Don’t normalise the far right. But sometimes we must take it on | Jonathan Freedland

Don’t normalise the far right. But sometimes we must take it on | Jonathan Freedland:

Shunning people like Steve Bannon risks playing into their hands by allowing them to pose as victims

A word of our time is “normalisation”. It warns of the error of treating as normal that which should instead be shunned. It has in its sights the xenophobic, populist and racist right embodied by Donald Trump and his henchmen, as well as their European and British allies. It says that these people should not be afforded the usual courtesies of civilised, democratic life but should instead be left out in the cold.

All my instincts are with the anti-normalisers. Indeed, when it comes to Trump, I got there early, writing in this slot even before he’d sworn the oath of office: “Don’t treat Donald Trump as if he’s a normal president. He’s not.” I’d happily extend that rule to the likes of Steve Bannon, briefly Trump’s chief strategist, now keen to pose as an impresario of the populist international, lending his semi-celebrity to far rightists from Italy’s Matteo Salvini to Britain’s own Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who styles himself “Tommy Robinson”.

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