Chapter 7: Great Recession

27    “The polls say you can’t win” “Le Pen,” 60 Minutes, CBS, March 5, 2017,www.cbs.com/shows/video/W5gAaj5H4IwSI8AhN0pejoJlIb8UA25d/, 1:02–1:04.

27    “The nationalist policies Marine Le Pen . . .”  The footage of Le Pen entering her campaign launch and Cooper’s voiceover appear at 1:28–1:38 of “Le Pen,” 60 Minutes,www.cbs.com/shows/video/W5gAaj5H4IwSI8AhN0pejoJlIb8UA25d/.

27    “Nations are forcing themselves back into the debate”  “Le Pen,” 60 Minutes,www.cbs.com/shows/video/W5gAaj5H4IwSI8AhN0pejoJlIb8UA25d/, 2:02–2:05.

27    “Nations with borders we control . . .”  Le Pen,” 60 Minutes,www.cbs.com/shows/video/W5gAaj5H4IwSI8AhN0pejoJlIb8UA25d/, 2:06–2:22.

27    “Savage globalization?”  Le Pen,” 60 Minutes,www.cbs.com/shows/video/W5gAaj5H4IwSI8AhN0pejoJlIb8UA25d/, 2:23–2:24.

27    “Yes, savage, of course” . .  .“Wild globalization has benefited some . . .”  Le Pen,” 60 Minutes,www.cbs.com/shows/video/W5gAaj5H4IwSI8AhN0pejoJlIb8UA25d/, 2:24–2:32.

28    lack of regulatory oversight of the financial sector  Marcin Szczepanski, “A Decade On from the Crisis: Main Responses and Remaining Challenges,” European Parliamentary Research Service, PE 642.253, October 2019,www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2019/642253/EPRS_BRI%282019%29642253_EN.pdf, 2.
 

28    pursued riskier and riskier investments United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Global Social Crisis: Report on the World Social Situation 2011,www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/2011/rwss2011.pdf, 17–18.

28    predatory U.S. subprime mortgages  On the role of subprime mortgages and mortgage-backed securities in the Great Recession, see Wayne Duggan and Michael Adams, “A Short History of the Great Recession,” Forbes, June 21, 2023,www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/great-recession/; and Szczepanski, “A Decade On from the Crisis,” 2,www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2019/642253/EPRS_BRI%282019%29642253_EN.pdf.

28    international mortgage-backed securities market bottomed out  Duggan and Adams, “A Short History of the Great Recession,”www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/great-recession/.

28    Big banks . . . lost big  Szczepanski, “A Decade On from the Crisis,” 2,www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2019/642253/EPRS_BRI%282019%29642253_EN.pdf.

28    bailed out their major banks and created stimulus packages  Duggan and Adams, “A Short History of the Great Recession,”www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/great-recession/; and Szczepanski, “A Decade On from the Crisis,” 2–3,www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2019/642253/EPRS_BRI%282019%29642253_EN.pdf.

28    mastered their subprime mortgage predation on  Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (New York: One World, 2021), 67–100. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1281138006.

28    officials assumed financial mismanagement  McGhee, The Sum of Us, 85, 88–92. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1281138006.

28    neglect let the predation spread  McGhee, The Sum of Us, 92–93, 96–97. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1281138006.

28    origins in the fifteenth century On the origins of anti-Black racist ideas, see Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, rev. ed. (New York: Bold Type Books, 2023), 22–30. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1340743269.

28    “Slavs” in Western Europe prefigured  William McKee Evans, Open Wound: The Long View of Race in America(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 17. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/1086957777.

28    England’s colonization of Ireland  Jane H. Ohlmeyer, Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism, and the Early Modern World (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2023), 141–169. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1374423816?oclcNum=1374423816.

28    dispossessed subsistence farmers  Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), 179–184, broadly traces capitalism’s evolution from land enclosure to factories in Western Europe. The larger book details the development of capitalism—including indigenous dispossession, enslavement, imperialism, and global consumption—through cotton. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/904459253.

29    could not “forgive Hitler for . . .”  Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, trans. Joan Pinkham (1955; New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), 14. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/370023.

29    published in French in 1950  Though Césaire published the first version of Discourse on Colonialism in 1950, he wrote the third and most popular version in 1955. Robin D. G. Kelley, “A Poetics of Anticolonialism,” in Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, trans. Joan Pinkham (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001), 7, 24. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1027608788.

29    “applied to Europe colonialist procedures . . .”  Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, trans. Joan Pinkham (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), 14. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/370023.

