The global right turn: How the left has fragmented - Chuck Stephens
Key topics
Leftist coalitions lose ground globally as centrist and right parties surge
Corruption, lawfare, and economic failure fuel anti-Left momentum
Alt-right rise reflects backlash against wokism and globalist policies
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By Chuck Stephens*
Slowly but surely, the political Left is shrinking. After some decades of being prevalent, it is in decline. Several examples come to mind…
In South Africa, the ANC’s loss of support forced it to form a Government of National Unity in order to to cling to power. It performed better as a liberation movement than as a government. Several splinter parties emerged from its decline. For example, the ultra-left Economic Freedom Fighters. That party seems to have found its limit after several elections. Growth is more among centrist or centre-right parties in the GNU.
France is another example. To cling to power when he called the last election, President Macron enabled several leftist parties to form a coalition to contest under one flag. They held onto power that way, although the largest block of votes went to the Alt-right party.
Germany is another example, with the rise of the AfD. It won the second highest vote in recent elections, and the incumbent left failed to win a majority. So it formed a government by cobbling together a majority including several smaller leftist parties, simply to keep the Alt-right at bay. The AfD was alleged to be neo-Nazi, a near and present danger. But this label has been removed by a recent court decision, which has exonerated it.
In Romania, the deep state tried to block a populist candidate. This was criticized openly by JD Vance in front of European leaders at Munich. So they are re-running those elections, and it looks good for the populist leader.
As Hungary, Italy and Holland already have Alt-right leaders, this trending will eventually catch up to the European Union.
In the UK, the Reform Party of Nigel Farage performed well in the recent local elections. This seems to be a harbinger that the Alt-right may even displace the Conservative Party in the next elections?
In the USA, the Republicans hold a “trifecta” – the White House and both houses of Congress. They will try to increase their slim margins in the mid-terms next year. Joe Biden was a senior leader who managed to cobble together various strands of Democrats, from moderates to extreme leftists. However, with his loss, the Democratic Party is in disarray. There is no apparent leader, and the factions are fighting one another. They have no platform. The only glue holding the party from falling apart is a shared hatred (almost pathological) of President Donald Trump.
There is little doubt that the Left is running out of steam. The main causes of the trending are fourfold. A paragraph on each of these four causes follows the list.
Exposure of corruption, deep state waste, and elitism
State capture and lawfare
Economic mismanagement and stagnation
Wokism (e.g. defunding the police, gender modification of minors, men competing in women’s sports)
The Left does not have a monopoly on crony corruption. It was familiar, for example, in dictatorships like the Marcos regime in the Philippines. But neither have the leftists managed (or even tried) to erase it. In fact, especially in the “lost decade” under Jacob Zuma’s leadership in South Africa, socialist trending led to state capture. A cabal of socialist leaders led by Zuma cornered key organs of state to drain the resources away – to feather their own nests. This is well documented in the Zondo Commission report. The new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the USA sounds so similar. Waste, misappropriation and downright fraud have been uncovered in the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s new government. In democracies, the term “patronage” is often used. This can be in the form of jobs for pals, cadre deployment, and nepotism.
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State capture confounded South Africa, starting with the Inkandla scandal and ending with the the removal of Jacob Zuma as President. So for many of us it was déjà vu to watch the way the leftists in the USA used lawfare (they call in “weaponization”) to try to stop Donald Trump from returning to power. The Republicans are now launching various investigations to try to expose this chicanery.
South Africa’s economic stagnation is apparent from its unemployment rate and its GINI coefficient. There are now only about 9 million people in the work force (due to unemployment rates approaching 35%). Their taxes help to pay over 15 million other people on diverse social grants. This is unsustainable. Social assistance is always predicated on commensurate economic activity. In the USA, Donald Trump has taken the proverbial bull by the horns. Not just for his country but for the whole world, as the USA is the biggest buying market of all. He has rapidly undertaken a “controlled demolition” in world trade, and is promising that this will lead to a golden age. Between this and DOGE, he wants to reduce America’s unsustainable national debt. Free trade started well - 40 years ago - but after about ten years it became apparent that it was harming the USA’s economy. Trump ran on a platform to correct those imbalances and he was proactive about this in his first 100 days.
Wokism has been on the rise, but is now being challenged or reversed. This started with the defeat of the USA's legislation that had been overly permissive about abortion on demand. But it is now a philosophical and even religious confrontation of “globalism” which was causing the West to commit “civilizational suicide”. One NGO called American Comeback is a ministry to college students. Because by cornering the universities, the mainline media and social media, the various strands of wokism have up-ended the West as we knew it. American Comeback now reports that the trending among college students is to vote for the Alt-right. Most students are embarrassed by the prevalence of anti-Semitism and Marxist-Leninism at their varsities. American Comeback calls it the biggest generational shift since Woodstock.
In conclusion, it would appear that another “Reconquista Crista” is underway. The first one was when a coalition of Moors and Arabs invaded the Iberian Peninsula. They dominated much of what is now Spain and Portugal. But with the help of a strong resistance movement in Iberia combined with some support from Charlamagne, this was gradually reversed. The Muslims were forced back to North Africa. Similarly, wokism and leftist ideology combined – brought to you by globalism – won major inroads into Western civilization. But the tides have turned. It is now in retreat, and the immigration that almost up-ended Western civilization is being curtailed. Law and order is being restored. With any luck, there will soon be an economic boom based on fairer trading practices world-wide. Trade deficits will disappear allowing all countries to manage their national debt better. Yes there has been disruption, and the Left has screamed loudly – especially at Donald Trump and Elon Musk. But it is coming right. Peace is breaking out. The Alt-right is on the up and up.
*Chuck Stephens, Desmond Tutu Centre for Leadership