All the Czar’s Horses: The Politics of Putting the Past Together Again
The pollicization of nostalgia
- Populist leaders often exploit nostalgia by referring to the glorious past of their countries that
has been lost today
 Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” refers to more “ordered” gender
and racial relations
 Venezuela, Chavistas refer to Simon Bolivar as El Libertador to reestablish an
independent Latin America
 Turkey, Justice and Development Party governments built their rhetoric (ability to
persuade audience) on Ottoman nostalgia
 Western Europe, right-wing populists talk about the era before the influx (massive arrivals)
of immigrants and European unification when they hadn’t lost their sovereignty
 “Let’s Take Back Control”, slogan of the leave camp during Brexit referendum (political
poll) says that things were better before
- Home is key to understanding nostalgia
 Nostalgia is made up of Greek roots; nostos, meaning “return home”, and algia, “painful
condition”. Together they make “a painful yearning to return home”
- Populists use nostalgia to create borders between the authentic “us” and the immoral “them” to
generate an intergroup cleavage between people and elites
 Cross-cutting intergroup cleavage happens when one “cleavage” (national, ethnic,
linguistic, and religious divisions affect political allegiances and policies) overlaps with
another “cleavage”, mixing the two groups
 Turkey, the most significant cross-cutting intergroup cleavage is built on conflict between
Islamists and secularists since late Ottoman era
 Ottoman Empire represents zenith (highest point) of the Turkish people
 Islam glorifies the Ottoman past as a tool for reconstructing the “the Great Turkey”
today
 Collapse of Ottoman Empire means absence of “home”
 1990s, Kemalist nostalgia appeared due to the rise of identity politics, political Islam, and
increasing relations with the EU and IMF
 This led to many Kemalists yearning for a strong, independent, self-sufficient and
secular (jade you should know this flip through your history homework) state as in
the past
- Some nostalgia is harmful, some good
 Nostalgia is an effective and cheap tool to generate an enemy image or antagonistic “us”
verses “them” identity
 When these identities overlap, it creates cross-cutting cleavage and leads to
populism
 Nostalgia can be used to criticize the illiberal politics of populists, increase support for
democracy
- Example: Vladmir Putin trying to rebuild the former Soviet Union
 Putin thought that Russia was weak and wanted to rebuild it’s power
 As a lieutenant colonel, Putin was stationed in the East German City of Desden and
mobs storming the Stasi compound in December 1989. The mobs were about the
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reach the KGB (Russian intelligence basically, like CIA) headquarters and the
backup that Putin requested was not coming (“Moscow is silent”) so he bluffed and
told the mob that there were armed men inside and would shoot people. It work and
the mob dissipated and the KGB’s files on informers and agents remained safe.
 1996, Putin rose from the ranks and was soon working for President Yeltsin’s
Kremlin. 1998, Bill Clinton called Yeltsin and told him that the US was considering
air strikes in Serbia. Yeltsin screamed at Clinton that it was unacceptable and hung
up, with the bombing raids still happening anyways.
 1999, a few days before he became president, Putin wrote an article in the Russian
newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta about how he thought Russia might become a
second or even third tier country, so he called for Russians to unite and make sure
the country remained a first-tier nation
 Putin’s image change into a sort of superhero
 He was at the controls of a race car and a fighter jet
 He rode a horse bare-chested
 He flied a microlight with a flock or rare cranes
 The circle of real decision makers around Putin shrank, and these people rarely
talked to journalists. This made reliable information about the Kremlin hard to get.
Putin is a cloistered (secluded from the world) leader and he rarely comes into
contact with Russians.
 2005, Ludmila, Putin’s wife at the time, told Russian newspapers in an interview
about how Putin was at home.