29    sky-high death rates for White sailors  “In all trades, seamen who worked slave ships suffered higher mortality than those who worked in nonslave vessels, even for trading in Africa . . . In some 1,535 slave voyages” in the eighteenth century, “French crew mortality in the Middle Passage was 15 percent per month. In contrast, 158 Liverpool slave trade crews in the 1770s experienced a Middle Passage mortality of 28 percent per month of voyage, while mortality on the African coast was 45 percent per month.” Herbert S. Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 152. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/39505617.

29    duped onto ships, carried across oceans, and sold into semi-slavery  Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1870 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 177, 345; and Don Jordan and Michael Walsh, White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain’s White Slaves in America (New York: NYU Press, 2008). Find the Slave Trade library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/40852422. Find the White Cargo library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/173683522.

29    more than half of the total increase in global unemployment  United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Global Social Crisis,www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/2011/rwss2011.pdf, 29.

29    had the highest unemployment  United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Global Social Crisis,www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/2011/rwss2011.pdf, 30.

29    Men fared the worst in terms of job losses  United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Global Social Crisis,www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/2011/rwss2011.pdf, 39.

29    Older workers who lost their jobs struggled  United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Global Social Crisis,www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/2011/rwss2011.pdf, 43.

29–30   in Australia, Denmark . . . and the United States  United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Global Social Crisis,www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/2011/rwss2011.pdf, 43.

30    cut government spending and raised taxes United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Global Social Crisis,www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/2011/rwss2011.pdf, 14–15; and Michael Madowitz, “What Have We Learned About Austerity Since the Great Recession?” Center for American Progress, May 30, 2014,www.americanprogress.org/article/what-have-we-learned-about-austerity-since-the-great-recession/.

30    sovereign debt crisis  Szczepanski, “A Decade On from the Crisis,” 3,www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2019/642253/EPRS_BRI%282019%29642253_EN.pdf.

30    more than eight hundred elections from 1870 to 2014 in “advanced democracies” Manuel Funke and Christoph Trebesch, “Financial Crises and the Populist Right,” Ifo DICE Report 15, no. 4 (2017),www.ifo.de/DocDL/dice-report-2017-4-funke-trebesch-december.pdf, 6; and Manuel Funke et al., “Going to Extremes: Politics After Financial Crises, 1870–2014,” European Economic Review 88 (2016),www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292116300587, 228.

30    boost their share of the vote by 30 percent on average  Funke et al., “Going to Extremes,”www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292116300587, 227.

30    “. . . attributes blame to minorities or foreigners” Funke et al., “Going to Extremes,”  www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292116300587, 227.

30    “Historically, when times get tough . . .”  Jeff Schoep quoted in Marisol Bello, “White Supremacists Target Middle America,” USA Today, October 20, 2008, accessed via Wayback Machine, October 22, 2008 capture,web.archive.org/web/20081022233246/http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-10-20-hategroups_N.htm?csp=34.

30    the largest Nazi organization in the United States  “National Socialist Movement,” Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), accessed November 25, 2024,www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/national-socialist-movement.

30    “. . . We are the answer for white people”  Schoep quoted in Bello, “White Supremacists Target Middle America,”web.archive.org/web/20081022233246/http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-10-20-hategroups_N.htm?csp=34.

30    fuels “support for far-left parties” Yann Algan et al., “The European Trust Crisis and the Rise of Populism,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (Fall 2017),www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/algantextfa17bpea.pdf, 311.

30    “encourages far-right nationalistic and xenophobic parties”  Algan et al., “The European Trust Crisis and the Rise of Populism,”www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/algantextfa17bpea.pdf, 311.

30    referenced Podemos . . . in Spain  Algan et al., “The European Trust Crisis and the Rise of Populism,”www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/algantextfa17bpea.pdf, 311.

30    oppose austerity, inequality, and corruption Winnie Wong, “‘The Menace Is Inequality’: A Conversation With Podemos’s Pablo Iglesias,” The Nation, June 20, 2018,www.thenation.com/article/archive/menace-inequality-conversation-podemoss-pablo-iglesias/.

30–31 third largest party in the nation’s parliament in 2015 International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) Election Guide, “Spanish Congress of Deputies,” December 20, 2015, updated June 21, 2024, accessed January 15, 2025,www.electionguide.org/elections/id/2725/.

31     nearly secured the Democratic presidential nomination  Wilson Andrews et al., “2016 Delegate Count and Primary Results,” New York Times, July 5, 2016,www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/primary-calendar-and-results.html.

