Professor Andrew Moran, Head of Criminology, Sociology, Politics and International Relations at London Met, shares his reflections on the creeping shift in attitude towards autocracy
Date: 12 February 2025
On a recent trip with students to the Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, I was struck by a board game that was created for German families in the 1930s called Juden Raus (‘Jews Out’). The aim of the game was to successfully round up and deport six Jews to Palestine. If you did this, you won. There were no gas chambers, no Zyklon B, no furnaces. Just deportation. Fun for all the family.
It was a chilling reminder of how the Holocaust began. Not with a bang, but with a gradual series of steps towards a Final Solution. Where people portrayed as ‘the other’ were deemed not fit to exist. Six million Jews and up to an additional five million Serbs, Poles, communists, members of the LGBTQ+ community, the disabled, and many other minorities, were murdered as a result.
In the film ‘Hannah and Her Sisters’, the actor Max Von Sydow comments on a programme he has been watching on Auschwitz and the Holocaust in which ‘puzzled intellectuals’ have been grappling with this systematic murder of millions. “The reason why they could never answer the question ‘how could it possibly happen?’ is that it’s the wrong question,” he says, “Given what people are, the question is why doesn’t it happen more often. Of course it does in subtler forms.” Think of global femicide, for example, where, today, one woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by their intimate partner or family member.
Worryingly, a recent poll released by Channel 4 News found that 52% of the 2,000 13-27 year olds surveyed would agree that “the UK would be better with a strong leader in charge who does not have to bother with Parliament and elections”. It’s not surprising given the dysfunctional state of the political system in the UK in recent years, which has not responded effectively to the needs of young people.
In reality, globalisation has failed to deliver. The promise of high skilled jobs and wages made by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair never happened, as companies outsourced overseas, cut back at home, whilst the income of the wealthy skyrocketed and wages for the middle and lower classes stagnated.
For the older population, issues such as gender, tackling climate change, and accepting refugees or immigrants from war zones – these are all luxury items when you are struggling to pay your bills, feed your children , or heat your house. ‘It’s the economy, stupid’, is never truer than it is now.
That is what drives the appeal of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). A party described by Germany’s security services as ‘an extremist organisation’ which is currently polling at 20%. It is that which allows the Reform Party to appeal to voters in the ‘red wall’ who feel disenfranchised and left behind. It is that which somehow allows Nigel Farage to hog the headlines and media channels even though his party has only five MPs, one more than the Green Party (anyone heard or seen them anywhere?).
Now, we find ourselves at a crunch point, where, in the recent words of renowned economist Joesph Stiglitz, we may have reached the ‘End of Progress’.
Trump’s election may be indicative of this, Stiglitz suggests. It did not matter that the economy had recovered under Biden. It was more about what people felt. That there were others benefitting when you were not. That immigrants were eating cats and dogs. That children were being forced in schools to change gender. That Biden, and, somehow, Obama, was solely responsible for inflation. Feelings mattered. Let’s Make America Great Again – a powerful slogan that means different things to whoever believes in it.
Trump has already challenged Congress and the Courts in a variety of ways, and he is moving quickly to put sycophants in to key positions – many of whom, by previous standards, are unqualified. He will stress test the Constitution like we have never seen before. But, remember, Americans voted for this. Trump won by the popular vote, Republicans won both houses, and the Supreme Court is already dominated by conservatives he put in place.
It is also clear that Trump will rule by division. His attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies are alarming, but indicative of a bullying tactic that picks on minority communities who often struggle to have a voice and who are effectively being portrayed by his administration as ‘the other’.
He has already blamed the spread of the wild fires in California on DEI policies, and last week did the same with the tragic plane crash in Washington, suggesting that the Federal Aviation Authorities’ employment of people with hearing or vision difficulties, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism might be to blame.
When a journalist said to him, “I’m trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash,” Trump simply replied :“Because I have common sense.”
Where am I going with this? Another film reference, this time Aarron Sorkin’s ‘The American President’, made 30 years ago, in which a fictional, liberal President, played by Michael Douglas, castigates his right-wing opponent by damning him for being able to do only two things: “Making you afraid of it, and telling who’s to blame for it.” Sorkin saw something coming, whether that was Trump, the AfD, Reform or France’s Groupe Rassemblement National. His hope was that liberalism would triumph. It hasn’t.
I am not for one minute suggesting that we are on the verge of a new genocide in the West (although we are seeing them elsewhere). But, the extreme Right is on the move, and its message is gaining ground quickly as candidates and politicians feel emboldened by victories in the US and Europe. Adam Hills, the comedian and disability campaigner, noted last week that the list of people Trump was attacking included him. It includes two of my children. It includes some of my friends, and many of our students and staff.
The left, and centre-left, in power need to understand that their priority is to get three things under control – the economy, healthcare and education. They need to get inflation down and to make people feel that the economy is offering something for them and, more importantly, their children. They need to ensure that everyone has access to adequate healthcare and a decent school. At the moment, everything else is a luxury.
If they don’t, people will go looking for someone to blame, and that never ends well.
Professor Andrew Moran is Head of Criminology, Sociology, Politics and International Relations at London Met