Towards a progressive rebuttal of the far Right narratives

I saw a clip from John Stewart’s Daily Show yesterday where he showed some Fox News commentators (I think) talking about how they hate ‘woke’ and how they now have to put up with public events featuring “half naked men” (their slight against the gay community). Stewart then showed the next clip – the cage fight at the White House where two half naked men were featured. The way he presented it was (as usual for the show) very funny. Yesterday (June 17, 2026), the leader of the far Right party in Australia (One Nation) gave her first ever – Speech – to the National Press Club in Canberra and apart from several outrageous statements (such as “Businesses also tell me you can’t sack people these days, they’re on their phones, they don’t work, they don’t turn up, they actually are lazy” and the “hoax of global warming”), she announced that Australia cannot be a multicultural society and that “we must be monocultural”. The fact checkers have already exposed her lack of honesty with respect to the actual data surrounding many of her assertions. But the question of culture and national cohesiveness is a subject that I am working on as part of my aim to publish a sequel to my 2017 book – Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World – which I co-authored with Thomas Fazi. The question that the sequel begins with relates to what defines a viable currency area and what legitimates government fiscal policy. I see this issue as a central extension of the work on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) because it provides a sociological basis for currency sovereignty. One needs to develop a concept of the – Demos – to answer that question. I use that concept in the original sense.

One Nation is now surging in the polls with an Australian federal election still 2 years out.

But there are important State elections coming up this year (in Victoria) and there are predictions that the far Right could take the most seats and force the conservatives (Liberals) into a coalition with them against the incumbent Labor Party.

That would be a shocking outcome.

The Liberals, previously the dominant electoral force in Australian politics, is now facing an existential crisis after it has been demolished in several recent elections and appear to stand for nothing.

They have been overtaken by One Nation and such is the pressure to survive that they are now facing, they are toying with the prospect of ‘compromising’ by doing preference deals (within our preferential electoral system) with the far Right, a move that was unheard of even recently.

The Liberals were historically a sort of moderate Right, pro-business centrist party but its leadership is now channelling Trump (Make Australia Great Again stuff) and increasingly adopting the slogans and policies (not that one could call them articulated policies) of One Nation – you know anti-migrant, anti-refugee, anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQIA+, anti-renewables, anti-social welfare, anti-universities, and the rest of it.

One Nation is replicating the electoral surges in support for extreme Right parties that are happening around the world.

The surges are a sign that the major (traditional) political parties have under neoliberalism, increasingly become nearly indistinguishable as they tout mainstream economic notions about fiscal surpluses and the need for austerity, and in doing so, have allowed the neoliberal policies they have introduced to ravage the well-being of the working class.

I use the term ‘working class’ to mean all those who do not own capital and must sell their labour power to survive, which means almost everybody.

However, neoliberalism has not only been very damaging to the bottom end of the income and wealth distributions.

It has also progressively been hollowing out the so-called middle class (a sociological definition rather than economic class perspective), which is politically dangerous for the mainstream parties.

The adoption of the mainstream macroeconomic fictions by the traditional social democratic political voices around the world has prevented them from being able to voice the concerns of the working class who are being damaged by neoliberalism.

Indeed, the formerly progressive political forces are now seen as facilitators of neoliberalism; giving voice to the uncertainties and anxieties of the precariat has been left to the emerging far Right political movements.

And with that, a whole array of anti-progressive narratives have accompanied the ‘concerns’ expressed for declining living standards.

Historically, there was an intellectual cum philosophical basis to the mainstream parties – Conservatives (however called in specific nations) and Labour/Socialist/Social Democratic parties.

The new far Right outfits have very little intellectual foundation unless one considers the views expressed in publications such as – Mein Kampf – to be worthy of being called an intellectual foundation.

The new Right is full of slogans and hate for minorities.

One Nation is also anti worker, which makes their rise in prominence all the more puzzling (see below).

Hitler’s own words in his political tome don’t sound out of place in the mouths of the far Right of today (and I should add the speeches of the current Liberal leaders).

If one replaces references to Jewish people with references to Asians, gays, Muslims, then the narratives are similar.

Recall:

1. Hitler: “the sacred mission of the German people … to assemble and preserve the most valuable racial elements … and raise them to the dominant position.”

The One Nation leader said yesterday: “Under the failed policy of multiculturalism, all cultures are allowed equivalence to ours. Surely opposing that is not racist, it’s common sense.”

Or on Australian muslims – “While ever I lead this Party, I will not walk away from my commitment to get rid of this social cancer.”

2. Hitler: “All who are not of a good race are chaff”.

One Nation leader yesterday: “Islamist groups pose a threat to this country” and “There is no room for hate preachers in this country.” (Muslim religious leaders).

