Panic does not produce prudent politics. Panic produces provocative populists. And it reduces pundits to Seussian spluttering.
How can voters choose such…panic-peddling panderers?!
The defeats of Donald Trump in the U.S. elections in 2020 and Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian elections in 2022 were supposed to prove that the wave of right-wing politicians had crested worldwide. Brazilians wisely barred Bolsonaro from running again for office until 2030.
Trump, on the other hand, is on the rebound and leading the polls in the lead-up to the presidential elections in the United States next year. Even more troubling, the recent electoral victories of Javier Milei in Argentina and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands suggest that the world has not yet reached peak populism.
Brace yourself for the next potential tsunami. In 2024, elections will take place in 50 countries and engage up to 2 billion people. The Economist calls it the “biggest election year in history.” Voters will go to the polls in the United States, Russia, Mexico, South Africa, Indonesia, and the European Union, among other countries.
The far right sees 2024 as its greatest opportunity since the 1930s to push the needle toward fascism. If the recent victories of Milei and Wilders are any indication, …read more
Source:: Institute for Policy Studies