Disruptive norm-breakers: why do people vote for them?
Why vote "democratically" for parties that may be "threats to democracy"?
How can we explain the electoral successes of right-wing populist parties and leaders?
First, a note to readers. I’m pleased that Politics Happens is read by people from left, right and centre, and that comments have been robust and respectful. In this post, I’ll rehearse some ideas without endorsing them. It’s in the spirit of theoretical investigation, rather than advocating for one side and/or denouncing the other.
When political competition or conflict gets intense, a supporter of one side will refrain from agreeing or cooperating with those on the other, even when they have a valid case, and the same person will feel compelled to defend their own side, even when they’re wrong. Breaking ranks gets a person punished by their own camp, and so it doesn’t pay to try to understand opponents. Loyalty trumps truth-telling. Broadcast and social media make things worse, as conflict attracts audiences, and journalists can’t help revealing their own biases. Indeed, media organisations profit from producing outrage. What gets lost in the scrum are the opportunities for finding common ground and making progress.
Was Donald Trump an apprentice of Silvio Berlusconi?.
Lately, quite a few political careers have taken flight in spite of – or because of – open breaches of accepted norms of democratic, political and personal conduct. US President Donald Trump, whose private life had already been scandalous, and who doesn’t sugarcoat his words, is the exemplar. Trump refused to accept defeat in the 2020 election and sought to retain office with false claims about fraud, but unsuccessfully. He was impeached twice during his first term and later convicted of falsifying business records, and yet returned to office in 2025. Now he’s placing constitutional norms under severe pressure, for example by threatening to ignore judicial decisions against his orders.
Long before Trump entered politics, Italy’s former prime minister the late Silvio Berlusconi exploited his advantage as a media tycoon, kept up an extramarital sex life and never apologised for off-colour remarks. He went so far as to change Italian law in order to get off charges of false accounting. He was initially convicted for paying an underage woman for sex, and for abusing his powers to try to cover it up, but then got acquitted on appeal.
Such disruptive leaders breach norms to do with transparency, avoidance of conflicts of interests and respect for separation of powers, and they do so in cavalier style. Argentina’s Javier Milei wielding a chainsaw is classic. They can be politically successful, if evaluated in terms of gaining and regaining office. Trump won two terms in the White House; Berlusconi served nine years in total as prime minister. The most prominent examples of this kind of leader are male, but some Congresswomen follow in Trump’s footsteps, and don’t underestimate France’s Marine Le Pen. Other authoritarian or “illiberal” leaders have emerged through systems of representative government elsewhere, for example Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and India’s Narendra Modi.
In addition to these leaders, there are political parties on the right that are said to be “extremist” or “threats to democracy” – especially in Germany where the matter is most sensitive – and yet they’re thriving in democratic elections. These parties are often deemed “pariahs”, meaning that no “normal” party should work with them in government – that is, until they get so popular that they lead a government, for instance Italy’s Fratelli d’Italia led by Giorgia Meloni.
Why, though, do people vote for leaders or parties who breach what were thought to be settled post-War conventions of democratic politics? There are some well known reasons that I can rattle off, but then I’ll dig deeper.
Immigration. Many people resent seeing their communities changed by large numbers of newcomers who don’t assimilate into the local culture – and who are even told they shouldn’t have to. The flow of refugees and migrants in the mid-2010s from the Middle East to Europe boosted those political parties who dared to oppose letting them in. People who believe that their traditional culture – if not their “race” – is under threat are likely to go farther to the right as most left-wing parties won’t support these concerns nowadays – with exceptions such as Germany’s Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance.
Gender. Following from concerns about national or racial security is a desire to support families, boost birthrates and reinforce traditional gender roles. This accompanies resistance to rights of transgender people. There’s nostalgia for a patriarchal family.
Institutionalisation of affirmative action. Many people perceive such measures as, for instance, “reverse racism”, and yet they won’t voice their concerns for fear of being accused of racism themselves. People’s careers are affected because they’re “not diverse” (meaning straight white male) or “not diverse enough” (meaning straight white female). People may suspect that such discrimination occurs covertly, but sometimes the job ads and application forms are a give-away. (By the way, diversity arises from differences between numerous people. It’s not a characteristic of an individual person.)