31     “change in financial wellbeing had little impact”  Diana C. Mutz, “Status Threat, Not Economic Hardship, Explains the 2016 Presidential Vote,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 115, no. 19 (April 2018),www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.1718155115, E4330.

31     “Those who felt that the hierarchy . . .”  Mutz, “Status Threat, Not Economic Hardship, Explains the 2016 Presidential Vote,”www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.1718155115, E4338.

31     “little evidence” . .  .due to “economic dislocation and marginality”  Tyler T. Reny et al., “Vote Switching in the 2016 Election: How Racial and Immigration Attitudes, Not Economics, Explain Shifts in White Voting,” Public Opinion Quarterly 83, no. 1 (Spring 2019),tylerreny.github.io/pdf/pubs/final_submission_reny_etal_poq_public.pdf, 109.

31     with “anti-immigrant attitudes” . . . “more liberal” attitudes on . . .  Reny et al., “Vote Switching in the 2016 Election,”tylerreny.github.io/pdf/pubs/final_submission_reny_etal_poq_public.pdf, 109.

31     the worst global economic crisis up to that point since the Great Depression  Heather Stewart, “We Are in the Worst Financial Crisis Since Depression, says IMF,” The Guardian, April 9, 2008,www.theguardian.com/business/2008/apr/10/useconomy.subprimecrisis; Gita Gopinath, “The Great Lockdown: Worst Economic Downturn Since the Great Depression,” International Monetary Fund (IMF) Blog, April 14, 2020,www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2020/04/14/blog-weo-the-great-lockdown-worst-economic-downturn-since-the-great-depression.

31     upped their German vote totals from 18.3 percent in 1930 to over 40 percent  Funke et al., “Going to Extremes,”www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292116300587, 233.

31–32 exploited the crisis and boosted their voting share in that decade, including Funke et al., “Going to Extremes,”www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292116300587, 233.

32     13.6 percent of the French vote . . . compared to 4.3 percent  Funke et al., “Going to Extremes,”www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292116300587, 233.

32     between 2004 and 2014 . . . tripled Funke et al., “Going to Extremes,”www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292116300587, 233.

32     Founded in 1973  Johan Bjerkem, “The Norwegian Progress Party: An Established Populist Party, “ European View 15, no. 2 (December 2016),link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12290-016-0404-8, 234.

32     best performance in parliamentary elections in 2009  Sonia Van Gilder Cooke, “Europe’s Right Wing: A Nation-by-Nation Guide to Political Parties and Extremist Groups: Norway,” Time, July 29, 2011,content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2085728_2085727_2085712,00.html; and IFES Election Guide, “Norwegian Parliament,” September 14, 2009, last updated June 21, 2024, accessed August 5, 2025,www.electionguide.org/elections/id/1538/.

32     old party as “part of the problem”  Breivik, “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” 1399.

32     “the only major political party in Norway that has voiced . . .”  Breivik, “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” 345.

32     repeatedly used the phrase “sneaky Islamization”  Sylvi Listhaug quoted in Astrid Hauge Rambøl, “The Progress Party’s Anti-Islam Hinterland,” RightNow!, blog, University of Oslo Center for Research on Extremism, August 9, 2021,www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/news-and-events/right-now/2021/the-progess-party%E2%80%99s-anti-islam-hinterland.html.

32     published  Stealth Jihad in 2008 Rambøl, “The Progess Party’s Anti-Islam Hinterland,”www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/news-and-events/right-now/2021/the-progess-party%E2%80%99s-anti-islam-hinterland.html.

32     reelected Ivan Gašparovič “Slovaks Re-Elect Their President,” Al Jazeera, April 5, 2009,www.aljazeera.com/news/2009/4/5/slovaks-re-elect-their-president; and IFES Election Guide, “Slovakian Presidency,” April 4, 2009, last updated June 21, 2024, accessed August 5, 2025,www.electionguide.org/elections/id/2093/.

32     elected Gjorge Ivanov  “Ivanov Elected New Macedonian President,” Balkan Insight, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, April 6, 2009,balkaninsight.com/2009/04/06/ivanov-elected-new-macedonian-president/; and IFES Election Guide, “North Macedonian Presidency,” April 5, 2009, last updated June 21, 2024, accessed August 5, 2025,www.electionguide.org/elections/id/2094/.

32     secured seats for the first time  “Sweden’s Far-Right Party Enters Parliament,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 20, 2010,www.rferl.org/a/Swedens_FarRight_Party_Enters_Parliament/2162774.html; and Jens Rydgren, From Tax Populism to Ethnic Nationalism: Radical Right-wing Populism in Sweden (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 108. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/945918408.

