The attitude with which many of us speak up for democracy does not address the desire for the right

Normalizing an emotional structure of disgust helped the right.

Normalized emotional bias provided the centre and the right with a structure of desire they have in common.

It is an emotional politics of biased disgust that the right and the centre have in common.

Right feelings no longer appear irrational to many.

Effective counter-proposals can be developed if we say goodbye to normality, writes Strick.

Right-wingers are not the opposite of this democracy, but one of its contemporary expressions. Its actors are white and men, writes Strick.

The right agitates against today’s complex society & occupies society’s risk discourses, writes Strick.

Reflexive fascism not only shows Hitler salutes but turns them into popular culture and into an empowerment for some of the non-excluded, writes Strick.

Reflexive fascism writes and murders again and it feels (again) like liberation for some, writes Strick.

The reflexiveness of the right, its way of becoming part of the mainstream, works hand in hand with the automatisms that maintain the social fiction of normality, writes Strick.

Reflexive fascism mercilessly exploits the emotional voids and contradictions.

Normality is thanking fascism in reflexive cloths for the desire it expresses, writes Strick.

It is important to offer different versions of normality than those offered in the mainstream media, writes Strick.

The desire for stories of connection is central, because it can replace the omnipresent desire for the right, writes Strick.

Against an alternative right, what is needed is not ›more normality‹ but a counterfeeling rooted in a politics not designed to betray.

Clinton had half of Trump's supporters described as a basket of deplorables.

Her comment initiated the collapse of an entire society, writes Strick.

Those addressed printed T-shirts with the inscription I am a deplorable and won the emotional, metapolitical battle.

To date, the connection has only been partially understood, writes Strick.

The mistake was this: They are stupid racists and so on, we are not. But who or what are we? An answer must come, because the alternative right communicates its answers with great efficiency and speed, writes Strick.

You need different ways of dealing with fascism.

One, for example, was found by Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer, who asked those gathered at a community meeting after the Chemnitz riots in 2018:

Are we in agreement that the Hitler salute is not okay?

With some grumbling this minimum standard was accepted.

The anecdote forces at least one insight: large parts of the so-called normality, which automatically demarcates itself from fascism, have to be renegotiated.

The difference between democracy and fascism has become fragile in many ways.

Why is fascism attractive to people online? Answering this better requires ways of speaking that do not just rely on the rhetoric of suspicion and convicting.

Many right-wingers feel democratic in their own eyes, writes Strick.

Many right-wingers formulate their projects of devaluation as struggles for transformation, writes Strick.

Many right-wingers position themselves not only as producers of fear, but as makers of optimism for alternatives, warns Strick.

Right-wing feelings often determine the climate of discourse, writes Strick.

Back rooms have become massive counter-publics, writes Strick.

The core business of the right is the production of self-esteem, writes Strick.

THE RIGHT PRODUCES FEELINGS EASILY WHEN THE LEFT BELIEVES ITSELF TO BE ALL RATIONAL.

THE INSTITUTIONAL LEFT DOESN’T PRODUCE FEELINGS BECAUSE ITS "WE" IS HOLLOW.

Against the right, what is needed is not ‘more normality’, but real counter-enjoyments based on avowing that we are in battle.

THE RIGHT PRODUCES FEELINGS IN SEEMING UNITED.

TRUE LEFT IDEAS CAN UNITE.

A TRUE LEFT COULD USE THE EDGE OF A SPIRIT THAT UNITED US TO THE POINT OF BEING A THREAT TO POWER.

We can do it, we can make immigration work, was a rare optimistic sentence from a German politician that wanted to create a sense of relief.

But the 'we' in the sentence did not mean everyone and those meant were not all the same.

Reflexive fascism has been growing on the fractures and ambiguities ever since, writes Strick.

This is the crux of the discourse of 'tolerance': it feels good, a feeling of euphoria in one's own openness, which almost always immediately leads to an exclusionary hardening of the 'we', writes Strick.

Tolerance done wrong

We need not simply inclusion but a we that works for all.

The narrowing of our ‘we’ as the tolerant group offers reflexive fascism a starting point, writes Strick.

Short-lived feelings of openness are not a sustainable emotional politics, writes Strick.

REFERENCES

Simon Strick: Rechte Gefühle

Paraphrased from German or direct and indirect quotes.

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