Far right

A Presidential candidate who went around brandishing a chainsaw, claims he got hints on strategy from his cloned mastiff hounds, and relishes in the nickname El Loco? The warning signs were not enough to deter the majority of voters in Argentina from electing anarcho-capitalist Javier Milei their president. Milei’s policies comprise a far-right fantasy wish list for the country. Abolish its currency and central bank. Give the rich massive tax cuts at the expense of social security programmes. Legalise the sale of human organs. Criminalise abortion. Remove controls on gun ownership. Cut ties...

Excerpted with thanks from an article by Alex de Jong in Grenzeloos The electoral rise of the extreme right [in the Dutch election of 22 November] was largely at the expense of the (centre) right. With 37 of the 150 parliamentary seats, the [far-right] PVV now has a wide lead over number two, GroenLinks/PvdA, which won 25 seats. The total number of seats for left-wing parties remained constant, while the parties that were part of the centre-right government all lost seats... The VVD’s [main centre-right party] gamble was that the elections would result in polarization between them and the...

Far-right activists converged on central London on Saturday 11 November. Whipped up into a fury by Braverman’s dog-whistling, the far right sniffed an opportunity. Tommy Robinson, Lawrence Fox and Douglas Murray all either put out Powell-esque rhetoric, or encouraged their followers to attend to “protect statues” and to demand that the Gaza-ceasefire demonstrators show respect to the war dead. Unlike in 2020, when he helped unleash a similar situation in Central London in defence of war memorials, Tommy Robinson even made an appearance. However, when things began to turn ugly in Chinatown, he...

Bradley Onishi’s book Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism — and What Comes Next is an attempt to trace back from the 6 January 2021 riot at the Capitol the influence of White Christian Nationalism (WCN) and see how it has become, according to Onishi, a core part of the Trump-MAGA movement. He concludes that 6 January will not be the last attempt at a coordinated, violent insurrection against democracy. He also tells his personal story about how he became a born-again Evangelical in Orange County, California, a teenage zealot in the Rose Drive Friends Church...

It is now nearly six months since Elon Musk was forced to honour his pledge to buy the social media platform Twitter. Musk parted with $44 billion for the loss-making platform: some Schadenfreude for us there. But the potential political damage of Musk’s “free-speech absolutism” is real. Twitter is one of the smaller social media platforms. It does have its niche, being described by one (cynical) online media editor as “a medium for people with high opinions about themselves [and for] pseudo-elites and their supporters.” More generously, it is the first stop for politicians, journalists and...

Congresswoman Gabbard meets Narendra Modi, 2019 Imagine if a Labour MP championed Corbyn in 2016, stood to be leader in 2020 – then left the party and become active on the far right. You are getting something of the flavour of US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (in office 2013-21). Discussing Gabbard, the cases of George Galloway and Barry Gardiner spring to my mind, for different reasons. Gabbard’s case, stranger and more disturbing than either, surely has lessons beyond the US. Gabbard made great play of being the first Hindu member of the US Congress. But the Hindu tradition in which she was...

Transphobic feminist Julia Beck on the far-right Tucker Carlson's show To confront the current resurgence of transphobia requires that we acknowledge and understand the phenomenon of collaboration between many prominent transphobic feminists (who now often describe themselves euphemistically, and inaccurately, as 'gender critical' ['GC'] feminists) and the hard right. When Judith Butler wrote in The Guardian that 'GC' feminists were allying with the worst sorts of reactionaries ( 1 , 2 ), some left-wing activists were genuinely surprised or sceptical to hear such an accusation. This article is...

During Ronald Regan’s presidency, the Republican Party knew where it stood with Russia. It was the “Evil Empire”, home of godless communism. The GOP were its only true opponents. In the years following collapse of the Soviet Union, an element of confusion entered into the thinking of the American right on Russia. The state-run economy had been privatised and increasingly controlled by oligarchs. Additionally, the vast sums of money wealthy individuals acquired from pillaging the assets of the Russian people could be spirited abroad “to win friends and influence people”. Trump’s businesses were...

Let me start by declaring my ignorance. I never heard of Joe Rogan until a few weeks ago. When Neil Young recently announced that he was pulling all his music off Spotify, I took an interest. And the more I read and listened, the more I admired what Young had done. Watching Rogan engage in friendly banter with the likes of Canada’s Jordan Peterson or Britain’s Douglas Murray, you can instantly spot the appeal. Rogan is a smarter, friendlier version of Trump. People who listen to him a lot will challenge that, of course, but I wasted several valuable minutes of my life watching Rogan’s video...

David Kurten, leader of the right-wing Heritage Party, on 22 January anti-vax demonstration Several thousands joined an anti-vax protest in London on 22 January. Another protest, in Washington DC on 23 January, was also thousands. Streets were blocked in Bolivia on 21 January. 70,000 marched across Germany on 18 January. France has had regular weekend anti-vax protests for many months, often totalling 100,000 marchers across the country. Many hundreds marched in Manchester on 22 January and stormed the Arndale shopping centre. Steve Chapman reports from Sheffield on 22 January: “Around 250...