The New Right
But why so much attention? Why is there talk of a historic turning point, for better or worse, depending on the point of view? After all, it's quite common for the right and left to alternate in government, nothing surprising. In reality, we are talking about a new right, different from the traditional one of European democracies. Trump is not comparable to a Bush, Le Pen to a Sarkozy.
Traditionally, right and left indicate the two political sides competing in Western elections, such as conservatives and labor in England, Republicans and Democrats in America, Christian Democrats and Socialists in Germany, and so on. The two political sides differ in their socio-economic sensitivity: the former more inclined to state intervention, the latter more sensitive to liberalism, and consequently one insists more on services to citizens, while the other aims not to burden excessively with taxes. The distinction also manifests in ethical and political issues, such as abortion and homosexuality, and in varying degrees of interest in foreign policy. However, both sides, beyond election rhetoric, agree on the essence of issues, and their actual policies do not diverge much. After all, democratic alternation always presupposes a substantial convergence of political action. It would be unthinkable that, for example, if one side wins, the country exits the EU, and after four years, if the other side wins, it re-enters the EU. It's not realistic to overturn general political directions at every election. In Italy, then, governments lasted on average a year, and we would have had an upheaval every year.
The right that is now advancing raises alarm because it seems to question or oppose those political aspects that traditional right and left had in common. This explains why the left and traditional right ally, rendering the assertions of the new right vain, at least until these new rights manage to gain a majority, which still seems distant. In America, however, the electoral system that narrows down to only two presidential candidates makes such an alliance impossible; Trump could very well win again.
Once in Italy, we talked about center-right and center-left to indicate those directions that abroad were simply defined as right and left since communists and neo-fascists were practically out of the real possibility of winning elections (it was said to be an incomplete democracy). It would have been impossible for a communist government to take Italy from NATO to the Warsaw Pact and after four years the DC, winning again, would bring Italy back to NATO.
The new right is often labeled as fascist and, in some cases, but not always, actually has adherents who are nostalgic or somehow inspired by fascism. However, it seems to us that fascisms are now outdated phenomena; it would be impossible, indeed ridiculous, in our world, to have characters like Mussolini or Hitler. It's as if a pope today proclaimed a crusade to expel infidels from the holy places. The new right contrasts with the mainstream, the prevailing political currents so far common to both the left and traditional right. The essential point is that they do not contest or question democracy, which was the discriminant of last century's fascisms.
We believe that the success of the new rights is not so much due to their often confused and unrealistic programs but rather to the discontent that is simmering throughout the West, which neither the traditional left nor right seems able to address, indeed they seem to ignore it. For at least a century, the West was accustomed to each generation living better, having more prosperity than the previous one. This trend seems to have ended and indeed reversed for many. Many people fear living worse than their parents. Examining the data, the West still progresses, but slightly; however, prosperity is no longer distributed as it once was across all social classes. Some progress, and significantly, but others are struggling. The securities enjoyed by previous generations seem to have vanished. Thus in France, we saw that the increase in fuel prices sparked a protest movement, the yellow vests, lasting years; currently, the increase in the retirement age is causing endless protests. People do not accept that certain achievements of the previous generation are called into question, disappearing.
Ultimately, in France, the election of Macron outside traditional parties had the same meaning as Le Pen's current success: the dissatisfaction of the less prosperous classes. In fact, the new right finds popularity not among the wealthier classes, like traditional rights, but among the poorer environments. Degraded suburbs are no longer left strongholds but increasingly become a reservoir of votes for the new right.
One wonders: if the new right eventually came to power, could it effectively realize at least part of its intentions? We might think that, in fact, those principles common to the traditional left and right are objective needs and it would be unrealistic to truly try to overcome them.
We can then examine the experience of some cases where the right has come to power. Let's look at Italy with the Meloni government and America with Trump. In Italy, the right-wing government led by Meloni has substantially failed to deliver on almost all its promises: Meloni has become almost a darling of that Europe she wanted to change profoundly. We can think that this is because, in fact, the Italian government has rather limited autonomy: domestically, the exceptional debt removes any possibility of real changes, and being in the European Union limits any ambitions in foreign policy. In America, however, Trump has indeed made significant changes both in domestic policy (exceptional tax cuts) and foreign policy with disengagement based on the "America First" principle: the results have been considered good so much so that, despite the evident inadequacy of the character, America seems to be preparing to re-elect him as president.