Well into 2025 now, we examine which ‘ism’ has lost out, and which one is winning. If you look at the western world, Leftism is mostly finished for now. Not just political but also the social Left. Britain is an exception though, given the challenge Keir Starmer faces and amid attacks from Elon Musk-supported hard Right, the Labour also looks like an endangered species.
The Right, at the same time, isn’t in great shape either. At least, the political Right that we’ve been familiar with. In the US, the Republicans have fallen to a Trumpian insurgency. If one tracks Trump’s utterances and tweets lately, most people he abuses are Republicans: “birdbrain” Nikki Haley, “Dumb as a Rock” John Bolton, “disloyal warmonger” Dick Cheney and his “psycho” daughter Liz, Charles Koch’s “Americans for no Prosperity”, Mitt Romney, his former Cabinet officers such as Jim Mattis, Mark Esper (Trump spells Yesper) and so on—all of whom he accuses of suffering from TDS, or Trump Derangement Syndrome.
You don’t see him throwing such abuse at the old Left. That’s because in this insurgent view, the old Right is even more immoral than the Democrats. Trump’s MAGA Republicans are as ideologically distant from the traditional GOP as from the Democratic Left.
Ruchir Sharma, in his latest Financial Times column, underlines that last year, 85 percent of the incumbents lost elections in developed countries that went to the polls. In all of these, I would add, the new ideology that moved in wasn’t any of the old ‘isms’ as we know them. This is true of France and Italy as well. Odds are, the same new reality will play out in Germany too. As the Left faces massive rejection, the Right has been redefined and the idea of the Centre-Right is in deep distress.
If all ‘isms’ taught to us till now—Leftism, Rightism and Centrism—are dying or going into deep coma, what is winning? What is replacing them? This brings back to me a popular Sona Mohapatra song from some years back: “ik naye kisam ka ism” (a new kind of ism). Of course, lyricist Ram Sampath’s words tugged at our heartstrings to junk all bad divisive ‘isms’ and discover a new one that will unite our ‘jisms’ (beings).
That’s too romantic for politics. At the same time, there cannot be a vacuum of ideas in democracies. Fact is, if Sona Mohapatra sang for a new kind of “ism”, one has indeed risen now. It is called populism.
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