Optimism and progress: what can the centre learn from the fringes?

The European public is becoming less optimistic and voting more for the political fringes. The political centre, I believe, is also becoming more pessimistic and - faced with these new electoral dynamics - some parties have adopted ‘lite’ versions of fringe party policies to try and neuter them and win back disenchanted voters. This trend to pessimism suffocates the optimism critical for economic and societal progress.

Right-lite

The situation in France suggests the ‘lite’ strategy does not work. In fact, it probably lost votes for the centre. The political capital Macron spent on the immigration law legitimised the right-wing claim that immigration is a top-tier issue. The objective of the law legitimised the right’s longstanding, once-taboo position that immigration levels are too high. The law brought fringe arguments into the politically-acceptable Overton Window.

It was also poorly executed, tactically. For the right, the ‘lite’ law was too ‘lite’ and an indictment of the government’s persistent failure to address immigration. For the left it was too harsh and a break from centrist values. In fact, in the elections following the law, there were more second round run-offs between the government and the centre-left than between the government and the far-right. The government lost votes to both sides and pleased nobody.

Metapolitics

If we ignore the question of who is right on immigration, ultimately, the issues are that our politics and policies are becoming more pessimistic, that centrists are leaning into it, and that no one is putting forward an optimistic alternative.

To address this, optimists from all walks of political life need to bruteforce a vibeshift. They should encourage policymakers to stop adopting fringe policies, but learn from the way the fringes effectively execute politics.

From Antonio Gramsci on the left to Andrew Breibart on the right, the fringes have long understood and refined the theory and praxis of metapolitics: that politics is downstream of culture. That, if you want to change politics, you first have to change the cultural environment in which policies are made.

The right would say the left has succeeded in using metapolitics to lock DEI and ESG into corporate, academic and government decision-making. The left would say the right used it to marshal the cultural clout of social media like 4Chan and Twitter and swing the result of the 2016 US Presidential election.

I believe the Industrial Revolution showed that politics is indeed downstream of culture, but that culture is in turn downstream of vibes. If you want to change politics, you have to change the culture. But if you want to change the culture, you first have to shift the vibes that dictate the cultural zeitgeist: especially the vibes of the contemporary elite.

Helping the Brussels Bubble rediscover its sense of optimism

There are things optimists can do along the vibes-culture-politics pipeline to help this shift:

Vibes: If policymakers hear enough pessimistic alarmism, they are probably going to start believing it. Optimists can help policymakers rediscover a sense of optimism and aspiration by being clear-eyed in communicating problems, but also by equipping policymakers with the enthusiasm and solutions to tackle problems head-on: pessimism of the intellect, and optimism of the will.

Reignite their belief that progress, science and technology can improve our condition. That a rising tide lifts all boats. That an unashamed belief in progress is a good thing. That it is not out-of-touch for an elite to be bullish on the future, if the same elite pushes down the ladder for others to climb up behind them. This is not maintaining the status-quo, this is doubling down on progress for the benefit of all.

Culture: Progress-oriented optimists have to get better at what the fringes do so well: building communities and movements. Find a north star (be it progress, optimism, technology, or resolving a more granular issue.) Identify constituents and start building shared communities (online and offline). Develop ties that bind these groups: sociolects, memes, Discord channels and in-group jokes. Host meet-ups in Brussels and Member States. Organise. Go public. Mobilise potential allies and convert non-believers. Building this critical mass of support is how to make the minority view the majority.

Politics: Once we’ve shifted the vibe and the culture, we’re in a better place to affect policy change. Progress in some sectors of the European economy is lagging. But – if I had to start somewhere – the first priorities should be (i) reversing the innate aversion to funding financially-risky but potentially high-return investments and (ii) recalibrating the balance between the fundamentally pessimistic precautionary principle and the more optimistic innovation principle. This is no small task, but it is a crucial one. The precautionary principle has long served as a brake on technological progress and prosperity and ground down the will of many a European optimist.

Conclusion

If our society is so polarised today, that is in part because both the far left and the far right have had such success implementing their metapolitics playbooks. For the progress-oriented optimist, this may not so bad. It shows that one can, indeed, affect vibes, cultural, and political change. It just requires the right approach and time.