The West was moving to the right — and then Donald Trump got elected again
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Something is happening among America’s allies, and it’s a tremendous relief. For some years now, we’ve seen the MAGA-infused global right gaining a foothold amongst western democracies, largely driven by the same demagogic, nationalist, pseudo-populism that has fueled Donald Trump’s dominance on the American right.
Some countries like Hungary have served as a sort of experiment for the kind of post-democratic autocracies dreamt of by the modern right wing in which government co-opts, intimidates and de-legitimizes the political opposition to create an authoritarianism that dominates the culture and the politics without a lot of overt violence.
But the rise of the far right among the Western allies seems to be stalling out.
Celebrating prematurely. The UK is about to go fascist, Germany is teetering on the brink, and Canada only just dodged a bullet for now.
And no mention of Italy?
Yes, Italy, Hungary and others are already well down the fascist path.
Romania just went fascist. Romania’s current election front-runner is a fascist. Austria is struggling not to be wholly under the far right’s control, depending on a coalition to hold them off. The far right has significant power in the governments of Slovakia, Netherlands, Finland, and Sweden. Portugal and Belgium are also dealing with surging far right movements.It’s absurd to conclude it’s over because centrism squeaked through in Canada and Australia. It’s like everyone relaxing in 2020 because the US public were sure to see sense under Biden.
And Portugal overthrew fascism in the 1970s, too…
The UK is a bit away from “about to go fascist”
Nigel (Nazi-youth-song-singing, frequent RT guest apologist for Putin & emphatic volunteer for 2nd in line of any future human trumpepede) Farage is as close to actual power as he’s ever been—which is not at all.
His party’s existence actually potentially helps more reasonable parties because he is splitting the right wing vote
Labour are going to have to come up with something soon though or things could go bad; I get it’s their first year and they’re doing unpopular things early so they’re not fresh for next election, but they’re really unpopular right now.
By 3 points; less than a basketball goal
And don’t forget that Italy, Poland and Hungary are already there and we’re about to invade the few countries that went left.
Poland actually got rid of their right wing government in the last election in 2023 and are hopefully dumping the president who’s been blocking reform. It can be done.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2025-03/tusk-eyes-chance-purge-far-right-polands-presidential-election
Poland is not out of the woods yet though
Is there some weird form of Canadian basketball out there where this statement makes sense?
Nope.
What? No. All our (Canadian) fascists are gonna separate and join the US. Then we’ll be a fascist-free country!
Trade Alberta for the Western and Northeastern states
I’m happy with expelling Albertans for being secessionists but Canada is keeping the oil.
Yes but not Calgary or Edmonton, nor Lake Louise, nor Banff, or any of the other mountain resort towns! Plus we keep the full stretch of the trans Canada highway and all the major railways.
Like bacteria in a jar. They grow, then become toxic, then die off.
The UK is hardly about to go fascist. Labour recently won power and there won’t be a national election for years. There were smaller council elections recently and Reform won a few seats, but so did the Greens and Lib Dems. Basically, there were some anti-establishment votes.
East Germany voted AfD, but the rest of the country defeated that.
Canada voted Liberal despite a strong anti-establishment sentiment. It’s likely that eventually it will flip back conservative. But, there’s a chance that before that happens, the chaos of Trumpism will make the conservatives in Canada try to become an adult, respectable party rather than Maple MAGA.