32     increased in every election over the next fourteen years  The Sweden Democrats moved from twenty seats and 5.70 percent of the vote in 2010 to forty-nine seats and 12.8 percent of the vote in 2014, sixty-two seats and 17.5 percent of the vote in 2018, and seventy-three seats and 20.54 percent of the vote in 2022. IFES Election Guide, “Swedish Parliament 2010 General,” September 19, 2010, last updated June 21, 2024, accessed August 5, 2025,www.electionguide.org/elections/id/1567/; IFES Election Guide, “Swedish Parliament 2014 General,” September 14, 2014, last updated June 21, 2024, accessed August 5, 2025,www.electionguide.org/elections/id/2406/; IFES Election Guide, “Swedish Parliament 2018 General,” September 9, 2018, last updated July 24, 2025, accessed August 5, 2025,www.electionguide.org/elections/id/3066/; and , IFES Election Guide, “Swedish Parliament 2022 General,” September 11, 2022, last updated August 2, 2023, accessed August 5, 2025,www.electionguide.org/elections/id/3813/.

32     the third-largest party in Finland’s parliament “Rise of Populist Parties Pushes Europe to the Right,” Spiegel International, April 25, 2011,www.spiegel.de/international/europe/brussels-fear-of-the-true-finns-rise-of-populist-parties-pushes-europe-to-the-right-a-758883.html; and IFES Election Guide, “Finnish Parliament 2011 General,” last updated June 21, 2024, accessed August 5, 2025,www.electionguide.org/elections/id/1591/.

32     losing all of its seats  IFES Election Guide, “New Zealand House of Representatives 2008 General,” November 8, 2008, last updated June 21, 2024, accessed August 5, 2025,www.electionguide.org/elections/id/1512/.

32     fourth-largest party in the country’s parliament , IFES Election Guide, “New Zealand House of Representatives 2011 General,” November 26, 2011, last updated June 21, 2024, accessed August 5, 2025,www.electionguide.org/elections/id/1613/.

32–33   the Tea Party transformed the Republican Party  Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, The Tea Party and the Remaking of American Conservatism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 5–9. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/948339082?oclcNum=948339082.

33     Tea Party Republicans picked up sixty-three seats  Paul Harris and Ewen MacAskill, “US Midterm Election Results Herald New Political Era as Republicans Take House,” The Guardian, November 3, 2010,www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/03/us-midterm-election-results-tea-party; and Ken Rudin, “Republicans On Path to Retaining Control of the House,” Political Junkie, NPR, October 29, 2012,www.npr.org/sections/politicaljunkie/2012/10/29/163120283/republicans-on-path-to-retaining-control-of-the-house.

33     daughter of the dictator who ruled the country in the 1990s  “Fujimori's Daughter Wins First Round of Peru’s Presidential Vote,” Voice of America, April 10, 2016,www.voanews.com/a/peru-votes-for-president/3278322.html.

33     formed Fuerza Popular (Popular Force) in 2010  Maddie Whitehead, “A Difficult Turn to the Left: Peru’s Latest Election and Castillo’s Plans,” Oxford Society for International Development, blog, November 4, 2021,oxsid.org/2021/11/04/a-difficult-turn-to-the-left-perus-latest-election-and-castillos-plans/.

33     narrowly losing the presidential election the following year , IFES Election Guide, “Peruvian Presidency 2011 Round 2,” June 5, 2011, last updated June 21, 2024, accessed August 5, 2025,www.electionguide.org/elections/id/2195/.

33     Latvia’s Nacionālā Apvienība (National Alliance) emerged  Daunis Auers, “The Russia-Ukraine War and Right-Wing Populism in Latvia,” European Center for Populism Studies, March 4, 2023,www.populismstudies.org/the-russia-ukraine-war-and-right-wing-populism-in-latvia/.

33     participated in the annual Legionnaires Day marches of Nazis and neo-Nazis  Cnaan Liphshiz, “Ex-Israeli Lawmaker Dies in Latvia Hours After Anti-Nazi Rally,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 17, 2013,www.jta.org/2013/03/17/global/ex-israeli-lawmaker-dies-in-latvia-hours-after-anti-nazi-rally.

33     murdered nearly all of Latvia’s Jews by 1943 “Latvian Waffen-SS: No Ifs, No Buts,” The Guardian, opinion, October 12, 2009,www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/13/latvia-poland-waffen-ss1.