2015-12-04

This One Chart Explains the Next 10 Years of Political Change

Before the chart, a rehash of some ideas discussed here previously.

First, negative social mood makes the public displeased with whichever party is in charge. Where the right rules, left wins and vice versa.

Second, if the current decline in social mood is an order of magnitude larger, than political change could be an order of magnitude larger as well. The left controls every developed country in the world, has a near lock on the media and universities. A recent outlier being Hungary, where the right-wing government made a sweep through the judiciary and the media.

Third, the ruling parties are moving in the opposite direction, pushing more extreme versions of peak mood policies. The key issue remains immigration/nationalism. The public turned against immigration more than a decade ago and there was political backlash in some countries, with anti-immigrant parties emerging and rising in the polls. Anti-euro and anti-EU parties emerged in Europe as well. The media push a pro-immigration narrative and with the migrant crisis, the political establishment did as well. The public also began turning against the euro and EU, and the ruling classes pushed ever harder, overturning democratic elections in several countries.

Fourth, the new axis of political debate is identity and community.

Fifth, in addition to breaking in the opposite direction from the public, the main opposition parties have revealed there is only one relatively unified political establishment. As Orwell put it, there is an Inner Party and an Outer Party. The Outer Parties are taking off their mask and showing themselves to be Inner Party too. Sweden Democrats were excluded from the government despite being the largest party. In the U.S., the term cuckservative has arisen to describe conservatives who agree with the left on the key issues of identity and community. There are rumors the GOP establishment prefers Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump. An alliance against the National Front is no longer a rumor or subject of a book like Submission; it is being openly discussed in France.

I've said that whoever picks up the immigration issue will run to victory because they will have the public support and zero political opposition. In fact, the establishment will fight them so hard that they will create a binary political situation. Instead of shifting to the right to maintain power (the Pareto optimal, robust position) the ruling class is moving into a fragile position that increases the likelihood and size of potential losses. Sweden Democrats are iced out of government, a big loss for them in terms of political power, but if the people want to throw out the government, now they have one option only: Sweden Democrats or perhaps a still non-existent far right party. If the GOP establishment does support Hillary Clinton, the argument that America has only one political party will be an observable fact. In France, if the left and right team up to defeat the National Front, voters will have the same choice going forward.

The political opposition is anti-fragile. If there is a major terror attack, if there is a major economic dislocation, if there is an unpopular war, then the opposition can go from obscurity to total political power in one election cycle. Donald Trump stated this inarticulately yesterday.

Trump: 'My numbers go way up' after tragedies
"I'm gonna get people jobs and I'm going to protect people. And that's why whenever there's a tragedy, everything goes up, my numbers go way up because we have no strength in this country, we have weak, sad politicians," the billionaire businessman told the network.
Trumps's sin was to publicly state an unspoken truth. When things go badly, people turn to the opposition. As the opposition narrows, people will turn to whatever option they have.

To summarize. The electorate increasingly wants a major change and it may desire a multi-generational political realignment. The ruling class responds by circling the wagons. This keeps outsiders from gaining political power, but by doing so, it increases the need/desire to throw out the entire political class.

Now, this reality has come to Germany. This chart below shows where voters place the various political parties on the political spectrum. Notice the Free Democrats and Merkel's CDU drift so far to the left that they are now considered left-wing parties.

Source: AfD rückt nach rechts, CDU nach links

The CSU has probably drifted left due to association with CDU, but as a regional party it wouldn't have national reach as a separate party. If voters want to make a change, they have to push farther to the right. The National Democratic Party is now closer to power and will only rise in stature if current events and social mood remain on their present course. Additionally, Hungary and Poland have taken hard right turns and Eastern European nations defend their new found nations sovereignty with more intensity that Western Europe. Common wisdom is that Germany will not move hard right like France because of WWII, but in fact, due to reuniting with East Germany, the nation is more likely to move to the right.

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