Go Back to Where You Came From

You’ve seen the rise of populism and democratic backsliding across Europe, the United States, and beyond, but Sasha Polakow‑Suransky’s book shows it as part of one larger story: how fear—especially fear linked to migration, terrorism, and cultural change—becomes political fuel that corrodes liberal norms. He argues that liberal democracy isn’t usually overturned by coups; it erodes from within when elected leaders exploit anxiety to weaken constitutional limits.

The chain reaction: fear, myth, and control

It often begins with shocks. The Paris attacks of 2015, Charlie Hebdo, and similar moments create public panic and moral outrage. Politicians link those disasters to immigration and then craft narratives that promise safety through exclusion. Marine Le Pen’s language about defending secular France from an “Islamic invasion” mirrors Geert Wilders’s Dutch rhetoric about preserving “our culture.” These aren’t coincidental slogans; they translate fear into identity politics.

Intellectuals amplify this shift. Novels like Michel Houellebecq’s Submission and polemics by Alain Finkielkraut and Éric Zemmour give cultural legitimacy to once‑fringe ideas. That legitimacy lets mainstream parties move rightward without appearing extreme. The result is the steady normalization of policies—burkini bans, citizenship stripping—that once belonged to reactionary margins.

Integration gone wrong

You then discover that failed integration sets the stage for backlash. In the Netherlands and other parts of Europe, migrants invited as guest workers were never treated as permanent citizens. Welfare systems shielded them economically but isolated them socially. Cultural misunderstandings—around religion, gender, and public behavior—turn tolerance into quiet resentment. As Dutch sociologist Willem Schinkel notes, the state began policing the borders of “Dutchness” instead of building bridges.

This failure isn’t uniquely Dutch. Across Europe, welfare policies meant to protect citizens evolve into tools for exclusion. Denmark’s “welfare chauvinism” shows the paradox: parties like the Danish People’s Party defend generous social benefits but reserve them for “us,” linking economic protection to cultural purity. (Note: Robert Putnam’s research on trust and diversity helps explain why solidarity falters when social cohesion drops.)

Performance and provocation

Media culture accelerates this process. In places like the Netherlands, platforms such as Geenstijl thrive on provocation and humiliation. Politicians adapt accordingly—Pim Fortuyn, Theo van Gogh, and later Geert Wilders transform outrage into spectacle. Debates shift from substance to identity theater. The result is performative politics that rewards emotional extremes over nuance.

Offshoring morality and global contagion

You also see how democracies externalize moral dilemmas. Australia’s offshore detention system—Nauru and Manus Island—becomes the model for European leaders seeking to outsource refugee management. The policy reframes cruelty as compassion (“Stop the boats to save lives”). But the human toll and the erosion of legal accountability show how easily humanitarian rhetoric masks moral outsourcing. The same logic leaks into Denmark and Britain, where deterrence replaces responsibility.

The shape of the new far right

Polakow‑Suransky traces how figures like Marine Le Pen modernize xenophobia. She cleanses overt racism and rebrands it as defense of secularism and women’s rights—turning exclusion into moral duty. Intellectuals such as Renaud Camus and Jean Raspail feed her with literature warning of a “Great Replacement.” The strategy proves electorally potent because it speaks to fear and nostalgia simultaneously. (Compare this cultural makeover to Thatcher’s mix of morality and markets, or to Trump’s fusion of security and grievance.)

Democracy’s final strain

By the epilogue, the book reveals democracy’s deeper problem: disenchantment. Foa and Mounk’s research shows declining belief in democratic institutions among younger citizens. Many who feel ignored turn toward illiberal alternatives simply because they seem to listen. Isaiah Berlin described nationalism as a “self‑protective resistance” born of humiliation; the pattern repeats now among those who think elites disregard them. Unless liberal politics re‑engages with economic fairness and emotional recognition, it will keep losing ground to leaders who promise identity security instead of institutional integrity.

Key takeaway

Fear, exclusion, and nostalgia combine into a powerful mix. Liberal democracy’s decline isn’t inevitable—but without empathy and credible economic solutions, its defenders will keep losing the moral argument to populists who weaponize culture to promise protection.

In Polakow‑Suransky’s account, integration fails not because people won’t adapt, but because states design contradictory policies. The Dutch experience shows how pragmatism turned paternalistic. Guest workers from Turkey and Morocco arrived assuming temporariness; the state assumed they’d leave. When they stayed, bureaucrats offered welfare protection without social inclusion. Schools and housing clustered newcomers, producing separate worlds within one country.

Three recurring mistakes

First, the guest‑worker assumption leaves migrants without civic roots. Second, welfare policies trap families into dependency instead of mobility. Third, cultural misunderstandings harden boundaries—liberal norms like gender equality become identity tests rather than shared principles. The debate shifts from “how do we live together?” to “how much do you resemble us?”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s early life symbolizes these tensions. Her story triggered public questions about values, not economics. From there, politicians reframed cultural loyalty as citizenship itself—"moral citizenship" replacing legal belonging. It’s an invisible demotion: you may hold a passport but never truly be trusted.

