This week we had a worldwide cover about what is becoming a worldwide movement. National conservatives are not to be confused with the conservatives of old: Reaganites, Thatcherites, country-club conservatives, knights of the shire, pro-business round-table types, traditionalists, neocons, national-security hawks and any of the other Tory tribes.
By contrast with all these, national conservatives are revolutionaries. They sense that they own conservatism now, and they may be right.
National conservatives do not see the West as a shining city on the hill, but as Rome before the fall—decadent, depraved and about to collapse amid a barbarian invasion. Rather than being sceptical of big government, they think ordinary people are beset by impersonal global forces and that the sovereign state is their saviour. Not content with resisting progress, they want to destroy the remaining values of classical liberalism.
These fierce nationalists are part of a growing global movement with its own networks of thinkers and leaders bound by a common ideology. Some of their stars include Donald Trump and Viktor Orban, Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen and, hidden away, Binyamin Netanyahu and Geert Wilders. They share a contempt for multilateral organisations, migration and pluralism, especially the multicultural sort. National conservatives are obsessed with dismantling institutions they think are tainted by wokeness and globalism.
Some people expect national conservatism to blow over, but we think that is unforgivably complacent. Mr Trump is leading the polls in America. The far right is expected to do well in European parliamentary elections in June. In Germany in December the hard-right Alternative for Germany hit a record high of 23% in polls. In 2027 Ms Le Pen could well become France’s president.
When national conservatives win elections they set out to capture state institutions, including courts, universities and the independent press. In this way Mr Orban’s Fidesz party has cemented its grip on power in Hungary. In America Mr Trump has proclaimed his autocratic designs. Once institutions have been weakened, it can be hard to restore them.
The Global Anti-Globalist Alliance has its contradictions. Italy’s prime minister supports Ukraine; Hungary’s has a soft spot for Russia. Poland’s Law and Justice party is anti-gay; France’s far right is permissive. What binds them is a hostility towards common enemies, including migrants (especially Muslims), globalists and all their supposed abettors. National conservatism is all about barriers—against immigrants and globalists, obviously, but also against progress itself. National conservatives are against things more than they are for them.
The MAGA hat signals precisely the sort of conservatism we are talking about. And stretching it captures the weirdness of a gang of international nationalists. We had to switch around the list of countries to keep up with the news—in Brazil Jair Bolsonaro is banned from politics. One of the accusations national conservatives level at liberals and globalists is that they sneer at them. But a movement that cannot laugh at itself is asking to be made fun of. ■
Leader: The growing peril of national conservatism
Briefing: “National conservatives” are forging a global front against liberalism
1843: Why right-wing Italians love hobbits, pirates and talking seagulls
