The Global Progress of Right-Wing Populism

Its ascent continues

Ahead of general elections on July 23, the president of the right-populist party Vox, Santiago Abascal, addresses the situation of culture in Spain with a speech at the Carlos Amberes Foundation, on July 10, 2023 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo By Gustavo Valiente/Europa Press via Getty Images)

From the very beginning of this Substack, I’ve expressed the ambition to include the world beyond American shores in my analysis of the right. I conceded from the start that most of my posts would focus on the United States—the context I know best, and the one from which most of my readers would hail. But I’ve aspired to place American events in a wider frame, precisely because of the many striking continuities taking place across the world. Broader patterns unfolding in a multitude of places point toward deeper causes than most analysts tend to discern when focusing exclusively on the U.S. and its distinctive institutions and history.

So treat this post as a spot check on how the populist/nationalist right is doing around the world in the summer of 2023. As I’ll show, using polling results aggregated by Politico.eu, it’s doing remarkably well, at least in many places. After running through the latest in numerous countries, I’ll conclude with a tentative observation about where we are and where we may be going.

Populism Rising

The populist right’s biggest setback since Donald Trump’s defeat in late 2020 was Jair Bolsonaro’s narrow loss in Brazil last October to left-wing challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. That Bolsonaro’s supporters undertook a revolutionary insurrection against Lula’s new government six weeks later, eventually leading Bolsonaro to be banned for eight years from running for office, only makes the loss more sweeping.

But Brazil is an outlier globally. Over the past year or so, the populist-nationalist right has prevailed in nationwide (free but sometimes questionably fair) elections in Turkey, Hungary, and Israel. Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP Party in India, meanwhile, hasn’t faced nationwide elections since 2019, but polls show Modi and his party maintaining broad-based popularity, despite some recent scandals and minor electoral setbacks.

But it’s in Europe where prospects for the populist-nationalist right seem brightest at the moment.