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FAR-RIGHT LEADERS ARE FORGING A GLOBAL ALLIANCE  
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Somdeep Sen
January 25, 2025
Jacobin [[link removed]]

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_ Donald Trump’s election is a morale booster for far-right
politicians like Viktor Orbán, Javier Milei, and Giorgia Meloni.
Having pioneered many of the destructive, reactionary ideas associated
with Trumpism, they’re now aspiring to global hegemony. _

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, left, meets Donald Trump,
right, at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home., Reuters

 

I expect the mood was joyful at Budapest’s Scruton Café following
the news of Donald Trump’s election to a second term in office. The
café is named after the English philosopher Roger Scruton, revered by
American and European right-wingers.

It also featured prominently in the Vice documentary “America and
Hungary, a Far-Right Love Affair
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where right-wing thinkers from around the world converge and parrot
conservative talking points. Hungary, under the far-right leader
Victor Orbán, is often held up on a pedestal by the right as proof
that an illiberal future is indeed possible.

But Budapest is not the only capital city where populist, right-wing
politicians are feeling hopeful following the US elections. From Rome
to Buenos Aires, and from San Salvador to New Delhi, right-wing
leaders are similarly optimistic that, with a friend like Donald Trump
at the helm in Washington, an illiberal reconstruction of global
politics is within reach.

Personality Cults

For one thing, Trump’s return assures them that a cult of
personality has immense appeal in electoral democracies. Trump has
fashioned himself as the straight-talking, hard-nosed “outsider”
with little patience for the political waffling of the career
politician. Rather, he presents himself as a single-minded leader,
willing to transgress all political norms and democratic checks and
balances for the national cause. This model is inspirational for
politicians like Javier Milei in Argentina and Nayib Bukele in El
Salvador.

The fiery economist and self-styled anarcho-capitalist president of
Argentina rose to power touting his “chain-saw” policies that
would slash the supposedly overgrown state and rescue the country from
a severe financial crisis. He found global fame thanks to a
2023 TikTok video
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he can be seen ripping off the names of various government agencies,
like the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Environment, and the
Ministry of Women, Gender, and Diversity from a whiteboard, and then
yelling _afuera_ (“out”).

His antics on the campaign trail, where he often brought along a chain
saw, worked. Since coming to power, Milei has kept his promise
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taken the chain saw to the public sector. The victims, however, have
been Argentina’s poorest. More than half of the country has slipped
below the poverty line, while 18 percent of the population now lives
in extreme poverty.

Bukele also took power in El Salvador as a rock-star political
outsider, promising a no-nonsense approach to the country’s gang
violence. His _mano dura_
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“iron fist,” policies have led to 1 percent of the entire
population being held in fortress-like megaprisons. This includes
three thousand children.

According to Amnesty International
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Bukele’s crusade against the gangs has led to “massive human
rights violations, including thousands of arbitrary detentions and
violations of due process, as well as torture and ill-treatment.”
Despite this, Bukele’s approval rate has hovered around 90 percent,
and his fans have dubbed him the “world’s coolest dictator.”

War on Woke

The global right finds Trump’s anti-woke agenda just as appealing as
his leadership style. He has said that universities are dominated by
“Marxists, maniacs, and lunatics” and promised to roll back DEI
policies and antidiscrimination protections for trans people.

Viktor Orbán sees himself as a first mover in such matters. At the
2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest, he
boasted:

Hungary is actually an incubator where experiments are done on the
future of conservative policies. Hungary is the place where we
didn’t just talk about defeating the progressives and liberals and
causing a conservative Christian political turn, but we actually did
it.

The sign over the entrance to the conference venue read “No Woke
Zone.” Presumed “woke journalists” were banned
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attending the conference.

In 2021, the Orbán government banned
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“depiction of homosexuality or sex reassignment” in media programs
catering to children under the age of eighteen. References to
homosexuality are banned in sex education at schools.