Covid-19. The pandemic lockdown and mandatory vaccine policies also gave the populist parties a shot in the arm, so to speak.
Young men in particular in countries like Germany are turning to parties like the AfD because they don’t see the mainstream parties as representing their concerns. The AfD is using AI-generated personae online to push its messages – with attractive female faces to grab the attention of straight young men. And support for the AfD is markedly stronger in rural areas than in the larger cities, especially in the former East Germany.
People are resisting many changes (such as wind turbines altering landscapes) that they feel have been foisted on them and that they fear are harming the future of their country. The far right parties are making efforts in return to normalise and embed themselves in the political field.
A lot of attention has been paid to the AfD lately, as it’s polling over 20% ahead of the election in Germany on 23 February, and it may not yet have reached its peak. But not all of the populist right parties are doing so well. In Sweden and Finland, the comparable parties are currently polling below the figures they won in their most recent elections.
The Sweden Democrats won 20.5% in the 2022 election and are currently polling just under 20%. The Finns Party won 20% in the 2023 election but are now down around 15% in polls. So we shouldn’t assume that there’s a tidal rightwards surge going on.
“And you know something's happening but you don't know what it is.” Bob Dylan, Ballad of a Thin Man.
What underlies support for the populist right?
That line from Dylan comes to mind because people are reacting to changes that are going on around them that they don’t like, didn’t approve and may not even understand. When they ask questions they may get supercilious looks or disdainful words: “basket of deplorables”.
When the government of one’s own country appears to be unaccountable and undemocratic, and seems to lack commonsense, conspiracy theories (about “the deep state” etc.) can thrive because people’s minds naturally seek to “join dots”. All humans concoct patterns or narratives that may have little to do with reality or with what’s really going on. And one useful hook on which to join those dots is the UN, for example, or other large bureaucratic public organisations.
The success of the right-wing populists can’t be explained away, however, by misinformation, disinformation, rabbit holes, Russian trolls and blah blah. Of course, such effects are out there, but it’s a mistake to think that so many millions of voters have been duped. Or, if you insist they’re merely dupes, then you’ll never get to the bottom of it, and then the joke may be on you!
Donald Trump, as prime example, knows how to hold an audience and he’s a shameless rat-cunning salesman. He knows how to talk to and inspire “the forgotten men and women”. And by the way, he’s the president again.
Most liberal commentators and journalists can’t get their heads around why such leaders and parties are succeeding in recent times. Their protestations against “the far right” only make them look out of touch, and hence they unwittingly encourage more people to defect to those parties.
But there’s still more underlying it all.
I looked up a short piece I wrote in 2006, which went more or less like this:
Can you say you’ve been traumatised or victimised even when nothing really bad happened to you? Indeed, could those who experience the greatest good fortune and privilege in life claim a new form of victimhood? Is there a contemporary victimhood which says that society’s ‘oppressed’ have come to victimize the victors? In other words, can the political Right – who represent the more privileged sectors of society – convincingly claim a kind of victimhood arising from the various social movements that have attacked their powers and privileges? Certainly, the desire to disempower or emasculate the Master that’s evident in emancipatory social movements has had some effect on the balance of power. One of the catch-phrases of the Left used to be ‘Blame the System, not the Victim’. But, it seems now that those who have benefited most from ‘the [capitalist] System’ want to co-opt the figure of the Victim for their own purposes. Hence, men are now the victims of a feminist conspiracy to deny them access to their children; decent white folks are now the victims of affirmative action and ‘special privileges’ enjoyed by ethnic minority groups; the rights of criminals and prisoners are said to override the victims of crime. In short, the Right now sees itself as upholding the rights of new kinds of victims who’ve been subjected to a Leftist conspiracy. This is often captured by the phrase ‘political correctness’. The Victor now identifies with the Victim, and seeks thereby to foreclose any further strategic victories for the Left. Those to whom nothing really bad ever happened can now also enjoy the masochistic privileges of victimhood.
The Right had learned to play the Victim card. This worked psychologically for conservative Christians who literally worship a victim, but would have looked ridiculous to pagans in ancient Rome.
That much was thinkable in 2006
But there was another twist coming.
