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Navigating the new normal: Is mainstream media out of touch with today's political reality?

Natale Labia
By Natale Labia
13 May 2025
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When the world is such a brutally polarised place and beset with such mad dog extremists in every form, moderation and an ability to sympathise with both poles is surely the best path to tread.

Is the “legacy” media full of, as Boris Johnson might put it, “doomsters and gloomsters”? There can be little doubt that the political tide has shifted significantly to the right over the past decade and a half.  

Meanwhile, much of the mainstream media, excluding the far-right press, has arguably maintained its traditional values, and as a result, is becoming increasingly at odds with the zeitgeist. Does this make mainstream media stubbornly out of touch with reality, or a principled stand against a morally decaying world?

A striking example of this stance came recently from prominent left-wing voices Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor in the Guardian, where they described Donald Trump’s politics as a form of “end times fascism”. They argue that the far right is no longer interested in building a better world for future generations. Instead, it is engaged in a frantic grab for resources and power in anticipation of global collapse — whether that endgame is down to climate change, war, or societal breakdown. 

The elite, meanwhile, are busy planning to survive through their monstrous wealth accumulation, off-planet escape fantasies, or moving to some type of nationalist fortress. Far right extremism here is a kind of “Rapture” related ideology, to use the phraseology of closely aligned Christian Zionist fundamentalism.

What makes today’s far right different from that of historical fascism, they argue, is the absence of even a destructive vision of progress. At least in the 1920s and 1930s Mussolini and Hitler had some kind of horizon they were aiming towards. Yes, a few eggs would have to be broken in the bloodbath of making the omelette, but beyond lay a Modernist Elysium, with trains running on time and all enemies incinerated.

Existential threats


Today’s far right, by contrast they say, has abandoned any pretence of a better future. Faced with existential threats like unregulated AI, climate breakdown, and growing inequality, it offers only nostalgia, domination over marginalised groups, and an ideology rooted in supremacist survivalism. US President Donald Trump’s absurd rhetoric about making America a great manufacturing power again is a case in point.

Cunningly, however, emotional rewards are on offer to those Maga faithful who support this bleak agenda: the dismantling of diversity and inclusion programmes, celebration of mass deportation to El Salvadorian mega-prisons, attacks on trans healthcare, vilification of vaccine purveying educators and scientists, and a rollback of regulations that protect the economy and environment. Despite being thin gruel, these are all framed as victories against the liberal elite.

While a striking argument, it does seem to overstate the point somewhat. It is true that we are witnessing severe global crises, the greatest for many years. From state-sponsored genocide in Gaza to widespread conflict and hunger in Africa and South Asia, the outlook is bleak. But is all hope lost? Surely we are not quite in a 1939-type situation, or worse?

For a refreshingly upbeat voice from the centre right comes the ex-chief economist of the Bank of England, Andy Haldane. Writing in the Financial Times he critiques the rise of what he calls “the panicans” — those who overreact to events with apocalyptic fear. He could, plausibly, be referencing Klein and Taylor. Ironically, he notes, both the liberal left and the extreme right are guilty of this: the former sees disaster everywhere, while the latter talks tough but retreats quickly when challenged.

Haldane points to trade policy under Trump as a case in point. This is famously his cornerstone policy, an obsession that has been the one common thread through his colourful career. Yet he quickly buckled under pressure. It took only 24 hours of bond market mayhem for “Liberation Day” to turn into a hasty and humiliating retreat.

Maga bluster


More recently, the announcement that the US and China have supposedly agreed to reduce tariffs suggest that global economic interdependence is stronger than Maga bluster. “From Liberation Day to capitulation day took 40 days,” said one trader. 

This rapid backtracking suggests that the real-world constraints of global trade and finance hold far more sway than Trump and his crypto-bro acolytes might admit. The Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the 1930s lasted four years. Richard Nixon’s tariffs of the early 1970s which led to the Great Inflation lasted four months. The worst of Trump’s tariffs lasted barely a week. As one fund manager quipped, “Sun Tzu’s The Art of War met the Art of the Deal”.

The tariffs could be re-escalated, but all signs point the other way. Indeed, despite external expressions of dismay, the past month has been a political godsend for many world leaders. Trade war and talk of a new world order are breathing life into flagging and unpopular regimes (Xi Jinping in China, Emmanuel Macron in France, Vladimir Putin in Russia), and providing compelling directions for new moderate ones (Friedrich Merz in Germany, Mark Carney in Canada, Keir Starmer in the UK, and Anthony Albanese in Australia).

Three points seem clear. First, the reason that Trump and his team have backtracked at such breakneck speed is that the economic outlook for the US is so grim. A total of 62% of US CEOs now expect a slowdown or recession in the next six months, according to Chief Executive magazine, as executives grapple with Trump-fuelled uncertainty. The damage has been done.

Second, both Klein and Haldane are, in a sense, correct, because they are referring to different realities of the world we live in. While economic fears may have receded slightly following some sanity entering the room, the broader political and social outlook remains deeply troubling, especially when viewed through the lens of democracy, civil liberties, and global stability.

Brutally polarised


Finally, there is a lesson for the media in general. When the world is such a brutally polarised place and beset with such mad dog extremists in every form, moderation and an ability to sympathise with both poles is surely the best path to tread.

Everything has shifted. As former Polish leader Lech Walesa once remarked, “It is easier to turn an aquarium into a fish soup than a fish soup back into an aquarium.” The world we knew might not be coming back, but that does not mean we should stop communicating with the other new worlds that we now have. DM

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