U.S. President Donald Trump’s shocking election victory 10 years ago sent populist shock waves throughout the Western world. Now that Trump’s Republican Party suffered a disastrous defeat in the U.S. midterm elections, does this also mean that right-wing populism has declined?
Although eight leaders or parties that advocated nationalism and anti-immigration policies have lost elections in the United States and Europe in the past 18 months, experts point out that the rise of the far right has become a political feature of the 21st century. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who is seeking the presidency for the fourth time, still has a high chance of winning.
Since April this year, voters in Hungary have ousted right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, ended the long-term rule of Serbian right-wing populist Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić, and prevented the son of far-right former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro from taking over the power. Peter Kreko, director of the Hungarian think tank Political Capital Institute, said: "When power rifts become apparent, a chain effect will be triggered."
Once the chain effect occurs, one of the countries that will have a major impact is none other than France, which will elect its president in half a year and the far-right leader Ray-Ban is currently leading the polls: Once Ray-Ban wins the election, it means that the only EU member state with nuclear weapons and one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with veto power will fall into the hands of the far-right.
The recent defeat of the populist right in the political arena may unsettle Re-Ban, who is seeking to become the first female president of France; but experts point out that this anger to punish populist rulers may actually help push Re-Ban to power - because Re-Ban is not an incumbent, and the far-right National Rally party she leads has never been in power in France.
For Ray-Ban, the lesson learned from the results of this US midterm election is not so much that "the populists lost the election" but rather that "the incumbents lost the election."
Daphne Halikiopoulou, a political science professor at the University of York in the United Kingdom, said that electoral defeat is certainly a sign of recession, but it does not mean sudden death; in many cases, far-right parties lose votes because their competitors adopt their political positions. Gilles Ivaldi, a political scientist at Sciences Po university in Paris, also said that the far right is still very powerful in France.
French polling experts pointed out that although Ray-Ban failed to run for president three times before, her current political strength is the strongest in history.
Aurelien Mondon, a political science expert at the University of Bath in the UK, believes that the real danger lies in the "failure of mainstream elites" to resist right-wing forces. During the 10 years since Macron, the current French president, has been in power, far-right arguments have gradually "entered the mainstream."
Iwadi also said that Ray-Ban represents a dramatic change in the anger and desire currently dominating French politics. Next year's presidential election will test whether France still has a "line of defense against the far right." At present, it seems that France is likely to experience a French version of the "Trump moment," "just like the United States in 2016."