The Hungarian authorities also implemented a new law targeting foreign
universities and forced the George Soros–funded Central European
University (CEU) to leave the country. CEU was the primary target
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it was seen as a liberal hub of anti-Orbán thinking.

Scapegoating Muslims

Finally, right-wing leaders see their own worldviews reflected in
Trump’s xenophobia and Islamophobia. At home, he has promised to
round up and deport undocumented migrants en masse. Previously,
Trump falsely
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to have seen Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the 9/11 attacks. He
has also called for additional surveillance
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Muslim Americans and introduced the infamous Muslim travel ban.

All of this resonates with the likes of Orbán and the Italian prime
minister, Giorgia Meloni. Both have been at the forefront of the
European anti-migrant movement. Meloni has championed the “right not
to migrate” and worked to stem what she views as illegal immigration
by outsourcing European border control to non–European Union 
countries. She has presented her policies as a model that other
European leaders should follow, though critics
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called them “dehumanizing and illegal.”

For his part, Orbán has fashioned himself as a savior of European,
Christian civilization. He has railed against the arrival of the
allegedly terroristic and culturally alien Muslim migrants to European
shores, presenting his draconian anti-migration policies as a way
to keep
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safe and Christian.

Thousands of miles away in New Delhi, the Hindu nationalist prime
minister, Narendra Modi, would agree with the talking points of
Meloni, Orbán, and Trump. Under his decade-long leadership,
anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence in India has been at an all-time
high.

Leaders from Modi’s party have demolished the homes
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Muslim activists and called for the boycott of Muslim-owned
businesses. The Modi government pushed forward the Citizenship
Amendment Act
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2019 that only grants non-Muslim undocumented migrants from
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan the right to fast-track
citizenship. Critical journalists have faced trumped-up terror
charges, while civil society organizations
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been accused of unlawfully receiving foreign funding.

Global Fraternity

Of course, all of these illiberal moves are not happening in the
vacuum of individual national contexts. The Trumps, Modis,
Orbáns, Melonis, and Bukeles of the world are well aware of each
other’s existence and are in the process of forging a global
alliance.

Elon Musk — sitting at the helm of the Department of Government
Efficiency (DOGE) under the second Trump presidency — proclaims
himself to be a big fan of Milei’s chain-saw policies. Trump
and Milei also share a special bond. After Milei won his election,
Trump congratulated him on Truth Social: “I’m very proud of you.
You will turn your Country around. Make Argentina Great
Again!” Milei was the first foreign leader to meet Trump
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this November and was a guest at Trump’s inauguration.

The Salvadoran leader, Bukele, also had a highly publicized meeting
with Musk back in September. Under Orbán, Hungary has hosted three
international CPAC gatherings, where speakers have included the likes
of the far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders, right-wing
commentator Candace Owens, Republican congressman Andy Harris, and
Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the former president of Brazil, Jair
Bolsonaro. Orbán delivered the opening address at the 2022 CPAC
summit in Dallas.

Since winning the presidential election, Trump is reported to have
had several calls
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the Hungarian leader, seeking his advice
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the Ukraine war. Orbán has been a vocal critic of military aid to
Ukraine and has maintained friendly ties with Vladimir Putin.

Modi is equally popular with right-wing leaders around the world.
Trump and Modi have held two joint megarallies: “Howdy Modi” in
Houston in 2019 and “Namaste Trump” in Ahmedabad in 2020. Both
have publicly celebrated each other’s political accomplishments.
Trump has fondly called Modi his friend, who “looks like your
father” but is also a “total killer.”

Meloni and Modi have also embarked on efforts to
strengthen India-Italy ties
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“defense, security, trade, and technology.” Of course, in the
European context, Meloni and Orbán are kindred spirits
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their anti-immigration stance.

2025 might be shaping up as the best year yet for the global
fraternity of illiberal conservative leaders.

_Somdeep Sen teaches international relations at Roskilde University, a
Danish public university._

* Donald Trump
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* Right-wing politics
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* hegemony
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* world leaders
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