Donald Trump and Victor Orban (Shutterstock)
What the alternative right-wing master Steve Bannon failed to create, German taxpayers have just stepped in to revive: a nationalist international. Thanks to the German government, the far right will soon have its own wealthy global think tank and the kind of political academy that Bannon’s plan to rule the world cherishes.
Germany’s gift to the far right is the Desidrius Erasmus Foundation, the public policy department of the country’s most famous extremist party, the Alternative Party of Germany (AfD). Erasmus was a Dutch humanist of the Renaissance, known for his satirical article "Praising Stupidity", and he would be shocked if his name was so absurdly misappropriated. After all, the political foundation of AfD is based on a series of stupidity that is diametrically opposed to humanism, from the initial anti-immigration rhetoric to the current favor of the anti-vaccination population.
Strangely, AfD did not perform well in the recent German elections, and its parliamentary delegation lost 11 seats. Despite this, the party still won slightly more than 10% of the vote and entered the parliament for the second time in a row. Therefore, it meets the conditions that all other major parties have also received: government support for their foundations. Unless this generous legal effort is successfully prevented, the Erasmus Foundation will soon receive the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars in taxpayers' annual income.
Think of it as an extraordinary weapon for the global far right, because AfD will receive funds to build hate outposts around the world. The foundation of the left-wing Die Linke Party, more appropriately labeled Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, already has offices in more than 20 countries. The Green Party’s foundation is named after Nobel Prize-winning German novelist Heinrich Boer, and it is located in more than 30 countries. Since the heyday of fascism in the 1930s, the far right has never had this opportunity for global expansion.
The idea that AfD can do anything similar to "political education" should be ridiculous. But this is exactly how its foundation plans to take advantage of the upcoming federal windfall: recruiting and training a new generation of far-right thinkers and activists. The Erasmus Foundation’s goal is to recruit more than 900 people for its political academy and related educational institutions. This is more ambitious than the intellectual "Gladiator" academy that Bannon once dreamed of creating in a former monastery in the Italian countryside.
The Erasmus website does not mention its global ambitions. However, based on the latest platform of AfD, it is expected that the foundation will gather Eurosceptics to plan the abolition of the European Union; promote AfD’s anti-immigration platform with colleagues across Europe, such as Lega in Italy, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, and Marie in France Nale Penn’s national rally and several extremist groups in the Balkans; and through the establishment of links between North America, the former Soviet Union, and Australasia’s identity groups, he poured money into building a "respected" for white nationalism face.
The thunder on the right sounded indeed ominous. However, after Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 general election, public support for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro dropped sharply, and continued efforts to combat the extreme right in Eastern Europe The prospects of the nationalist international seem to be out of reach, for example, four years ago today.
A well-funded German foundation is unlikely to change this forecast. Unfortunately, the Erasmus Foundation is by no means the only dark cloud on the political horizon.
In fact, the global sense of disillusionment with the mainstream politics that promoted the rise of Trump and his colleagues has become stronger in recent months. The new authoritarian populists have consolidated power in places like El Salvador—President Naib Bukler called himself “the coolest dictator in the world”—and are preparing for possible takeovers in countries such as Chile and Italy. Who knows? Even Donald Trump may return to the White House in 2024.
In other words, just when you think you can finally return to the international community safely, the global situation may get worse. With the help of German taxpayers, and with the help of vaccination enforcement, world economic failure, and continued corruption of the strong, the global right may rebound and gain greater power and influence in the next few years.
Response building wave
At this point, according to all political laws, Donald Trump should be radioactive. He lost his re-election campaign in November 2020, and his subsequent coup attempt also failed. His record in expanding Republican power is poor, helping the party lose a majority in the House of Representatives in 2018 and a majority in the Senate in 2020. He continues to face multiple lawsuits and investigations. He was banned from using Facebook and Twitter.
However, for Trump, politics is a philosopher's stone. He succeeded in turning his dull style-not to mention his countless personal failures and professional bankruptcies-into political gold. Surprisingly, so many people continue to fall for this fool's gold.