 Putin could only be asked questions non-work-related when he came home late
at night and drank a glass of kefir (sort of like yogurt) before bed
 He never praised her food so she stopped making him food
 They divorced in 2013
Example: Constantine and Mussolini both fought to put Roman Empire back together
 Benito Mussolini came to power in a 1922 coup when he led followers on a march in
Rome
 He allied himself with other European Fascist leaders like Hitler and General Francisco
Franco of Spain
 Mussolini dreamed of refounding the Roman Empire and launched a series of conquests
in Africa, including Ethiopia (uncolonized and rule by Kind Haile Sellasie)
 The air forces used chemical weapons in Libya and Ethiopia
 Mussolini only joined the Axis powers after Germany successfully invaded France
 He then tried to conquer Greece but failed, requiring backup from Germany
 He also failed to conquer Egypt, which drew Germany into a costly two-and-a-halfyear campaign
 When the Allies invaded Italy from North Africa in 1943, Mussolini was overthrown and
the new government switched sides in the war
 He was imprisoned in the Campso Imperatore Hotel in the Central Italian mountains
but was greet in a raid by Italian paratroopers order by Hitler
 German troops that invaded northern Italy captured and sent Italian Jews to Nazi
death camps (they were previously spared)

Mussolini was captured by communist partisans when trying to flee to Switzerland with
his wife Clara Petacci
 The two were taken to Milan and executed on April 28th, 1945
 Citizens spat on and mutilated their bodies before they were hung upside down from
lamposts
- Example: US, many conservatives long for time periods like the 1950s, 1980s, and November
2016
 Conservatives appreciate how in the 1950s, marriage rates were high, divorce rates were
low, and a man with only a high school diploma would support a family
 Many Americans correctly remember the 1950s as “a time of consensus and stability
and respect for authority”- David Frum
 However, these conditions were only there as a result of a war
 Spanish American War in 1898 until U. S. retreat from Vietnam, 75-year period
that included WWI, WWII and the Korean War; the leaders believed that the
U.S. should be governed in ways that mobilized its strength and be ready for
war
 America in the 1950s was experiencing blue-collar (manual work) utopia
created by bombing Japan and Germany flat and granting broad union powers
 Republicans and Democrats were more focused on war and peace, not arguing
with each other
 However, the 1950s was sexist, racist, and homophobic.
 The top rate of federal income tax was 95%
Populations trying to return to older lifestyle
- British Luddites destroying their mechanical looms
 Luddite means someone who opposes technological progress
 Modern Luddites invent “machines” in the form of computer viruses, cyberworms, and
other malware to disrupt technologies that trouble them
 Recent suspected targets include the London Stock Exchange and a Iran nuclear
power plant
 The Unabomber (technology terrorist), Ted Kaczynski, attacked the industrialtechnological system with mail bombs, hijacked aviation technology to bring down
skyscrapers
 University of Chicago professor Steven E. Jones said that the students “migrate across
the lawns like giant schools of cyborg jellyfish”
 Many people don’t really understand what a Luddite is
 Blogger Amanda Cobra hasn’t mastered infused (vegetables and fruits mixed with
water) drinks so she thinks she’s a Luddite
 Twitter, Woflwhistle Amy can’t deal with high heels so she thinks she’s a Luddite
 British woman locked outside house tweets her husband “you stupid Luddite, turn
on your bloody phone, I can’t get in!”
 People use the word “Luddite” as a declaration of ineptitude (literally, skill issue) and a
badge of honor
 However, the original Luddites were different. Many of them were highly skilled machine
operators in the textile industry and the idea of smashing of machines was not created by
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them.
 Luddite disturbances started at the beginning of the 19th century when British
working families were enduring economic upheaval and unemployment
 War against Napoleon was pushing people into poverty, with food becoming scare
and expensive
 Nottingham (textile manufacturing center), March 11, 1811, British troops broke up
a crowd of protestors demanding more work and better wages
 That night, the workers smashed the textile machinery in a nearby village
 Similar attacks occurred later, spreading across a 70-mile swath of Northern
England
 Government positioned thousands of soldiers to defend factories
 However, Luddites weren’t as dangerous or organized
 They set some factories on fire but mostly broke machines
 They inflicted less violence than they encountered; April 1812, 2,000
protesters mobbed a mill near Manchester and the owner ordered his men to
fire, killing 3 and wounding 18. 5 more were killed the next day
 Earlier that month, 150 protesters fought with a mill in Yorkshire and two
Luddites died. The others retaliated by killing the owner, but later three more
Luddites were hanged for order and the rest were sent to gallows or exiled to
Australia.
