I don't like the word identity politics because it reduces all the identities we have down to two and also down to the two that we have the least form of agency in.

But I do think that the lack of reflection on the left in a sense

of helplessness and hopelessness about what it might mean to have a real

universalist left-wing project that would be global.

Lack of refraction about what went wrong has led to this interning about defending my group,

figuring out my group identity and that Yibadas.

And now the good fight with Yasha Monck.

Shari Berman, the excellent political scientist and old friend of the podcast published a really interesting and thought-provoking

peace in persuasion a few days ago. It's called how Western Europe's far-right moderated.

And her argument is that in weak political systems extremist

parties can take over the government without needing to moderate.

And they often become very dangerous to democratic stability,

as we have seen in Poland and Venezuela.

And as she argues, and I would agree,

we are seeing in the United States with the current Republican Party.

But Cherry also argues that in relatively strong political systems, for example in Western Europe, these far-right parties face a kind of difficult

choice. Either they remain extreme but don't come to have much influence or they moderate in which case they

can enter governments and perhaps even grow in their vote chair and

Cherry sees this phenomenon at play with Sweden Democrats, with

Georgia Maloney's party in Italy, even with Marin Le Pen.

While these parties and candidates had genuinely extremist roots,

Sherry argues, we no longer need to be as worried about them because they have shared some of their

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