With the rise of right-wing populist discourses being pushed by populist parties and leaders across Europe and in the US, many people have adopted the extremely damaging mentality of understanding certain political ideas as simply ‘common sense’.
While the politics of common sense isn’t new or inherent to populism alone, this sentiment reflects the messaging of increasingly popular populist politicians, often centred around the general, anti-liberal idea that politics has gotten worse, and that the current systems in the countries they represent are ineffective and broken. For instance, Trump has said that his 2024 presidential victory is a “revolution of common sense” that will fix the US, and Farage has promoted Reform and its political sentiments by stating that “nothing works anymore” in Britain. Even if they don’t explicitly use the term ‘common sense’, the way in which these politicians talk about the current state of politics directly implies that they’re simply voicing what we supposedly already know. These are empty, meaningless statements that excuse a need for deeper analysis under the guise of being ‘obvious’.
The issue with ‘common sense’ politics is that, most of the time, it has nothing to do with the facts of a situation, but its perceptions, which are highly subjective and influenced by the most popular (and thus often the broadest and simplest) framings and narratives being sold to the public by motivated political actors. And yet, this logic makes people sincerely believe that they’re being practical or realistic in their views, when they are in fact being incredibly shallow and close-minded in their perceptions of an issue, because they’re insistent on following simple, direct logic to explain complex problems.
While this doesn’t mean that common sense is completely baseless, it’s important to recognise that it is not natural, but constructed, and frequently biased. For example, while I think it’s common sense that government welfare should be generous and non-discriminatory, because that is the purpose of a public system, someone else might wholeheartedly disagree and say it’s common sense that too many people are ‘lazy’, ‘greedy’, and ‘undeserving’, and so welfare should be restrictive to prevent them from unjustly exploiting said public system. Neither of these ideas are inherently or entirely correct, because we are influenced by pre-existing structures and experiences that shape what may seem natural or sensical, but is often highly limited.
‘Common sense’ isn’t nearly as universal as it is framed to be. Hegemonised ideas like nativist approaches to migration, strong borders, and reduced taxation are not suddenly realised ‘truths’, but the results of right-wing politicians’ depicting their intentionally constructed and hierarchical political ideas as the true solutions to sensitive national crises. In order to actually resolve them, we need to deconstruct this mentality of politics being clear-cut and approach their complexities critically and honestly.
“Nigel Farage” by Michael Vadon is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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‘Common Sense’ Politics Isn’t Actually Common Sense
With the rise of right-wing populist discourses being pushed by populist parties and leaders across Europe and in the US, many people have adopted the extremely damaging mentality of understanding certain political ideas as simply ‘common sense’.
While the politics of common sense isn’t new or inherent to populism alone, this sentiment reflects the messaging of increasingly popular populist politicians, often centred around the general, anti-liberal idea that politics has gotten worse, and that the current systems in the countries they represent are ineffective and broken. For instance, Trump has said that his 2024 presidential victory is a “revolution of common sense” that will fix the US, and Farage has promoted Reform and its political sentiments by stating that “nothing works anymore” in Britain. Even if they don’t explicitly use the term ‘common sense’, the way in which these politicians talk about the current state of politics directly implies that they’re simply voicing what we supposedly already know. These are empty, meaningless statements that excuse a need for deeper analysis under the guise of being ‘obvious’.
The issue with ‘common sense’ politics is that, most of the time, it has nothing to do with the facts of a situation, but its perceptions, which are highly subjective and influenced by the most popular (and thus often the broadest and simplest) framings and narratives being sold to the public by motivated political actors. And yet, this logic makes people sincerely believe that they’re being practical or realistic in their views, when they are in fact being incredibly shallow and close-minded in their perceptions of an issue, because they’re insistent on following simple, direct logic to explain complex problems.
While this doesn’t mean that common sense is completely baseless, it’s important to recognise that it is not natural, but constructed, and frequently biased. For example, while I think it’s common sense that government welfare should be generous and non-discriminatory, because that is the purpose of a public system, someone else might wholeheartedly disagree and say it’s common sense that too many people are ‘lazy’, ‘greedy’, and ‘undeserving’, and so welfare should be restrictive to prevent them from unjustly exploiting said public system. Neither of these ideas are inherently or entirely correct, because we are influenced by pre-existing structures and experiences that shape what may seem natural or sensical, but is often highly limited.
‘Common sense’ isn’t nearly as universal as it is framed to be. Hegemonised ideas like nativist approaches to migration, strong borders, and reduced taxation are not suddenly realised ‘truths’, but the results of right-wing politicians’ depicting their intentionally constructed and hierarchical political ideas as the true solutions to sensitive national crises. In order to actually resolve them, we need to deconstruct this mentality of politics being clear-cut and approach their complexities critically and honestly.
“Nigel Farage” by Michael Vadon is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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