German <i>Rightwingization</i> as the New Normal? Tales of Becoming

Abstract

This text explores the politics of becoming rightwing amongst what is considered normal German middle class life. The socio-political and historic context of the left losing its subcultural hegemony is narrated as transgenerational societal shift in the light of a perceived masculine fragility. Illustrated through wo middleclass men whose becoming rightwing is driven by a plethora of anxieties manifesting at the intersection of their public/private lives; anxieties which are reaching from immigration to gender madness, and which are analyzed as contradictory but also mutually constituting. Rather than interpreting the widespread righwingizsation through a narrow economic focus this text argues to read the politics of becoming rightwing as a highly intersectional project.