 Luddites liked attacking the stocking frame, knitting machine
 When industrial revolution began, Luddites began to fear that machines would
replace their jobs
 Ned Ludd, aka Captain, General, or King Ludd, inspired other protesters
 Commanded unseen armies that spooked authorities
 Governments made finding him a priority
 However, Ludd didn’t exist but was created in a story by a young apprentice
named Ludd or Ludham working at a stocking frame. His boss scolded him for
doing a bad job so he grabbed a hammer and flattened the machine.
 In Yorkshire, Luddites attacked frames with massive sledgehammers they called
“Great Enoch”, named after local blacksmith
 Loyola’s Jones’s 2006 book Against Technology describes how the original Luddites lived
in an era of “reassuringly clear-cut targets” whereas now technology is the a huge cloud
where our digital thoughts increasingly go to spend eternity
New York teenagers setting aside phones
 Logan Lane got her first phone at 11 and started using Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.
When the pandemic hit when she was 14, social media usage peaked. Lane felt
overwhelmed with how many hours she spent on her phone so she deleted her accounts.
 At 17, Lane founded the Luddite Club at Edward R. Murrow High School. The club has
16 members, teenagers who feel tech is consuming too much of their lives
 Gen Z describes people born around after 1997, These people don’t know life without
phones and social media, and spend eight hours of screen time every day. Gen Z is also
the driving force of TikTok, which has more than 1 billion global users
 Lane now goes to bed early, wakes early, is more engaged in school, journals, runs, makes
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clothing, and always has a book with her for subway commutes
 Lane met Jameson Butler, 16, at a party where they bonded over not having a phone
 The Luddite Club was born there
 The Luddite Club gathered at the Central Library on Grand Army Plaza for their weekly
meeting
 Biruk Watling arrived with Odille Zexter, both 17, with a guitar. Lane sewed the
ripped handle of her backpack. Watling, who goes to Beacon High School, journaled.
Zexter sketched while Max Frackmanm, 17, paged through a magazine
 Then the club members walked from the library to Prospect Park and Frackman set
up his hammock and started reading A Quaker Book of Wisdom while lane played
guitar and Zexter started to watercolor paint
 Watling used to get upset when her parents told her to stop spending so much time
on the screen and she became interested in stepping away from social media when
she read Don DeLillo novel Whtie Noise
Mennonites in Belize, like the Amish, prefer horses and buggies over cars
 Belize is home to around 12,000 of the world’s most conservative Mennonites, Christians
that live in closed communities and shun modern tech (including electricity)
 Belize colonies date back to the late 1950s, when a group of over 3,000 Canadian
Mennonites immigrated there from Mexico. The Belizean government offered them land,
religious freedom, and exemption from certain taxes
 Mennonites dominate Belize’s domestic poultry (chickens, turkeys, ducks) and dairy
markets despite accounting for less than 4% of the population
 Jake Michaels, some guy, visited the Indian Creek, Shipyard, and Little Belize Mennonite
colonies in North Belize
 He said that their native language is Plautdietsch (Mennonite Low German) but
many speak Belizean Spanish
 Belize Mennonites run their own schools but their literacy rate is lower, with just 5%
completing formal secondary education
 Communities mostly reliant on commercial agriculture and labor
 Michaels photographed Mennonites sorting beans in a dimly-lit room, in plastic aprons
at a papaya-packing factory, and men attending a nearby auction with smoke rising into
a bright blue sky
 Sometimes, electronic devices like phones and cameras appear in Michaels’ pictures
but he does this as a contrast; he took a picture of a young woman in traditional
clothing pointing a small camera towards Michaels
 Michaels wrote a book called c.1950 about the Mennonites