It’s clear to anyone paying attention that the ‘radical right’ are a growing near-term threat to any socio-economic policies that seek to maximise human freedom, bolster innovations to benefit the majority of the population, increase disposable incomes, keep healthcare free and so on. All of the national policy reforms for which we’ve waited through 15 years of austerity (and are still, largely, waiting) – as well as all of the future-oriented policies that we desperately need (better work-life balance, more substantial social security, a green energy grid, etc.) – are incredibly doubtful prospects should ‘disaster nationalists’ have their way.

Richard Seymour ends his outstanding book on the psychology – or ‘dreamwork’ – of these various nationalist movements with a discussion of ‘what is to be done’ to counter such threats. On whether the correct response to this incipient fascism is a ‘bread and butter’ politics of higher wages, good housing, greater security, etc. he writes:

We cannot hope to bypass the explosive psychological power of disaster nationalism or the requirement to confront its potpourri of apocalyptic ideas by offering its subjects material comfort…I am not suggesting that bread-and-butter politics is superfluous. It will help. We do need bread and butter. We even like it. But we don’t love it. And the things we do love often don’t give us any material benefit whatever [sic]…The ideas that people love, and hold dear, are often ideas for which they are prepared to sacrifice a great deal. (2025, p. 202)

This of course challenges mainstream political discourse – particularly on the centre-left— around what policy needs to ‘deliver’. We’ve often heard politicians and policymakers frame their work as an exercise in meeting people’s “bread and butter” needs: housing, jobs, healthcare, security. For instance, against the left, the centre has argued in favour of a focus on these ‘day-to-day’ needs, rather than supposedly ‘niche’ worries about foreign policy; in turn, against the centre, the left has often insisted that opposition to immigration can be undercut by addressing more ‘fundamental’ socio-economic needs. In both cases, the ‘needs’ in question often are undoubtedly essential. But to treat them as sufficient is to profoundly misunderstand what motivates people – and what makes politics truly potent.

This is not just a question of misdiagnosing problems; it is a strategic failure in an age of rising far right movements. The radical far right is not winning followers because it offers better tax policies or more efficient service delivery. It is winning because it offers something else: a compelling story, a strong affective momentum and certain psychological fulfilments (albeit self-destructive ones) within a period of volatility and instability. It generates desire. It promises belonging, meaning, and a vision of the future—however exclusionary or regressive that vision may be. This psychological and emotional pull is a crucial source of its strength.

In contrast, much of progressive politics remains rooted in an outdated conception of human need: a sort of ‘bread and butter economism’ shared by both the centre and much of the left. It assumes that if we can simply provide ‘sufficient’ material goods—more housing, better pay, cheaper transport—then political alienation will dissolve. The steps to get there, or what counts as ‘sufficiency’ might vary, but the underlying mechanism remains the same. But this is not how people – nor their needs – operate.