NY Times should look across the East River, not across the Atlantic

Responding the gloominess of recent posts, I thought I’d try a piece that’s more optimistic about Europe, if not about the US. It’s a mashup of a couple of recent Substack newsletters.

The New York Times has a thumb-sucker about the rise of the European far right, which would greatly mislead anyone not up with the facts. The picture is one of inexorable advance, citing parties such as “the Party for Freedom of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, the Sweden Democrats and the Reform U.K. party of Nigel Farage.”

The New York Times doesn’t mention that:

• The right-wing coalition of which Wilders was part collapsed when he withdrew support and lost the subsequent election. Wilders’ party split and is competing with two other far-right parties, also in opposition.
• The right-wing Swedish coalition, which had promised the Sweden Democrats a role, was defeated at the recent election, with the SD vote declining.
• Farage’s Reform party has also split, and Farage himself is now massively unpopular.

There have been more consequential losses than this. The most successful far-right government in Europe, that of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz in Hungary, was crushed in elections earlier this year, and the party is now splitting. Poland’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) lost office in 2023 and has now also split.¹

Other successes have turned sour for the far right. Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, a successor to various neo-fascist parties, won elections in 2022 and has held together since then. But the government hasn’t delivered much of the far-right agenda, beyond stunts like a recently announced ban on burqas in schools. The Finns Party’s participation in a right-wing government (in Finland, obviously) has seen a big loss of popularity.

Europe isn’t out of the woods yet. A victory for the National Rally in the French election next year would pose some significant problems. But compared to the defeats listed above, the fact that the German AfD might form the government of a small German state is not a big problem.

It’s important to observe at this point that the rise of far-right parties does not imply an increase in the proportion of voters with far-right views. In almost any country, at least 20 per cent of voters, and maybe more, hold far-right views of one kind or another, which will emerge if given the chance. As I observed back in 2016, the neoliberal consensus meant that “mainstream” right-wing parties could no longer rely on the votes of (white Christian) tribalists/Trumpists. They made symbolic gestures in their direction, but largely ignored them, particularly if their interests came into conflict with those of big business. After the 2008 financial crisis, this was no longer possible.

Finally, it’s true that far-right parties have succeeded in pushing European countries to adopt more restrictive immigration policies. But anti-immigrant bigotry has always been a winning issue for the political right. The UK Conservative Party, normally classed as centre-right, has advocated and implemented policies more restrictive than those of many European far-right parties, only to be outflanked by the further-right Reform and Restore.

And that brings us to the elephant in the New York Times room: the sanewashing of the Trump administration and the US voting public.

The article contains a passing mention of rhetorical claims made by Vance, Rubio and Trump along lines similar to those of the European far right. But no one reading it would realise that the Trump administration has implemented policies more extreme than those of even the AfD, the furthest-right of the European parties discussed, and has done so with the near-unanimous support of US Republicans.

Admittedly, we haven’t seen what the AfD might do with untrammeled power, but The stated AfD policy on remigration is much milder than the one in force in ths US, focusing on deporting criminals and voluntary return. And it includes disclaimers like

“We firmly reject unconstitutional demands — such as the arbitrary, collective deportation of foreigners regardless of their individual right of residence, or even the deportation of German citizens with a migration background.”

The Trump administration has gone far beyond this, detaining and deporting people who have committed no crime and have sought to pursue residency through legal processes. And it has repeatedly trashed constitutional protections of all kinds, with heavily armed secret police snatching people off the streets and disappearing them into concentration camps.

This is not just a MAGA policy. Every Republican member of Congress, with the exception of Lisa Murkowski, voted to support this regime of terror.² And what’s true of politicians is true of voters. Unlike European far-right parties, which rarely get more than 20 per cent support, Trump and the Republicans got nearly 50 per cent of the vote in the 2024 election. And while they are likely to lose ground in the next election, that’s not because of repugnance against these crimes. Immigration is the issue on which Trump’s support is highest, at around 40 per cent. That includes 80 per cent of Republicans.

These aren’t (only) the left-behind denizens of Midwestern diners. Forty per cent of white Americans with four-year degrees share this approval. Given the gender gap, the figure for white college-educated men would be close to 50 per cent.

In summary, the New York Times would get much more insight into the roots of right-wing extremism if its reporters took the Long Island Rail Road to Suffolk County,³ went to an upscale bar or restaurant and chatted to the patrons there. But it’s far more comforting to read about foreigners nostalgic for Mussolini and Hitler than to consider the likelihood that your next-door neighbour shares their views.

¹ Admittedly, a PiS candidate scraped in to win the most recent presidential election, but he has limited power. ↩

² As usual, Susan Collins got a hall pass to support a failed amendment before falling into line on the final vote. ↩

³ The second-richest county in New York, with median household income of $130,000 and a 54 per cent vote for Trump. ↩