the anti-intellectualism of the elites that rejects reason and science in favor of an apparent naturalized common sense; the production of a punitive, militaristic, racist and misogynist national identity, shaped by “good citizens” who share simple explanations of complex social processes; and the re-articulation of an anti-communist ideology supported by religious fundamentalism.

The emergence of so-called neofascism was only possible through the intentional paralyzation of left-wing social forces. This has been achieved through the elimination of a future horizon for workers that neoliberalism is not interested in forging and progressivism is not capable of elaborating.

The (almost) withering attack on the first wave of progressive governments

The document differentiates the first wave of progressive governments from the second. The first sought regional integration of the different countries, the search for popular sovereignty in defiance even of US imperialism, etc. The second wave of progressive governments, due to the current political conditions, is more fragile on these issues and is no longer capable of repeating in the same way the economic and political recipes that the first wave developed. According to the document, this weakness is expressed by the strengthening of the regional extreme right, the uberization of labor markets, the destruction of social welfare policies, the growth of US military power, and the US economic reconquest of the Latin American market.

The offensive of the alliance formed by the national ruling classes, international capital, and US governments, came hand in hand with coups d’état or political processes that weakened the governments of the first progressive wave in the region: Manuel Zelaya in Honduras (2009), Fernando Lugo in Paraguay (2012), Dilma Rousseff in Brazil (2016), Evo Morales in Bolivia (2019), imprisonment of Lula in Brazil (2018), persecution and assassination attempt against Cristina Fernandez in Argentina (2022), etc.

It is true that in each country there were local peculiarities, but in general terms, we can see a regional strategy of political-ideological offensive that sought, subsequently, a radicalization of the neoliberal processes: “The broad reorganization of the Latin American right featured many common techniques, such as a combination of legal and illegal means, and the centrality of the battle of ideas – or ‘culture war’ – within its political strategy.”

In short, the offensive was devastating for progressivism. It forced it to moderate a good part of its discourse in a defensive manner and to “manage neoliberal policies, instead of building a broad leftist project”. A good example of this is the so-called “war on drugs”, a project promoted mainly by US security agencies, to which Latin American progressivism has failed to offer an alternative.

Progressivism has more or less complied with all the strategies proposed by the United States in this regard. Indeed, one of the great weaknesses of this political tendency is citizen security, which has been used by certain politicians such as Bukele in El Salvador and Noboa in Ecuador to become more popular through a militaristic discourse. “While the right has an authoritative and punitive position on public safety and against drug trafficking, progressive parties have become hostages of electoral messaging, going along with the right’s discourse of incarceration and severe punishment because it is increasingly popular with voters” states the document.

The progressive forces have not been able to create new forms of collective organization in the face of the latest political, ideological, and media strategies of the new right wing. Even when they once again reach the government of a country, they are mostly seen as governments acting on the defensive: “The transition from a neoliberal or neofascist to a progressive government capable of advancing structural transformation is not possible without a broad base of working-class support. At this time, the conjuncture does not favor broad structural transformation. For that reason, progressive electoral projects have had a difficult time building strong popular support for their limited programs. The difficulty of building a political project of the left that can overcome the day-to-day problems of working-class existence has unmoored many of these progressive electoral projects from mass needs. This condition of being unmoored has led sections of the working class and peasantry to seek refuge under the banner of neofascism.”

Who are the most affected by neoliberal policies?

However, the main victims of these policies have always been the poorest, especially Black people, women, and LGBTQI people. In addition, workers have been deeply affected by neoliberal policies, not only economically but also in terms of their consciousness.

These policies have promoted the idea that workers can be their bosses, have greater benefits if they work on their own, have greater labor flexibility, have higher incomes, and generate an inheritance for their children. In other words, an ideological notion has been articulated in which workers lose their class consciousness as exploited workers and begin to see themselves, in a mystified way, as “entrepreneurs/bosses”, who no longer see any sense in defending labor rights if they, at some point, will be the new bosses of the companies. This generates a deep fragmentation in the working class.

Neo-fascist ideology and its media coordination

However, despite its apparent absolute pragmatism, neoliberalism is antagonistic to the vital needs of workers, generating a state of mass discontent and anguish that leads to psychological illnesses and the increased use of drugs to counteract these ills.

This is so because neoliberalism promotes, according to its ideal of the successful man, an exacerbated individualism, the stark competition among its members at the expense of leisure and culture: “Under neoliberalism, the ideas of the corporate world are imposed on all spheres of life, shaping individuals’ subjectivity. Life is now structured around the parameters of the private realm, emphasizing individualism, consumption, and the market as the primary characteristics of human relations.”

This ideological restructuring was possible thanks to the history of Latin American states, which have shown over the centuries to be incapable of benefiting the majority of the population. Neoliberalism was able to successfully take advantage of this historical distrust of states and government to generalize its anti-statist vision of a future society.

One of the fundamental aspects revealed by the document is the media coordination that has been organized and disseminated for the promotion of neofascism. For example, Silicon Valley promotes the mass dissemination of certain ideological content, and enhances surveillance capabilities on citizens, while building models of study of “users” based on their behaviors.

Moreover, the neo-fascist forces, the Tricontinental dossier states, are organized through think tanks, financed by similar organizations in the United States and Spain. This funding is intended to fragment the working class, diminish class struggle, and create social consensus among people who consume content, primarily from social networks: “In this sphere, where the business model favors a discourse of hate, social media content largely reinforces a neoliberal ideology, making use of religious fundamentalism, the theology of prosperity, and punitive. Social media is a key battleground in a culture war spurred on by neofascism and a site for efforts to bring together diverse neofascist groups from across the world. This culture war is not the spontaneous outcome of resentment and outrage from neoliberalism’s victims: it is organized, centralized, and extremely well-funded.”

Furthermore, neoliberalism has been very skillful in creating an anti-communist tendency through the exacerbation of religious fundamentalism. As Goebbels thought, it successfully creates the image of a common declared enemy: communism. And although progressive governments have nothing communist about them, any political process that does not fit within the neoliberal framework is called “communist”. This allows for simplifying politics and its diversity. This is so much so that any political tendency that wants to guarantee the role of the State in defense of rights is simply labeled as “communist”, even though a left-liberal is far from communist.

In addition, religious fundamentalism is used to combat the enemies of neoliberalism. Although this strategy is not new in Latin America, today religious values are promoted against sexual and reproductive rights through a discursive war, which has an enormous impact on people and provokes much sympathy in favor of conservative discourses. “Any questioning of this limited way of existing in the world is framed as ‘gender ideology’, provoking moral panic. Neofascists attack, condemn, and criticize as abnormal diverse models of the family. These actors promote a discourse of hate and call on society to rectify what they consider to be deviant attitudes, resulting in escalating violence against the LGBTQIA+ population.”

Forging a new alternative for the future

According to the document, what all the anti-neoliberal forces should do is reconnect the politics of the left and progressivism with the needs, pains, and desires of the poorest, especially through popular organizations in the streets and neighborhoods. In this regard, the coordinator of the Tricontinental office in Brazil, Miguel Stédile, warns that “to confront the monsters of fascism, the left needs to rediscover itself. In the face of today’s structural problems – the climate catastrophe, the migration catastrophe, and armed conflicts – the left must dare to propose equally structural solutions. Moderation and crisis management […] is not enough to make real changes.”

Finally, the Tricontinental document concludes that “Defeating the right will not be an easy task, nor will it be confined to the electoral sphere. The actions of organized social movements, whose collective values of solidarity oppose neoliberal ideology, and of governments that prioritize the strengthening of rights and policies that advance the people’s well-being, are critical to winning this struggle.”