It is the parties on the right-hand side of the political spectrum which have appealed to voters most often with messages of preserving foundational values of a given society, protecting it against unwelcome change, proposing in some cases a return to a greater or more wholesome status in the past. Crucially, the future proposed by these parties is described with certainty. And this makes sense: if the past is considered to be a known entity (I have my doubts about that), a future that emulates this past, is per definition known or knowable as well.  For all intents and purposes the future is a pastiche of the past. The political parties that work to this model are rightly labelling themselves, or are called, conservative.

In contrast political progressives have both defined themselves, and been attacked by conservatives for it, as proponents of substantive change in society towards a new perfect, or at least much better world, including all uncertainties that involves. Both the appeal of progressive politics, and its major criticism by those who are rattled by it, is indeed Utopia: a place which is very different from where we are, unknown, but good, or even perfect. For many in the conservative spectrum who reject the idea of Utopia as unhelpful for political thinking, a prime reason is their perception that it has no foundation in the past or present, and hence cannot be achieved based on rational principles of social transformation. In their view a good future HAS to look like a good and known past.

It is an irony of history that over the past decade in many settings it is not the progressives but the conservatives who have become the chief proponents of an entirely foundation-less yet pastiche version of the past, present and the future. 

Their success in attracting voters has been grounded in their ability to create a floating myth of a future that is equipped with the aura of faded memories of a golden past, and hence does not make suggestions about society to have to go through struggles to reach a better state. In this vision improvements to people’s lives and social cohesion will come from going back to that suggested past, cutting out more recent periods of social ailment which have resulted from misguided trajectories of upheaval and change.

If this were just a singular, local phenomenon we would be in less trouble. But it seems that virtually all current conservative and right-wing political parties in key democracies seem to have espoused this concept. Donald Trump’s main ambition seems to be to eliminate all traces of his predecessor’s political record, including suggesting that America can be great again if it behaves like in the 1960s. The Conservatives in the UK seem to be bent on bulldozing on with a nose-diving descent into BREXIT which knows no other head-mark than the regain of erstwhile imperial trade relations (including notions of ‘Britain on top’). Orban in Hungary, and the National Front in France join Trump in fence building mentalities, to keep the bad world out of paradise. The list is longer.

Election results in France, to some degree in the Netherlands and certainly in the UK are beginning to show that while politics based on myths are generally attractive, they also rightly get a wet rag in their face from time to time. People in most democracies may be gullible and prone to vote on the basis of misinformation to a point, but they are not stupid in the long term when it comes to their own futures, and, if offered the opportunity to reconsider, will react adversely to campaigns that treat them like fools. This is what happened in the UK just now.

So the chances are good that the hollowness of current conservative politics is found-out sooner rather than later. Yet when will the hollow tree fall?

Established power structures foster inertia, and there are many reasons why the hollow tree of right-wing ideology might remain propped up even by some its own victims for some time.

Scrutiny and exposure may be the most effective ways of contributing to the demise of a vision of the future which is a pastiched version of the past, and deliberately offers no real perspective of change. But exposing the vacuity of imagery of the future which looks uncannily but not entirely like the past has to be combined with the articulation of a credible alternative, progressive, yes even utopian project for social transformation. It is only aspiration for a better world, one that we enjoy living in rather feeling that we need to suffer through it, which can give true hope. The one feature of all utopias developed across the centuries is peace and harmony between mankind. This on its own should be a strong pointer that political propositions based on conflict and division have no long term traction in people’s imagination.