3. Hitler: “The so-called liberal press was actively engaged in digging the grave of the German people and the German Reich. We can pass by the lying Marxist sheets in silence; to them lying is just as vitally necessary as catching mice for a cat; their function is only to break the people’s national and patriotic backbone and make them ripe for the slave’s yoke of international capital and its masters …”

One Nation leader yesterday (on the press): “Rest assured, there will be big changes if One Nation is given the chance. The SBS will be gone.”

For non-Australian readers, SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) is the best TV and Radio station in Australia and provides very diverse news and content and was commissioned to represent the diverse cultural richness that is modern Australia.

For One Nation – SBS (and the national broadcaster the ABC) are the centre of ‘wokeness’.

Further, the One Nation leader said: “The ABC will still exist, but in a very different form” – no longer publicly funded in the major cities.

And: “From its chairman down, the ABC has proven itself to be completely in denial about its profoundly transparent political bias and the activists in its ranks. Yet they think of themselves as a pillar of democracy.”

4. Hitler: “And what did the state do against this mass poisoning of the nation? Nothing, absolutely nothing … Instead, they hoped to curry favor with this plague by flattery, by recognition of the ‘value’ of the press, its ‘importance,’ its ‘educational mission,’ and more such nonsense …”

One Nation leader yesterday on minorities: “Yet we have almost every instrument of Government dedicated to a transgender ideology which seeks to redefine humanity … This transgender ideology is infecting all of society. It is explicitly subversive … I repeat, through a whole stack of government authorities which the average Australian knows nothing about because they are too busy getting on with their lives, this movement, like militant Islam, is everywhere and seeks to redefine humanity and biology. And, in this way, change the nation.”

I could go on – there are many common threads in the fascist literature and the current new Right utterances.

The major concern though is that the mainstream conservative party – the Liberals – have also abandoned their more moderate voice to give oxygen to these anti-migrant, anti-gay, anti-climate change narratives.

An irony in all of this has emerged in the recent days which really highlights the poverty of the new Right voices in Australia and elsewhere.

The One Nation leader told the Press Club yesterday:

Undeniably immigration or immigration policy has our country in the state of crisis.

At the centre of this crisis is the utterly flawed policy of multiculturalism.

We cannot be a multicultural society …

It’s time we woke up. Western civilisation and its values are under siege …

Last Sunday, Australia won its first World Cup match against the more fancied Türkiye and there were large crowds in all the cities out watching on big screens and a massive outpouring of joy was expressed.

Many of those people would also be supporting the views of One Nation.

The thing is that the Australian Socceroos (our national team) is comprised of players from 15 distinct cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

One of the big stars from Sunday, who scored the first goal came to Australia from a refugee camp in Tanzania.

Another from Guinea/Liberia, another from South Sudan.

There are Balkan born players.

There are Asian and Middle Eastern players in the team.

SBS is providing coverage of the event free to air.

The policies of One Nation would predicate against these great players coming to our country and becoming national heroes (for those who care about sport).

One Nation hates cultural diversity and claims that a cohesive national identity is impossible if a nation welcomes people from diverse cultures.

All the players wore the Australian jersey and played their hearts out for the same.

It looked very cohesive to me (not that I am a soccer fan).

Some of our most celebrated national sporting heroes across many sports came here as refugees or via other immigration programs.

Australia is a sports mad nation and seems to raise these characters to an elevated level.

Many are from multicultural backgrounds.

Nations are bound by collective purpose rather than some enforced notion of monoculture.

I thought this article (June 16, 2026) – What the Socceroos teach us about belonging – was sensible:

People who have searched for somewhere to belong rarely take belonging for granted once they find it. They invest themselves in their communities, contribute to the society around them and, over time, become part of the national story itself.

Sometimes that story is visible in the quiet contributions of teachers, nurses, tradespeople, business owners and volunteers. Sometimes it appears on a larger stage.

And occasionally it appears wearing the green and gold.

The inconsistency among the new Right is palpable.

But what about One Nation’s claim that a nation should aspire to advance – Monoculturalism?

Australia has been settled for over 65,000 years by our first nation people after migration to the land mass from Africa via South and South East Asia.

There are around 250 language groups within that group of Australians alone.

After WW2, there was mass migration from Europe and Britain, many who were refugees needing humanitarian relief as a consequence of the chaos the War inflicted on societies in Europe.

Steadily, the composition of migrants shifted from a dominant European and British cohort, to Vietnamese, to other Asian groups and then people from Africa.

Australia is now clearly a multicultural society but that has added to the richness of living here.

When I was growing up, the British influence remained dominant and life was less interesting – culinary choices, food array in the shops, music, theatre, dance, debates, etc

I wonder how many One Nation supporters go to the vast array of restaurants that serve food from all parts of the world much to our benefit?

