From rural US to Hörby - eruditions from Jason Stanleys "How Fascism Works - the politics of us and them"

 

I recently finished reading Jason Stanlyes much celebrated book "How Fascisms Works - The politics of us and them". In contemporary debate this work has been described as one of the key works on understanding contemporary fascism movements as well their deep historical roots. Stanleys book contains describtion of how contemporary fascism is part of a continous struggle based on social darwinistic ideas, but one of the key parts of the part book were for me his discussion on the rural aspects of contemporary fascism. I grew up in the middle of south sweden in a muncipality were, in the 2022 election, the swedish right wing populists the Sweden democrats gained their own majority in the municipal council, something I for quite a while struggled with understanding. Most of my friends growing up were from the swedish working class and whilst xenophobia existed in school, it was not very clear that most of the municipals inhabitants would vote for a right wing party.

In my opionion one of the larges failures of the swedish left during the early 2000's were their unability to counter right wing populism in the rural areas. My personal belief was before reading Stanleys book that this was also the cause of right wing populism gaining a foothold in the countryside, since their was no one to counter their beliefs. I also remembered that whils growing up it was rather clear that the country side to some extent were seen as left out by the mainstream politics. 

As Stanley himself writes this is all to some extent true, since he for instance shows how the 2016 trump campaign managed to sucessfully bind to an idea of rural america being left out from politics and influence. But in his work Stanley also explains how the fascist ideals gives the rural parts of the country a legendary status. According to Stanley small farms and the rural community plays a central part in fascist ideology. It is in these areas that people are able to sustain themself by living of the land and producing goods that are of essence to the cities survivals. Cities on the other hand are typically conceived as places of culture and metropolitanism, all values that fascist movements despise in their struggle over cultural dominance. Apart from this  the classical small farm can also be seen as a minitature of the fascist state, with a patriarch ruling over his family and working as the head of the household and main provider. 

Even though this comprehension in Stanleys view are part of a fascist myth of origin it is rather clear that this representation have to some extent echoed in the right wing popular movements. For instance Stanley puts forward that Trump voters in the US countryside during 2016 claimed that most of their most of their tax money went into the cities, leaving the country side underdeveloped. By a challenging of other social norms - i.e. the lack of status of males - this creates a setting of victimhood for the main habitants of the country side. 

In many parts I think that this analysis of the popular right wings rise to power in the US bears some resemblance to contemporary Sweden. In the late 1990's the muncipality of Sjöbo held a peoples referendum of whetever or not the muncipality would continue to take in refugees. According to research by Gunnar Alsmark this led to a media framing of the people of Sjöbo as ignorant and rascist, which thus neglected to create a deeper understanding of the situation in Sjöbo. Instead it led to an us versus them, or the rural side versus the city-sided idea of multiculturalism. Perhaps Stanleys work does not fully work to explain why right wing populism have become so strong in rural Sweden but it does open the doors to going beyond negative stereotyping of people in the country side, which is necessary to explain why we live in a time with a heavy nationalist presence in the southern parts of Sweden. And perhaps thats just what good social science should to. 

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