2023 > The rise of right wing populism.

September 2023 Axios reported..

International Trump support reflects a global phenomenon: The hard right, once fringe, is gaining power and popularity across Europe, Latin America and elsewhere.

Why it matters: Immigration, inflation and the rising cost of climate policy are creating potent new targets for populism, the Economist reports.

Zoom in: In Europe, nationalist or far-right parties are growing in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and even Finland and Sweden.

• Newish democracies "that for decades lacked big nationalist parties — Portugal, Romania and Spain — now have them," the Economist adds.

It's also true in Latin America: Tucker Carlson just traveled to Argentina to interview Javier Milei, a self-described "anarcho-capitalist" (radical libertarian) who came out of nowhere to become the favorite in next month's presidential election.

• Right-wing populists have made inroads in Chile, Paraguay and El Salvador, often with tough-on-crime messages, AP reports.

What's happening: Right-wing populists have lost — most notably former President Trump in the U.S., right-wing leader Marine Le Pen in France and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. But the global phenomenon doesn't appear to be ebbing, Axios' Dave Lawler tells me.

• In all three, the more mainstream victors have seen their popularity wane. As in countries across the rich world, the far-right is still knocking at the door each election cycle.

Between the lines: In several cases, right-wingers are coming back strong after losing.

• That includes Trump (who was tied with President Biden in a national 2024 poll by CBS News/YouGov, out Sunday), and Le Pen, who is leveraging Europe's immigration crisis.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu partnered with the extreme right to return to office, giving once-fringe parties a bigger voice than ever before — and helping spark a political crisis.

The Netherlands

Three nationalist populist parties – Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam Freedom party (PVV); the libertarian, conspiracist and pro-Russian Forum for Democracy (FvD) of Thierry Baudet; and its supposedly more moderate offshoot, JA21 – hold 28 of the Dutch parliament’s 150 seats. The meteoric rise in provincial elections this year of a new populist party, the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), which fights government environmental policies, underlined the fragmented and febrile nature of Dutch politics in the run up to national elections, due by March 2025.

Austria

One of Europe’s oldest far-right movements, the Freedom party (FPÖ), founded in 1956 and first led by a former Nazi functionary and SS officer, is polling at 28%, five points clear of the centre-right ÖVP with which it first entered government after the 1999 elections, and six ahead of the centre-left SPÖ. Its past record and outspoken pro-Moscow views may, however, make it difficult for the party to form a coalition even if it wins next year’s vote. As with neighbouring Hungary, support for Russia remains – for the time being beyond the western European pale.

Finland

The influence of the far-right Finns party in Finland’s new four-party coalition government – the most rightwing in the country’s history – is clear: cutting refugee quotas, raising the bar for work-based immigration, making citizenship harder to obtain and establishing separate benefit systems for immigrants and permanent residents. Experts have said the prime minister, Petteri Orpo of the centre-right National Coalition party – which has 48 seats in parliament to the Finns’ 46 – took a hard line on immigration in order to gain support for €6bn of spending cuts.

Sweden

After a narrow win by the rightwing bloc in elections last September, the conservative Moderates formed a minority coalition with two other centre-right parties that relies – in exchange for a say in policy – on the parliamentary backing of the far-right Sweden Democrats: the first time the nativist party, which won 20.5% of the vote, has had direct input in a government programme. Long unthinkable, the decision to include the far right in policymaking has produced radical changes in Sweden’s approach to law and order, asylum, immigration and integration.

Britain

The far right may not be formally represented in Westminster, but analysts argue that populism, nativism and cultural conservatism have long dictated certain centre-right policy positions. They cite nationalist sloganeering by government ministers and Conservative MPs before and since the Brexit referendum; an immigration policy – and related rhetoric – that are arguably tougher than those of any continental European government; and an unabashed “war on woke”.

the Guardian June 2023

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders said Thursday that he is ready to join the next Dutch coalition government after he surged to a huge election victory that marked a stunning lurch to the far right for a nation once famed as a beacon of tolerance.

The result is sending shockwaves through Europe, where extremist nationalist ideology is putting pressure on democracies that now face the possibility of having to deal with the first far-right prime minister of the Netherlands.

“It is going to happen that the PVV is in the next Cabinet,” Wilders said, using the Dutch abbreviation for his Party for Freedom.

With nearly all votes counted, Wilders’ party was forecast to win 37 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament, more than double the 17 the party secured in the last election.

Wilders got a standing ovation, cake and sparkling wine when he met his lawmakers at the parliament building Thursday morning.

“Can you imagine it? 37 seats!” he said to cheers.

Other political parties were holding separate meetings to discuss the election’s outcome before what is likely to be an arduous process of forming a new governing coalition begins Friday.