Further, there are very few places that are monocultural.

Some people point to Japan and Korea.

First, historically, Japan absorbed the Buddhist tradition and Confucian philosophy from China and Korea.

These influences have had a significant impact on the current societal norms in Japan, its governance system and its architecture.

Kanji – one of three components of the written language came from China.

Second, while the majority of Japanese are – Yamato people – (coming from Korean peninsula) there are significant minorities such as the Ainu in Hokkaido and the Ryukyuan people in Okinawa, who bring a multicultural element to the nation.

Third, there are more foreign workers and their families now in Japan with many living in Tokyo, Osaka, the Aichi and Kanagawa prefectures.

Walk down any shopping street in Japan and one finds a diversity of restaurants and other shops that express an increasing ethnic diversity.

Fourth, while the Eastern elements of Japanese life are prominent, the Western influence is also very powerful.

Walk down a street during lunch hour or before and after work and business suits are everywhere (men and women).

The youth particularly adopt Western attitudes and consume Western media.

While Japan is not as ‘multicultural’ as say Australia, it is definitely not monocultural.

How would a nation that is defined by its multicultural society actually revert and become monocultural?

What exactly is the so-called ‘shared heritage’ in Australia?

The makeup of our current society is that we come from a diverse range of backgrounds yet we maintain national cohesion by balancing cultural diversity with a shared commitment to democratic values (there is no violence at our elections), civic participation, and mutual respect.

This harmony is sustained through community engagement, inclusive government policies, and an everyday ethos of multiculturalism that permeates everyday life.

We do not demand ‘assimilation’ but maintain unity by sharing our different cultural perspectives.

The 2025 – Mapping Social Cohesion – report found that 83 per cent of Australians “still agree that multiculturalism has been good for Australia”.

There are clearly increasing concerns about the quality of jobs and the availability of housing and the Right wing forces have worked overtime to blame migrants and existing minorities for those problems.

However, the overwhelming reason that living standards, job security and access to housing has declined has little to do with migration trends and everything to do with neoliberal austerity stances taken by our governments.

The way forward

In Reclaiming the State and in my 2015 book – Eurozone Dystopia: Groupthink and Denial on a Grand Scale (published May 2015) – the issue of identity came up.

Towards the end of that book, I was evaluating the various options that the 19 Member States of the Eurozone had to get out of the dystopic neoliberal austerity machine that they had created when they went into the common currency and surrendered their own sovereignty.

One option was clearly to create a true Federal Europe, which was the only way the earlier processes that explored further economic integration (the 1970 Werner Report and the 1977 MacDougall Report) saw a functional common currency working..

The current design of the Eurozone determines that the Member State governments are not ‘sovereign’ in the sense that they are forced to use a foreign currency and must issue debt to private bond markets in that foreign currency to fund any fiscal deficits.

Their fiscal positions must then take the full brunt of any economic downturn because there is no ‘federal’ counter stabilisation function.

The EMU is a federation without the most important component.

The reality was that there was simply no European ‘demos’, which could force the creation of a truly federal Europe.

Which led me to conclude that the option for Europe to create an effective federal system was not viable.

The point was that currency sovereignty is only legitimised if there is a demos that accepts that sovereignty and all that it implies (permanent asymmetric spatial transfers and the like).

In our 2017 book – Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World (Pluto Books, September 2017), we developed a progressive manifesto for reconfiguring the state (in concept) away from neoliberalism.

We argued that neoliberalism was really a state-driven project rather than an abandonment of the nation state.

The reform agenda we outlined was based on the imperative for governments to have true currency sovereignty as specified by MMT.

However, we didn’t fully develop our analysis of culture and identity.

Importantly, while an understanding of MMT is crucial for advancing an effective progressive agenda, there is now the need to understand what determines the political legitimacy of the currency sovereign government.

Why are some currency arrangements unworkable (such as the EMU) and others effective (Australia)?

The sequel that I am working on will explore that question.

I am searching for a ‘demos’!

I am also aware that wealthy nations have a responsibility to less well-off nations and the task is to devise ways of advancing that responsibility so that:

1. Global resources are more equitably shared.

2. Old colonial and post-colonial extraction mechanisms are terminated.

2, Multilateral agencies that are created do not destroy prosperity in weaker nations.

4. Foreign aid is generous and targetted to reduce the so-called ‘push factors’ that force people to seek migratory options.

5. Necessary migration (if that is the most equitable and effective option) is planned and scaled in a way to enhance solidarity within and across nations rather than promote division.

Conclusion

This sort of work is essential to provide the foundation for a progressive rebuttal of the ideas that are now being advanced by the far Right political movements around the world.

That is where I am heading – as one prong of my current work.

That is enough for today!

(c) Copyright 2026 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.