To longstanding American allies in Europe, remarks by President Trump and Vice President JD Vance about Ukraine and Germany this month represented one of the gravest tests of the postwar order in decades.
But to a cohort of current and former world leaders who gathered this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, they represented something else: the dawning of a global right-wing resurgence that, thanks to Mr. Trump’s re-election, is on the cusp of irrevocably transforming that order.
Ms. Truss was one of more than half a dozen political figures from as many countries to make the pilgrimage to CPAC this week in Oxon Hill, Md., just outside Washington. A long-running gathering of American conservatives that helped foment right-wing insurgencies within the G.O.P. during the Tea Party and Trump eras, CPAC has in recent years taken these ambitions global. The conference now serves as a connector of right-wing political movements in the Americas, Europe and Asia that increasingly see themselves as allies in a linked struggle against the institutions and geopolitical norms that have dominated world affairs since World War II.
The standard-bearers of right-wing political movements around the world — prime ministers from North Macedonia and Slovakia, opposition leaders from Poland and Spain — welcomed Mr. Trump as a transformational figure in a battle against liberalism that transcended nations and continents.
They cast their domestic enemies — judges, online speech constraints, civil society programs and mainstream news organizations — as part of an international project to suppress traditional values, religion and free markets, and hailed the new American president as an ally in turning the tide against them.
Posted by John3262005
2 Comments
This feels like an extremely optimistic view of the events that have taken place over the last few weeks.
Donald Trump, Vance and Musk didn’t “supercharge” a global right-wing movement. You could’ve argued that in 2016, but what they’ve done now is cause a major friction between far-right parties in Europe and the west. Claiming that Ukraine started the war, Steve Bannon and Elon Musk fighting each other over who can do the best Nazi salute hasn’t really done any favours in attracting support from Europeans. Jordan Bardella even cancelled his speech over it, and Bannon called him a “Pussy” for it. The fact that Elon Musk wanted to replace Nigel Farage as the leader of far-right resurgence in UK with probably Tommy Robinson, says a lot about his political instincts. I mean, CPC was speed-running to a majority (they may still get it) for the next Canadian elections, and Trump’s antics have made it difficult for Pierre.
Nothing like a global alliance of nationalists