Against right-wing populism: Left in times of monsters

The fact that the zeitgeist is not exactly a comrade who goes around the world with red flags is not a particularly original insight today. The classic, progressive parties are staggering through the present and have not yet found a real recipe against the new fascists, the right-wing emotional politics and affect management, against the daily incitement to resentment, resentment, strife and negativism. In Germany, the SPD is at 14 percent, just behind the Greens.

In former red heart chambers like North Rhine-Westphalia it is now only a shadow of its former self; in Berlin it has just experienced a debacle. Things don't look much better in Austria. France too. The global picture is even more unpleasant. It's enough just to look at the past few weeks. In Austria, SPÖ leader Andreas Babler has just announced his departure. Three years ago, Babler, a decidedly left-wing, down-to-earth small-town mayor, still seemed like a figure of hope.

A self-confident man from the grassroots, with such an authentic “one of us” appeal, who can also formulate the dream of a small world improvement in beautiful pictures, should bring about a trend reversal. Well, it didn't come to much. However, he was unable to gain charisma among those who believed in him. He was prevented from doing so by an ultimately divided party and a disgusting campaign of malice, malice, belittlement and abuse. However, he also lacked a little skill.

The taz is an independent, left-wing and opinionated daily newspaper. We have been arguing in our comments, essays and debate texts since the taz was founded in 1979. We often cannot and do not want to agree on an opinion. That's why you'll find some completely opposing positions here - all part of the very broad left-wing spectrum of opinions.

After all, he led the party into a three-party coalition of conservatives, social democrats and Neos, which does a decent job under adverse circumstances. Babler's departure does not, as is often the case, mark a pendulum swing for the party. The new hope is Markus Marterbauer, Finance Minister, a convinced progressive and advocate of the rich tax. Surprisingly, he became the most popular government politician in the country because he has a calm, solid manner, is knowledgeable, says sensible sentences and is the personification of solidity and integrity.

While the concept: “Honest mayor goes to the capital and speaks plainly in the language of normal people” never really worked for Babler, it has worked out quite well in Great Britain so far. Andy Burnham took advantage of Keir Starmer's disastrous failure to take over the Labor Party and the office of Prime Minister. At this point in the polls, the proud Workers' Party was far behind the right-wing extremists of the Reform Party, behind the conservatives and even briefly behind the Greens.

Since then, it has gained more than ten percentage points and is once again clearly the strongest party in the polls. Burnham makes himself the voice of discontent about the deplorable conditions. He addresses everything that spoils the mood of voters in a time of fear, pessimism and a feeling of end times - the high cost of living, the degradation of the working classes. He has vigor and he embodies renewal, although admittedly this can wear out quickly.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, Lula da Silva, legendary leader of the Workers' Party PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores), was surprisingly defeated by Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the top right-wing extremist, in the first round of the Brazilian presidential election. Now Lula has to go into the runoff election as an outsider. In the general upsurge of the extreme right, it has apparently failed to convincingly explain why an 81-year-old who has already run seven times and has three terms in office should be a future promise for a fourth term. That's not entirely surprising.

In the end, contrary to all expectations, Zohran Mamdani initially won the Democratic Party primary election in New York. He has become the crystallization figure of a multi-faceted grassroots movement; victory in the mayoral election was practically a formality. In Berlin, Elif Eralp achieved a similar feat, leading the Left to first place with a considerable gap to the CDU - let's not even talk about the gap to the hapless SPD in the capital.

Progressive green candidates conquer Hanover, Göttingen and other cities. Almost all of them are winning top women and men with a migration background. Migration history seems to have become a plus for center-left politicians, probably for various reasons. Living between and in different environments, the daily practice of speaking in heterogeneous vocabularies and having to adapt to different character types, is perhaps excellent training for building a large alliance of different population groups in increasingly fragmented societies.

In cities like Graz and Salzburg, the Communist Party is now celebrating ever new sensational successes. Of course, these are urban phenomena that cannot be easily transferred to national elections. In short, it's confusing. Sometimes the left wins, sometimes the left loses. It often depends on contingent circumstances – to put it bluntly: coincidences. Logically, a visionary left-wing strategy works more easily in the opposition than in government routine. Sometimes it's a matter of skill.

Always to people who function as driving forces, i.e. as crystallization figures for projections, longings and hopes. But people alone don't help if the parties are hanging on them like a log. Sometimes success is even a curse, when parties grow quickly and attract thousands of passionate activists, all with different special interests and heartfelt causes that seem to them to be the most important issue in the world.

lives and works as a journalist, non-fiction author, theater maker and taz columnist in Vienna. Most recent book publication: “Education for Cruelty”, August 2026 by Suhrkamp.

Then you can have a successful party, but in which the pragmatism without which you cannot govern is frowned upon - and which even turns off less determined, potential supporters because it has to contend with the spirit of sectarianism in its grassroots organizations.

It's confusing and yet there are a few clear patterns: Progressive parties need to move to the left rather than "center" or even to the right if they want to be successful. They win when they focus on social justice, the affordability of life, the affordability of housing, the climate catastrophe, and generally the end-time feelings that are rampant in almost all parts of the population, and when they give these fears and anger a voice.

If, on the other hand, they move to the right, they in turn strengthen right-wing narratives. It's hardly surprising that only the right-wingers benefit from this. Parties that do this also frustrate their own supporters, which demobilizes them. The back “in the middle” is often just a cipher for concepts of moderate balance, which is particularly popular with people over sixty.

Gabriela Greilinger, a researcher at the University of Georgia, recently pointed out the often overlooked fact that this pathos of the “middle” is often “targeted at middle-aged or older people,” but then “completely forgets about young people.” In practice this means: you go to grandpa and give up your youth. As a rule, an essential factor for success is that you radiate drive, vitality, and make it clear: we open the windows and let fresh air in.

It is very clearly documented in research: left-wing parties win when they have a distinctively progressive message, and they lose when they adapt to a right-wing zeitgeist. Of course, it is not yet even remotely clear what a significantly new, almost world-historical era we are living in: The general feeling of our time is one of decline, of a threatening situation, of falling prosperity and growing danger of war, of competition for scarce resources, of rising prices, stagnating or shrinking real incomes, eco-catastrophes, in short, the feeling of time that Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor just described in their bestseller “Endzeit-Fascismus”.

The classic concepts of post-war social democracy with stable economic growth, coupled with a little more fair distribution, hardly work anymore in the “time of monsters” that Şeyda Kurt describes in her debut novel. In this new world we can only organize a resistance that is against but at the same time for, namely, weaves networks of commonality, of being for one another, and ultimately even of ensuring common survival.

In this world in which we live today, we must build a countervailing power and we must do so with determination towards the accomplices of authoritarians and looters and with the utmost tenderness towards everyone else.