Radicalization and response

When inclusion stalls, resentment grows on both sides. Some alienated youths turn from left‑wing activism to religious militancy, seeking an alternative community. Others internalize exclusion and disengage. You learn from sociologists like Ian Buruma and Zihni Özdil that condescension—being tolerated but not respected—is a subtle form of violence. Cultural equality requires mutual adaptation; when only migrants must perform change, it breeds backlash.

Key insight

Integration works only when it’s two-sided: institutions create access to jobs and education while citizens accept genuine diversity. Demands for cultural conformity without material inclusion make communities brittle and politics angry.

Scandinavia’s paradox sheds light on Europe’s wider turn: parties defending strong welfare states also promote exclusionary nationalism. The Danish People’s Party crystallizes this “welfare chauvinism”—the promise to safeguard social benefits but only for natives. It’s politically powerful because it merges economic security with cultural defense.

Solidarity under strain

Welfare systems thrive on shared identity. When communities diversify rapidly, that identification weakens. Citizens still believe in redistribution but resist sharing with people they regard as outsiders. The DPP capitalizes on this by presenting immigration as the cause of fiscal anxiety. Its pitch sounds compassionate—defend working families—but implicitly restricts empathy’s circle.

Mainstream parties slide right to keep up. European social democrats, terrified of losing blue‑collar voters, adopt tougher rhetoric about borders. Welfare becomes conditional, rights become nationalized, and humanitarian commitments shrink to optics. (Note: Herbert Kitschelt and Anthony McGann predicted this alignment decades ago—redistribution plus xenophobia as a new populist formula.)

Lesson

Ignore economic fear and you push voters toward those who fuse welfare with identity. Address insecurity directly and you can maintain prosperity without sacrificing inclusion.

Employment defines belonging more than rhetoric does. In Denmark, Aydin Soei’s concept of countercitizenship explains a grim reality: refugees exist physically within the state but are excluded from productive participation. They become symbols of welfare dependency rather than contributors. That image drives resentment and political exploitation.

Blocked access to work

Denmark tried an "introduction wage" program—temporary low pay for early employment—but only thirteen refugees joined in 2016. Unions feared wage erosion; employers preferred easier hires from Eastern Europe; and politicians avoided conflict. Without real entry points, skilled newcomers remain idle, their past qualifications ignored. Soei warns that parking refugees on welfare only reinforces division.

Policy crossroads

You face two choices: restrict access and accept permanent dependency, or create structured pathways into work with training and wage protections. Historians like Leo Lucassen propose EU‑level solutions—let migrants work under regulated conditions instead of leaving them vulnerable to smugglers or social dumping. That approach reframes migration as productivity rather than charity.

Policy insight

Integration through work isn’t just moral—it’s strategic. It prevents welfare resentment, reduces radicalization, and rebuilds shared civic identity.

The Danish cartoon crisis exposes liberalism’s most delicate tension: defending free expression in a plural society. Flemming Rose’s publication of Muhammad cartoons in Jyllands‑Posten was intended as a test against self‑censorship, but unleashed global protests and violence. The aftermath turned a local editorial decision into a symbolic global battlefield over blasphemy and rights.

What the crisis revealed

Many Western observers misread representation, assuming angry imams or foreign governments spoke for all Muslims. Kenan Malik clarifies that this amplification of extreme voices marginalizes moderates. The moral narrative reversed: cartoonists appeared aggressors; violent protesters as victims. Polakow‑Suransky shows how this confusion emboldens censorship movements and weakens liberal principles.

Balancing rights and sensitivity

Freedom requires tolerating offense, not approving it. Liberal democracy’s test comes when expression stings—Charlie Hebdo and Kurt Westergaard’s persecution illustrate the stakes. (Note: compare this to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses controversy—the same polarization between art and belief.)

Essential distinction

Offense is not incitement. Democracies lose their soul when they equate hurt feelings with legitimate grounds for silencing dissent.

You encounter a new generation of far‑right movements that abandon fascist imagery but keep its emotional core: nostalgia, loss, and protectionism. Marine Le Pen’s modernization of France’s National Front exemplifies it. By invoking secularism and women’s rights against Islamic conservatism, she recasts exclusion as virtue.

De‑demonization and the cultural shift

Le Pen’s purge of overt racism allows her to appeal across old partisan lines—working‑class voters, disaffected socialists, even minorities anxious about Islamist extremism. Intellectuals such as Alain Finkielkraut and Jean Raspail in The Camp of the Saints lend an aura of cultural legitimacy. Florian Philippot frames the party’s mission as patriotic social protection, fusing identity with redistribution.