Because of his enthusiasm and the foundation of always loyal support, Trump continues to control the Republican Party and is expected to run for president in 2024, and there is no credible sign of the Republican competition. Even though he never exceeded 50% of his overall popularity during his presidency, it has recently increased slightly from a low of 38.8% in February to an almost sunny 43.4%.
Under the leadership of this urban elite from New York, the Republican Party has almost abandoned the country’s cities and reliable blue areas. Nevertheless, it now controls all levers of power in 23 states, while the Democrats only do so in 15 states. With a mix of constituencies, voter suppression, federal obstruction, and major narratives about fraudulent elections, the Republicans are aiming to win back control of the congressmen in 2022 — and this is increasingly likely — and are preparing to retake it in 2024 White House. Currently, Donald Trump is the gaming company's choice to win the next presidential election, mainly because he is not Joe Biden (just like he won in 2016 because he was not Hillary Clinton).
Unable to run for the king of the world, Trump does not care much about establishing an international coalition, but the possibility of him returning to power in 2024 is increasing, which inspires right-wing populists around the world to believe that they can also lead their own country. There is no need Skills, experience, or psychological stability. Indeed, from Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, vulgarity and viciousness have benefited many of them.
Even more disturbing is the emergence of a new generation of Trump-style politicians around the world. For example, in Chile, José Antonio Kast, once a traditional conservative, reshaped himself as a far-right populist and won the first round of the country’s presidential election in November . On the other side of the Pacific Ocean in the Philippines, the political marriage of authoritarianism and populism is happening because Bonbon Marcos, the son of the notorious former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, chose Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter Sara as His candidates become partners in the presidential election next year. Opinion polls have put them ahead of their competitors. In France, Marine Le Pen has locked in an extremist vote for 10 years. The journalist Éric Zemmour predicts an imminent civil war and Muslim takeover, and is launching it from the right. challenge.
At the same time, Trump's minions in the United States are strengthening their international connections to create a global dream realm. For many of them, Hungary is still the home base of that dream field. Right-wingers flocked to Budapest to learn how the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, turned the freest corner of Eastern Europe into the most reactionary country in the region. (It is undeniable that he is now facing fierce competition from the Polish Law and Justice Party and Janez Janša's Slovenian Democratic Party and other right-wing forces in Eastern Europe.)
Normally, former Vice President Mike Pence visited Budapest in September and praised Orban's "family-centric" anti-abortion social policy. This summer, Tucker Carlson aired a full week of Fox News in the same city. In the process, he used a whole show to showcase Orban’s vicious anti-immigration initiative, with the title: “Why can’t we have this in the United States?” In fact, the most reactionary type of politics in this country likes Hungary very much. As for their plan to hold the annual Conservative Party Policy Action Conference in Budapest next spring, this will only strengthen this transatlantic connection.
Remember, Orbán was kicked out of the prime minister's office after his last term in 2002, and only returned to power in 2010. He has been in power ever since. Trump supporters dream of such a political comeback in the United States.
Elsewhere in Europe, the Spanish far-right party Vox established its own Dissenso Foundation, weaving together a reactionary "Iberian circle", which includes the right wing in Mexico, extremists in Colombia, and Bolso in Brazil. The Naro family and even Texas Senator Ted Cruz. But the Western European country most likely to emulate Hungary is Italy. Currently, Prime Minister Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, presides over the technocratic government in Rome. However, Italian politics is heading straight for neo-fascism. The Italian fraternal party, which only recently topped the polls, originated from a group initiated by die-hard supporters of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini after World War II. It advocates an anti-vaxx “Italian first” agenda, and if elections are held today, it may establish a ruling alliance with the alternative right-wing Lega party and right-wing populist Silvio Berlusconi (Silvio Berlusconi) forward Italy.
At the same time, some right-wing nationalists and populists are filling out their resumes, hoping to serve as the heads of any new nationalist international organizations in the future. Russian President Vladimir Putin may have the strongest demand for this title because of his long-standing support for right-wing and Euro-skeptical parties and his way of positioning Russia as a prominent anti-liberal force.
