Has the Populist Right become the new normal?

The recent success of populists in first the Argentinian and then the Dutch elections has once again shined the spotlight on the rise of ‘far’ right political figures and parties in the West. In the past few years, especially after Donald Trump failed to gain re-election to the White House in 2020, many commentators and analysts had speculated whether right wing Populism might have run its course.

The sight of Centrist politicians like Joe Biden in the US and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil defeating populists like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro respectively encouraged some to believe that western politics was returning to ‘normal’ and the shift to the far right was a temporary aberration.

However, the election of first Georgia Meloni in Italy, head of the right-wing Brothers of Italy coalition, followed by the success of Javier Milei in Argentina and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands have turned these assumptions on their head.

With Populist movements and parties continuing to enjoy growing support across Europe and the West, perhaps Populism is here to stay. Might right-wing Populism soon become the new ‘normal’ in many western states?

Read more: The rise of Europe's far right: Origins and dangers

The rise of the Populist Right

After the defeat of Nazism and Fascism during the Second World War, far right politics was largely relegated to the periphery of most western democracies. In some states far right parties enjoyed a degree of support. The neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) reached a high of 8.7% of the vote in the 1972 election.

In France, Jean Marie Le Pen, founder of the far right Front National, reached the final two in the 2002 presidential election, but was soundly beaten, receiving just 17% of the vote. However, in most countries the far right remained on the radical fringes of politics: skinhead neo-Nazi gangs in Germany, or the Fascistic National Front in Britain.

However, after the 2008 financial crash and accompanying recession far right groups began to enjoy increased electoral success. New parties and those that had formerly enjoyed little popularity tapped into growing frustration at the fall out of the economic disaster.

Pitching themselves in stark nationalist, often nativist, language, they took aim at immigrants, globalisation and, often in Europe, the European Union. Crucially, they presented themselves as outsider insurgents, challenging a supposed ‘establishment’ that had failed. This allowed them to win votes not just from the traditional conservative parties on the right, but also from left-wing parties, who saw some of their traditional working-class voters drawn to the populists.

Victor Orban’s Fidesz came to power in Hungary in 2010, while the similarly Populist Law and Justice Party took charge of Poland five years later. Donald Trump, meanwhile, was US president from 2017-21, while Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil ruled from 2019-22.

Elsewhere, populist right parties didn’t win outright power, but gained sufficient votes to join coalition governments. The True Finns ruled in a coalition in Finland for two years from 2015-17, while in Austria the Freedom Party ruled as the junior government party for two years after winning 26% of the vote in the 2017 election.

Some countries’ political systems made it harder for Populist parties to enter government, but they still saw a surge in support. Alternative fur Deutschland (AFD) in Germany won 12% in the 2017 election and 10% in 2021, as well as a series of successes in local votes. Meanwhile in France, Le Pen’s daughter and successor, Marine, reached the runoff in the last two presidential elections, scoring 34% of the vote in 2017 and 41% in 2022. In Britain, although the first-past-the-post electoral system made it difficult for the Populist UK Independence Party (UKIP) to gain parliamentary seats, their rising popularity contributed to the referendum vote to leave the EU.

It also influenced the ruling Conservative party’s subsequent move towards embracing right-wing populist policies for fear of losing voters to UKIP’s successors, ‘the Brexit Party’ and ‘Reform’.

A Populist revival?

Some had hoped that the right-wing populism had peaked with the departure from office of Donald Trump in 2021. The defeat of Bolsonaro a year later and the fall of Poland’s Law and Justice Party in October created the impression that Populism’s popularity might have waned.

However, just as the initial shift to the right was prompted by the 2008 economic crash and its long shadow, the 2022 Ukraine war and the accompanying cost of living crisis appear to have given Populism another boost.

Meloni, for example, was propelled to the Italian premiership in September 2022, partly as the result of the economic squeeze. Though she denies being Fascist, her party has drawn in many former members of the MSI and is widely regarded as the most right-wing Italian government since the Second World War.

The Ukraine war also played a major role in the success of Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) in November’s Dutch elections. Wilders’ anti-immigrant and, especially, anti-Islam rhetoric had gradually gained traction with Dutch voters since his party was formed in 2006. However, few expected the PVV to win the largest number of seats in the 2023 election, 37 out of 150, far higher than the incumbent People’s Party who secured only 24.

Most experts agree that Wilder’s popularity soared after he successfully connected the cost of living crisis to his traditional hostility to migration in the eyes of many voters, and also criticised the Dutch military’s support of Kiev – despite opposing Putin’s invasion.

Read more: How the man who challenged Putin met his predictable end

That said, the success of Milei in Argentina suggests the Ukraine war and its aftereffects are far from the only cause of Populist success. Milei won the presidential run off by 14.5 million votes to his rival’s 11.5 million, by articulating a plan to rescue Argentina from an economic crisis that far outdates the Ukraine war.

While global fuel price rises may have played a role in Argentina’s galloping inflation, most analysts point to the incumbent government’s devaluation policies and the drought that has hit Argentina’s agricultural sector.

As with many populists, Milei, a climate change denier who has pledged to abolish the central bank and dollarize the economy, took aim at the Peronist ‘establishment’ that have been in power for decades. Milei’s apparent sympathies with Argentina’s 1976-83 dictatorship has alarmed many with some fearing he will institute more autocratic policies.