This right-wing movement had to attract non-elite supporters in order to gain votes, which turned out to be quite easy. The left-wing parties still fielded candidates from working-class and minority-group backgrounds, but they had also become the parties of yuppies, lawyers, celebrities and other well-heeled individuals.
Remember Jimmy Kimmel’s witticism about Trump? “Isn’t it past your jail time?” His audience were A-listers. Although the joke was a good one, he’d just done Trump another favour.
Many people who belonged to the traditional left-wing constituencies ended up feeling like like they were “the forgotten men and women” with whom a Trump or a Farage could readily engage. In joining such movements, those people could show their middle fingers to the Jimmy Kimmels of the world.
Kid Rock, who endorsed Trump, expresses the attitude in his trash song “Don’t tell me how to live”.
I don’t know how many times I’ve read lately that “the Democrats abandoned the working class”, but, if the message is even getting through to them, it may be too late anyway. Political trust has been lost.
Now, although trust is a favourite topic on Politics Happens, it’s not enough to say “it all comes down to political trust”. That would just be a circular explanation, as trust isn’t an underlying cause.
Many social surveyors tell us, “Oh no, trust is in decline!” But what did they expect? And is it not rational to trust no one with political power?
Rather, trust is a word we use as shorthand for the complex reciprocal obligations between people, performed through actions such as promising and forgiving, or just being decent reliable human beings. And there’s no doubt that many people feel unforgiving about the promises that haven’t been kept by political leaders and parties, all of which is catnip for a populist leader.
But, while populists trade on anger and distrust, their successes inspire the same in those who react against them. There’s a tone of anger and resentment, and sheer cynicism, in how the “sides” accuse one another (on X or Substack) and point out one another’s hypocrisy. And, in politics, if you’re looking for hypocrisy, it’s never hard to find. Noam Chomsky made a career out of it.
Those mutual accusations that fly back and forth represent a “toxic power” which erodes political trust in a polarised society.
Between the differences, though, I look for the possibilities for moments of reconciliation. And the first step to that is to understand the rationality of people’s political beliefs – rather than to expose them as hypocrites or idiots.
Resentment against “the system” is bound to grow when people feel misunderstood, disdained, not heard and classed as deplorable. The 1990s combination of free elections and free markets hasn’t worked at all well for many people. So, add in gross material economic inequality, and the manifest unfairness of that, and you have a recipe for a popular revolt. At least the disaffected people are making their point at the ballot-box rather than by other means – thus far.
Sadly, though, it’s unlikely that Trump’s oligarchic economics will make those “forgotten” people materially better off. His tariffs will push up inflation, for a start.
And, without doubt, many people who identify as victims of discrimination or as losers in the economic struggle are still firmly on the Left, but:
The Right has enrolled a Victim class of its own.
In the US, that’s been achieved through one political party and a compellingly disruptive leader. In European proportional electoral systems, it’s achieved normally by one party that says things that many people were already thinking but were too scared to say out loud. Hence they’ve taken the “free speech” banner away from the Left.
Fascist parties arose in the 1920s and 30s in Italy and Germany through elections to parliaments. And no one can deny the egregious crimes that were committed, beginning with scapegoating minorities, especially Jews. It would be naive to think that such things could never happen again, and so it’s only right that people question the legitimacy of some of the parties I’ve discussed above. I don’t have a “vaccine” to inoculate representative systems against neo-fascism. But, if we’re serious about democracy, we’re supposed, without discrimination, to take the needs and values of “the people” seriously – which is what I’ve tried to do here for a sizeable proportion.
Is it better to bring the present-day’s populist leaders and parties “into the fold”, or to shun them as “pariahs”? The latter approach hasn’t been working well so far, and has failed altogether in Hungary, Italy and Austria. The German election on 23 Feb is the one to watch now. The political “firewall” against the AfD will probably stay in place, but that means there’ll be protracted coalition negotiations between the other parties, and possibly another unstable government.
As for New Zealand, a long-simmering polarisation of opinion about rights under the Treaty of Waitangi has recently boiled over – again. Many people feel bound to one side or other in this debate, while many are undecided or just don’t want to think about it. But the question for politicians and for media is whether they’ll frame it as a win-lose argument, and hence benefit from divisiveness and hate, or whether they’ll frame it as a nation-building moment and act as conciliators. It’s up to them. And it’s up to each of us to decide how we’ll react. Which frame do you choose?
