Revolutions on the left and right target the decrepit centre

According to Trump, the corrupt elite—personified by the Clinton family and former President Joe Biden—have impoverished ordinary Americans while fraying the nation's social and cultural fabric. In the America that Trump and his supporters seek to build, such elites have no place. His sweeping rhetoric resonates deeply with a public that believes "Washington is a swamp"—a phrase he has made his own—and that only a decisive hand can drain it.

Structural crisis

What we are witnessing is not a passing malaise or a cyclical downturn; it is a structural crisis—a quagmire of systemic decay that, in the eyes of its champions, can only be escaped by shattering the self-perpetuating cycle of cause and consequence. Only a revolution—led by the right—can, they argue, break the spell.

Since the end of the Cold War more than three decades ago, the promise of prosperity for America's poorest—lifted by technological progress and a dramatic surge in national wealth—has gone unfulfilled. Rather than narrowing the gulf between rich and poor, the divide has widened: the wealthy have grown obscenely richer, while the most vulnerable have slipped further into destitution.

Whether the White House has been occupied by Democrats or Republicans has made little difference. Beneath the partisan veneer lies a shared consensus among the elite: a reluctance to address poverty and an unrestrained enthusiasm for wealth accumulation by any means necessary. Thus, the "robber barons" who once defined American capitalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries have returned—not in flesh, but in spirit—as enduring icons in a media landscape enthralled by power and profit.

The American malaise finds its echoes across the Western world. In Britain, the centre-left Labour government failed to enact meaningful reform—its shortcomings were only compounded by 14 years of Conservative rule that has offered little reprieve. In France, President Emmanuel Macron—nominally a centrist—lurches from one crisis to the next, each more severe than the last. These are emblematic cases within a broader tableau of systemic decline.

The rise of the left

Yet this profound shift in the social and economic architecture of the West has not escaped the notice of the political left. In the United States, Senator Bernie Sanders remains a key figure in progressive politics. To some observers, including philosopher Slavoj Žižek, Sanders represents a kind of "left-wing conservatism"—a nostalgic yearning for the welfare state, for robust public spending on social programmes, and for a check on corporate monopolies.

But Sanders, whose rhetoric has become familiar to the traditional left, is not the principal object of conservative ire. What truly unsettles the right is the emergence of a younger generation of voices that defy the conventions of political correctness—not in the direction demanded by the right, but in a radical countercurrent.

Among them is New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who replaced Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a favourite target of Republican attacks. Mamdani's forthright stance on the genocide in Gaza and his declaration that Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested if he sets foot in the city, along with his advocacy for the homeless and his vision of "a New York for all"—a city liberated from the punishing cost-of-living crisis that is hollowing out its middle class—have made him a lightning rod for right-wing criticism.

In France, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France Insoumise, remains a central figure in national politics. He and his party position themselves as heirs to a left that has all but vanished: the historic Socialist Party now a shadow of its former self, and the traditional Communist Party consigned to the margins. Mélenchon commands strong support among the youth, many of whom have voiced a radical rejection of Macron's domestic and foreign policies.

In sum, Western societies—despite their divergent political systems, histories, and cultural traditions—are now gripped by two sweeping revolutions. They may not yet bear that name, but what is unfolding reaches far beyond rhetorical flourishes or provocations born of apathy. It is a reckoning with the very foundations of the post-war order.