However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not excluded. He and his country’s extreme right repaired the wall while trying to establish Turkey as a regional hegemon. He became increasingly disappointed with his NATO counterparts, buying weapons from Russia, and even hinted at pushing Turkey into the nuclear club. And don’t forget Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Hindu nationalist has worked overtime to contain China, while also working hard to establish strong relations with the right wing in the United States and Israel.
In view of geopolitical competition, ideological differences and personal ambitions, it is not easy to create a true liberal axis from these different countries. Nevertheless, the failure of current global institutions—and the liberal internationalism that inspires them—provides a powerful glue that has the potential to bring together the truly different elements of the emerging right to form a new version of global fascism. Ism.
When the future members of the Nationalist International argue that the status quo—a ravaged epidemic, uncontrolled climate change, persistent economic inequality, large numbers of displaced people—has been broken and they only have a plan to solve this problem, Many non-extremists may think this information is too compelling. People who lack hope and desire for change, dissatisfied, and deprived of their rights have proved willing to provide noisy nationalists and reactionary populists with an opportunity for power (given their unscrupulous strategies, this may be what they need).
Save the world (from the Liberal Party)
The wall is one of the most enduring symbols of international politics. Think of the Great Wall of China, designed to protect successive dynasties from the looting of nomadic outsiders. Many metropolitan areas in the world retain part of the historical walls that once established them as city-states. The Berlin Wall was the most obvious symbol of the Cold War, and Trump’s border wall was the only infrastructure project during his presidency (even though it was never actually built).
The far right is now-thank you, Donald Trump! -Obsessed with the wall, not only learned the history, but also the abyss of fear of outsiders. Just like the "austerity" of neoliberals, the "wall" has proved that the extreme right has a one-size-fits-all answer to almost all questions. migrant? Shut them out. climate change? Build walls now to prevent a desperate wave of global warming refugees in the future. economic recession? Hey, install those tariff walls. Angry neighbor? Weapons walls and anti-missile defense systems are the obvious answers.
The extreme right believes that what needs to be curbed is not sea level rise, but globalization-trade flows, personnel flows, and expansion of international governance. The far-right populists are busy building various dams to stop this unnecessary global movement and maintain state control in an increasingly chaotic world.
Moving down the great governance chain, the extreme right also wants to culturally isolate the community in order to maintain its so-called "family values" and oppose opposite civic values, different religious customs, and alternative concepts of sex and gender. , This is not surprising. It even wants to isolate individuals to "protect" them from government interventions (such as vaccine injunctions). In order to protect such a wall, both literally and metaphorically, what is needed first is a bloated army at the national level, a paramilitary organization at the community level, and a semi-automatic device in the hands of every passionate right-wing individual.
Such a wall is a hedge against uncertainty, although ironically, the truest contribution of the extreme right to modern political ideology is not certainty, but a radical skepticism. Of course, that old right-wing American crew member, the John Birch Society, did sell conspiracy theories involving communists and fluorinated water. But this is nothing compared to the way the modern political right weaponizes conspiracy theories to gain permanent power. Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and others claimed that the election was stolen, and even expressed doubts about the ability of democracy to represent voters, emphasizing that only populist extremists can represent the “real” aspirations of voters.
On the other hand, elections won by far-right candidates, such as the recent governorship of Virginia, are automatically defined as free and fair. After all, radical skepticism about the electoral system is just a convenient ladder. Once in power, the extreme right is ready to kick it away.
The final conspiracy theory will undoubtedly be the evil of those "globalists" who join forces to contaminate the "precious body fluids" of pure Americans (or Brazilians or Hungarians). As long as liberal internationalists manage global institutions like the World Bank and the World Health Organization, "globalists" will become useful enemies for nationalists to unite their followers. However, if Trump of this world captures enough countries and successfully penetrates into global institutions, then there will be no more talk of evil globalists.
In the worst case, even a nationalist international is no longer necessary, because we discovered in Hemingway's way that the sun will rise for Trump and his kind. For all practical purposes, right-wing populists will take over the world. Given their indifference to epidemics and climate change, of course, such a victory is futile.
Their victory, the failure of mankind.
John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus. His latest book is "Across the World: A Global Network of Far-Right and Left-Wing Reactions."
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