Why nostalgia sells

Nostalgia promises simplicity—an imagined past of cohesion and respect. Renaud Camus’s “Great Replacement” myth dramatizes demographic change as extinction. Politicians recycle that imagery through vivid metaphors (Thierry Baudet’s museum portrait lament of “who we once were”). It turns anxiety into a moral crusade.

Strategic reflection

You counter nostalgia not with condemnation but with credible belonging—economic dignity, civic fairness, and emotional security. Absent that, reactionary identity remains persuasive.

Australia’s “Pacific Solution” demonstrates how democracies outsource moral responsibility. By detaining asylum‑seekers in Nauru and Manus, governments convert compassion into deterrence. John Howard sold it as protecting human life; his successors refined it as electoral efficiency. The human consequences—abuse, suicide, indefinite confinement—make the policy a warning sign for other democracies.

The cost of moral convenience

Offshoring appears neat: remove refugees from visible spaces, thereby neutralizing domestic anger. But invisibility doesn’t erase suffering—it hides it from voters. Refugee children like Mohamed Baqiri on Nauru become collateral damage of a policy designed for optics.

Global influence

European populists admire Australia’s deterrence model. Tony Abbott and Nigel Farage endorse it as “moral self‑defense.” Yet exporting cruelty corrodes international norms and democratic conscience. The book forces you to ask: does displacing people fix borders or simply export shame?

Ethical takeaway

You can secure borders humanely by processing asylum claims transparently and regionally, not by shifting suffering offshore. Deterrence without dignity becomes moral outsourcing.

Polakow‑Suransky widens the lens beyond Europe. Xenophobic politics, he shows, isn’t confined to whites against others—it’s a feature of societies under stress. South Africa’s anti‑immigrant riots reveal the same mechanism: economic scarcity plus official ambiguity produce violence. Poverty and unmet expectations breed hostility toward migrants who compete for jobs or housing.

Echoes of Europe

Activists like Mary Louw run anti‑immigrant campaigns with rhetoric almost identical to European populists—claims that foreigners commit crime, take benefits, and must leave. Operation Fiela turned a crime‑control operation into mass deportation. The liberal constitution mattered little once fear framed outsiders as threats. Even leftist movements joined the hostility when redistribution felt inadequate.

You realize scapegoating works everywhere scarcity meets moral failure. Leaders legitimize resentment by echoing public anger; vigilantes read that tone as permission. (Compare Herman Mashaba’s statements in Johannesburg to Donald Trump’s early campaign speeches—the same justification logic.)

Global insight

Xenophobia thrives wherever inequality and unmet promises collide. It isn’t cultural destiny—it’s political design, fueled by ignored hardship and opportunistic leadership.

The populist surge is also a story of abandonment. Across Europe and Britain, left‑wing parties drifted toward cosmopolitan managerialism, leaving behind workers who valued national stability and material security. Marine Le Pen, UKIP, and Denmark’s DPP occupy the vacuum by promising protection—of jobs, borders, and welfare.

The working‑class pivot

Le Pen’s success among ex‑Communist voters in Pas‑de‑Calais shows how economic betrayal mixes with cultural anxiety. In Britain, Michael Collins and John Harris documented similar disaffection before Brexit: people felt unseen, displaced, and insulted by elites. Populists offered acknowledgment. The result wasn’t just an anti‑EU vote—it was a revolt against condescension.

Denmark’s convergence

Denmark reveals the next stage: the left adopting nationalist language itself. Social Democrats moved right on immigration to retain working‑class support, blurring lines between redistribution and restriction. It’s the embryo of a possible “left‑nationalist” coalition—policy driven by welfare defense and cultural protection.

Strategic warning

Progressive politics survives only by reconnecting to material life—jobs, wages, locality. Abandon that terrain and nativists will own both empathy and economics.

The book’s closing insistence is clear: liberal democracy can withstand its crisis only if it re‑engages emotionally and economically with the public it claims to defend. Labeling populist voters as irrational merely deepens estrangement. You must balance principle with responsiveness—hold fast to rights while healing the inequalities populists exploit.

Democracy under strain

Studies by Yascha Mounk and Roberto Foa show falling support for institutions among younger citizens. These shifts reflect alienation, not ideology. Economic precarity and social fragmentation make authoritarian shortcuts tempting. Isaiah Berlin called nationalism an emotional shield for the disregarded; it remains so today. To rebuild faith, leaders must listen and adjust while resisting illiberal shortcuts.

The responsible path forward

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron illustrate imperfect but principled defenses: they refused xenophobic compromises, even at political cost. The lesson isn’t heroic purity—it’s persistence. Provide credible economic answers, protect civil rights, explain policies honestly. Empathy without strategy fails; strategy without empathy corrodes legitimacy.

Final understanding

Liberal democracy dies from neglect, not assault. You save it by restoring trust—through fairness, solidarity, and courage to resist fear-driven shortcuts disguised as reform.