One of the AfD’s AI bots promoting the party and its leader Alice Weidel on Instagram.
A screen-grab from Kid Rock’s “Don’t tell me how to live”. The kid’s prize is for “Most likely not to give a fuck”.
Moments ago I watched the JD Vance speech to the Munich security conference. Interestingly he said (paraphrased) 'the European political consensus (discourse?) leaves no room for alternatives of the Left or the Right', with which I concur- except the consensus is within the entire liberal-democratic world- not just the European. Its interesting that he includes 'the Left'- presumably for balance- It was a skillful oration regardless the content was mainly upholding the 'free speech' and electoral rights of the Ethno-nationalist parties of Europe. But what of the 'alternatives of the Left'?
The point I would make is that the public talking-points ( the terrifying private talking points are never spoken of outside of elite circles) of the Populist Right have never been suppressed throughout the era of the liberal consensus. There has always been a residuum of racism, misogyny, homophobia, & xenophobia in society, because these ideas don't take any intellectual work to maintain, rather they are like a persistent sub-clinical infection. For the same reasons, these ideas have been considered to exist outside the realm of normal political discourse, thus there was never any real attempt to suppress them, other than the notion that they would wither away over time as everyone's life got better.
But what of Left wing thought? There are two main traditions here: one of Nonconformist Christianity, the other of Historical Materialism. The first has been voided by secularism & usurped by an anti-biblical perversion of 'doing Satan's work in the name of Christ'. The second requires 'doing the work' of grounding in anthropology and history. This can be as superficial or as deep as the individual is capable or has time to engage with- nevertheless it has to be done because there is no equivalent to the bigotries of the populist Right except the fiction of the 'politics of envy' that serves the Right.
For probably the last 100 years, the various Socialist / Social Democratic parties around the world have operated on the level of 'trust us, we'll see you right'. The very last thing they want to contend with is to be squeezed from below by a politically educated and expectant working class. They also perceive that to engage in extra-parliamentary political activity de-legitimises their status as parliamentarians. Note, the Right has no such qualms.
So, Left political education has been long abandoned, leaving only 'indoctrination by immersion' in the tropes of capitalism & westernism. Thus, unlike the Right, which has been happy and able to re-engage & co-opt the bigotries that it previously sidelined, the Left has nothing to fall back on as a foil to the Rightwards move of the Right.
Thank you Grant, this is a thoughtful piece. I appreciate the effort to take populist voters seriously rather than dismiss them as irrational or manipulated. Your discussion of political trust is spot on —distrust isn’t just a problem for democracy, imo it’s a rational response when people feel unheard or disregarded. I also think you’re right that simply treating populist parties as pariahs hasn’t worked and may well be counterproductive. In liberal democracies, at the end of the day, the majority of voters decides. Effective minority action is engagement and persuasion, not attack.
I do wonder though if your article doesn’t miss something crucial. It presents right-populist movements largely as reactions to cultural or economic anxieties, but doesn’t consider whether these movements also have a coherent vision of governance. If the system isn’t delivering, why is the assumption that populists are merely venting frustration rather than making legitimate critiques?
The discussion of norm-breaking focuses heavily on figures like Trump and Berlusconi but doesn’t explore comparable norm shifts on the left—whether in lawfare, judicial activism, or policy overreach. If trust is declining, is it just because of populists, or is there a broader accountability failure in governance? Pretending that only one side has been playing fast and loose with democratic norms looks to me like a straightforward way to tank trust.
While I appreciate the caution against overplaying victimhood, dismissing concerns about affirmative action, gender roles, and political representation as “playing the victim card” risks overlooking the ways in which these policies actually affect people’s lives. It could be that what looks like grievance politics is simply the recognition of a real problem.
I think Less Certain is onto something - see “Waitangi Day, Te Pati Mãori and Nationalism In New Zealand” from 4 Feb. If populists succeed where establishment parties fail, maybe the real question isn’t “why are people voting for them?” but “why aren’t mainstream parties offering something better?”