In France,Macron kept Le Pen at bay for a second time. But she is getting closer. Having received 34 per cent of the vote when she lost to him in 2017,she got 42 per cent in last April’s presidential election. Under French law,Macron cannot run next time,while Le Pen has indicated she will. She has a well organised and established party behind her. Macron’s Renaissance Party is a self-created personal vehicle that seems unlikely to produce a successor.
The last week of 2022 provided more examples of far-right populism’s long-term victories and short-term defeats. In Israel,the drift over many years of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party towards a full embrace of far-right politics seems completed with a new government that hasstrong ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox voices.
It has now become entirely normal that some of the largest democracies can be governed by far-right populists.
In Brazil,Bolsonaro,like Trump,has flown to the populist retirement home of Florida after his 49-51 per cent defeat by Lula,but leaves behind a country in which far-right politics and sympathies with Brazil’s dictatorial past have been legitimised after decades in the political wilderness.
To understand the historical significance of these events,it’s worth taking a step back from the year-to-year view and remembering how the populist far-right was doing at the start of this century. While there had been sporadic successes that,like Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in this country,crashed and burned almost as quickly as they emerged,the populist far-right was largely politically irrelevant across Western democracies.
Even when it did well at the polls,it was toxic. If you’d been reading the news in early 2000,you’d have come across stories about how European Union member states were imposing sanctions on Austria because of the entry of the far-right Freedom Party as a junior partner in a coalition government. That reaction would be unthinkable now,not least since some of the continent’s biggest democracies,such as Italy,Poland and theincreasingly authoritarian Hungary,have governments in which the populist far-right are the dominant forces.
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Instead,two decades into the 21st century,liberal democrats find themselves in a situation where even narrow defeats of leaders such as Trump,Le Pen and Bolsonaro are treated as great victories rather than the red-light warnings they should be.
In contrast to 2000,it has now become entirely normal that some of the largest democracies,from India to the US,and from Italy to Brazil,can be governed by far-right populists.
This year is unlikely to bring much respite for liberal democrats. Elections in Poland will probably deliver a third consecutive government for the far-right populists of Law and Justice,further pushing that country towards a Hungarian-style “illiberal democracy”.
In Spain,until recently considered “immune” to such phenomena due to its not-so-distant fascist past,the far-right populist Vox is set to consolidate its position as the third party just four years after it entered parliament.
Irrespective of specific defeats and individual years that are slightly better or worse,the long-term trend is pretty clear:the 21st century continues to be the era of the rise of the populist far-right. Figuring out how to halt this in the long term,rather than rejoicing at short-term victories,remains the key challenge for liberal democrats worldwide.
Duncan McDonnell is Professor of Politics and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at Griffith University in Brisbane.
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