Flávio Bolsonaro, Viktor Orbán, Reform UK, the Tories and a vast array of Republican candidates have all been rejected in national or local contests this year, even in usually reliably conservative Mississippi.
asserted
Bolsonaro → reject → Mississippi
Apparently impregnable incumbents and populist insurgents alike have been beaten, often by big margins.
asserted
incumbents → beat → margins
The supposedly ascendant global right has been out-organised, out-thought, outmanoeuvred and outnumbered.
asserted
right → organise → ?
Yet each time this happens – which is more often than the usual gloomy narrative of our politics allows – many liberals and leftists absorb and share the good news almost with wonderment.
asserted
liberals → happen → wonderment
Rightwing governments such as Donald Trump’s may have been struggling for many months, having made countless impossible or incompatible promises and strategic blunders, and opinion polls may have been consistently pointing towards a meltdown, but their actual election defeats are seen as miracles: unexpected moments of joy in the morning news, often followed over subsequent months by a creeping conviction that the right’s supremacy will inevitably return.
uncertain
supremacy → struggle → conviction
A similar progressive pessimism follows the right’s victories, whatever their scale.
asserted
scale → follow → victories
The 52% vote to leave the EU in the 2016 Brexit referendum set off years of centrist and leftwing soul-searching about why the right supposedly had a better understanding of the whole country.
asserted
right → leave → country
Boris Johnson’s 2019 general election win with a medium-sized majority of 80 seats – less than half the size of Tony Blair’s in 1997 and 2001 – was widely described as a “landslide” and a sign the Tories would stay in office for many years to come.
asserted
Tories → describe → years
Then came Trump’s hugely hyped 2024 presidential victory.
asserted
victory → come → ?
Despite him having run against a last-minute, less than compelling Democrat candidate, being ahead by just 1.5 points in the popular vote, and achieving an electoral share below 50%, his win was seen as signalling a profound shift to the right, not just in politics, but in American culture and society, from how young men thought to whom Latino voters supported.
asserted
voters → run → whom
A brash but socially conservative, confrontational but entertaining counter-revolution was said to be surging in the US and far beyond, ideally suited to the online world.
asserted
revolution → say → world
The midterms haven’t made this movement disappear.
asserted
movement → make → ?
But they are the latest evidence that its strength has been overestimated.
asserted
strength → overestimate → ?
Some of that error originates in the ultra-confidence of rightwing populists.
asserted
Some → originate → populists
Especially when amplified by a powerful rightwing media, it can convince some voters for a while, as the blustering Johnson’s relative popularity from 2019 to 2021 demonstrated.
asserted
popularity → amplify → 2021
In democracies riddled with doubt and with a recent history of tentative leaders, the performance of certainty can be seductive – until its bluffing and self-delusions are revealed.
asserted
bluffing → riddle → certainty
Many voters and journalists want to see politics in clear narratives.
asserted
voters → want → narratives
Believing that the right, or the left, is dominant is simpler and more emotionally resonant than acknowledging that many western democracies are closer to political stalemate, and have been for a long while.
asserted
democracies → believe → while
Over the past 50 years, the Republicans have won the US presidency seven times and the Democrats six, with the 2000 Republican win achieved only through a highly contentious ruling by the supreme court – itself a symptom of deadlock.
asserted
itself → win → deadlock
In truth, the battle for power in any democracy is much more complex and multi-dimensional than national contests suggest.
asserted
contests → suggest → democracy
Electoral politics happens at many different speeds and scales.
asserted
politics → happen → speeds
If an ideology or political party significantly shapes many of these processes simultaneously, then it has achieved hegemony, as the term was understood and refined by the still influential Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci during the 1920s and 1930s.
asserted
term → shape → 1920s
This century’s recurring transatlantic tendency to see the right as establishing a new era of dominance is a misapplication of this theory: a mistaken belief, across the political spectrum, that modern conservatism has come up with a formula as potent as those of the right’s last two hegemonic leaders, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, almost half a century ago.
asserted
conservatism → recur → leaders
Yet unlike them, the right’s current icons such as Trump, Nigel Farage and the Argentinian president, Javier Milei, only seem able to achieve a year or two of decisive political momentum at a time, and even then never manage to shed their deep unpopularity.
asserted
icons → seem → unpopularity
With national elections looming in two important countries where the populist right is currently strong – France and Spain – it’s possible the movement will finally start reshaping societies for the long term.
asserted
movement → loom → term
But even if the populists get into office, it feels more likely that their governments will quickly become incoherent and intensely disliked, as Trump’s has.
asserted
Trump → get → office
Scapegoating migrants, “woke” elites and minorities can be an effective campaign strategy, but doesn’t solve a country’s cost of living problems.
asserted
Scapegoating → scapegoate → problems
The modern overestimation of the right also has consequences for left-leaning governments.
asserted
overestimation → have → governments
It can make them too cautious, as if they are impostors who believe that society’s natural rightwing rulers will soon replace them.
asserted
rulers → make → them
So far, Andy Burnham has largely avoided this psychological trap, clearly relishing being prime minister, referring to Reform and the Tories strikingly little in his speeches, and ambitiously promising a 10-year plan, to be revealed next month.
asserted
Burnham → avoid → plan
However, in some of his policies, such as on immigration and prisons, a deference towards the populist right and its worldview can still be discerned.
asserted
deference → discern → right
Successful centre-left politicians, from Blair to Bill Clinton to Burnham, have always argued that their illiberal moves are responses to voters’ concerns.
asserted
moves → argue → concerns
But where do those concerns come from?
asserted
concerns → come → where
This dystopianism needs to be called out by conservatism’s opponents, and the association of the right with realism – social, economic or electoral – needs to be broken, or at least weakened.
asserted
association → need → realism
After years of failed rightwing governments all over the world, it’s well past time.
asserted
it → fail → time
The Aporia
