Is There a United New Right?

The emergence of right-wing leaders in various parts of the world and their counter-offensive against wokeism, global elites, and liberalism has given rise to a narrative according to which the “far right,” the “nationalist right,” or the “populist right” (whatever you want to call them) is taking over from the left and establishing itself as the dominant force in the West and its periphery. Argentina’s Javier Milei, for instance, has talked about a “right-wing international,” while several speakers at a recent gathering of “Patriots for Europe”, a parliamentary bloc made up of various European parties in Brussels, held in Madrid, spoke of a new era.

This line of thought and public discourse, however, gives the false impression that the new forces of the right gaining attention across the Western world are homogeneous and ideologically compatible and share the same vision. Nothing could be further from the truth. Regardless of what you think of them, Milei is a free marketeer who believes in free trade and wants to abolish the central bank, while Donald Trump believes in tariffs and other barriers to trade, and thinks monetary policy should be a political instrument of economic goals set by the government. Hungary’s Viktor Orban is a major critic of Ukraine and President Zelensky as well as an admirer of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, while Italy’s Giorgia Meloni has given her staunch support to the government in Kyiv against Russia. Britain’s Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, a ferocious critic of the European Union, was instrumental in his country’s decision to “Brexit” from the continent (he is now preventing current Prime Minister Keir Starmer from giving a boost to his country’s relationship with the continent), while Italy’ prime minister has in many ways become the darling of the E.U. Marine Le Pen, France’s nationalist right-wing leader, has attacked Milei’s economic policy (she repeated at the “Patriots for Europe” summit that her economic vision is the opposite of what the Argentine stands for), while some of the participants in the gathering in Madrid, including Orban, stand for a measure of free trade and would be severely hurt if Trump made good on his promise to levy tariffs on Europe. 

Most of these leaders oppose immigration and wokeism, declare themselves cultural warriors against the left, and are willing to disregard their profound doctrinal and ideological differences in order to reinforce their own positions at home and conjure up a vision of the universal inevitability of the takeover of the right. That the left is in the midst of a major crisis (entirely of its own making) is undeniable, but one can hardly speak of a new right in the sense of a united front made up of like-minded individuals in pursuit of the same goal (other than gaining and preserving power). 

One of the characteristics of modern-day populism (as opposed to, say, to the populism of the Founding Fathers in the United States) is precisely its ideological imprecision and its fogginess in terms of the socioeconomic models and ideas it represents. Therein lies its main political advantage (your appeal is potentially much wider if you can change your principles frequently and adapt them to whatever is in vogue or if you can contradict yourself constantly), but also its weakness.

When all you have are tribal impulses and an ability to polarize public opinion, and you lack a coherent doctrinal or ideological vision, you are bound to pursue policies that are ultimately incompatible with each other and will eventually fail to produce the results that would guarantee a long reign in politics. If you reduce taxes but increase spending, or deregulate some areas of the economy but impede international trade, or try to reduce spending but pursue a lax monetary policy, or ally yourself with illiberal regimes while weakening liberal ones, the result will, in all likelihood, disappoint—not to mention the danger of overturning or severely eroding liberal democracy under the rule of law in favor of authoritarianism, of course.