β
The definitional attributes of the far-right relate to enduring political and ideological qualities as well as those social layers produced by capitalist development most drawn to the far-right style of politics. The key appeal is to βthe peopleβ, understood as a racially-defined demos, premised on a gendered social hierarchy and obscuring the class cleavages associated with capitalist development. This is significant as it reflects an acceptance, indeed, an embrace of the possibilities of mass-democracy and particularly through the way in which this political form enables a censoring of elites, whether traditional, liberal-cosmopolitan or otherwise. 4 Further, in appealing to a people through language and symbols that both reify and fetishize particular qualities and attributes associated with the cultural identity of βthe peopleβ, the far-right not only articulates those values and institutions that it sees as key to the identity of a people (e.g. race/ethnicity, culture rooted in fixed narratives and symbols, history, masculinity, etc.), but also seeks to erase and obscure those other qualities β notably the socio-economic β that are, arguably, central to the material and lived reality of concrete individuals within capitalist societies.
β
β
Richard Saull (The Longue DurΓ©e of the Far-Right: An International Historical Sociology (Routledge Studies in Modern History))