For French historian Patrick Boucheron, the re-election of Donald Trump perfectly symbolizes the phenomenon of “backlash”, a setback in the face of societal progress. In an increasingly divided society, he calls for taking a step back from social networks like X (formerly Twitter), controlled by “engineers of chaos”.
“When we see the results of the presidential election in the United States, we can say to ourselves that lies, violence and contempt are doing well and allow us to win elections,” he asserts in La Matinale de la RTS on Monday .
French historian and intellectual figure, Patrick Boucheron says he is very worried about the return of conservatives to power around the world. In his eyes, the success of populist and conservative figures, both in the United States and in Europe, embodies a backlash, or “backlash“. A phenomenon which today clashes with feminist, ecological or even anti-racist progress and against which it is urgent to act, he continues.
The highlight of Donald Trump’s campaign is the place taken by Elon Musk
The expression “backlash” is not new. The term, which appeared in the 1990s, designated the hostile reaction of a part of American society to progress, particularly concerning women’s rights obtained 10 or 20 years earlier. But today, times have changed. The arrival of the internet, and more particularly social networks, fuels and exacerbates the division and polarization of society, he explains.
>> Read also: Five years after #MeToo, the United States in the grip of “a deep backlash”
“The highlight of this campaign is the place taken by Elon Musk,” he underlines, adding that the American tycoon has “a project which consists of aggravating our divisions” by amplifying chaos and hatred on the platforms that it controls, in this case X. This new form of control of public space, observes the historian, risks locking society into a bubble of extreme opinions and fragmented discourses. “Are we going to consent to this degradation of public space?” asks the man who co-signed the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
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Faced with the backlash experienced in many countries, the historian calls for collective vigilance and “social and disciplinary intelligence”. For him, we must act, in particular by distancing ourselves from social networks dominated by the “clash culture”. The historian admits his perplexity at the media or journalists who persist in being present on X. “We must stop seeing the world through social networks, because those who are behind it have a project, that of a power authoritarian.”
Knowledge is not just school or diploma, it is also access to a regulated public space, to the media, to a transparent and pluralist debate
According to him, the solution lies in education and the reaffirmation of a healthy public debate, where speech is freed without inciting division. “Knowledge is not just school or a diploma, it is also access to a regulated public space, to the media, to a transparent and pluralist debate,” he insists.
Comments collected by Pietro Bugnon
Text for the web: Fabien Grenon
