The failed assassination attempt on former president and Republican Party candidate Donald Trump has no doubt boosted his chances of returning to the White House following the November elections, regardless of who the Democratic Party candidate facing him may turn out to be.

This would no doubt feed into the rising popularity of the far-right in Europe, North America, and elsewhere in the world. India, the most-populous country in the world, voted for Narendra Modi for a third time in office as the country’s prime minister. Before that and on the opposite side of the globe, populist maverick Javier Milei won the elections in Argentina.

Should Trump return to office in the US next year, he will have far-right buddies in office in Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Poland, along with rising populists in France and the UK.

The rising tide of far-right-leaning movements across these countries and regions has stirred up commentators and analysts, who have warned of its consequences on them and on the world as a whole. Yet, this “far-right scare” may be exaggerated. The policies of the political centre, both the centre-right and the centre-left, have evolved to become more populist in recent decades in most Western democracies. In many instances, the centre-left and the centre-right alike have adopted policies that appease the populist far-right.

The general mood among the population in the countries in which the far-right has made electoral gains has also not changed as much as the far-right groups suggest. A look at the data from the recent UK parliamentary elections in early July shows that the people are ahead of the elites and the mainstream political corps.

Writing in the UK newspaper the Financial Times, journalist John Burn-Murdoch wrote that although Britain looks as if its “voters stand alone as bastions of sanity and moderation against the dark forces sweeping the [European] continent,” this may not be completely true.

According to a recent survey by Focaldata, a London-based data company, 37 per cent of Britons would consider supporting a hypothetical party that believes immigration and environmentalism “have gone too far” and that the country’s culture is under attack. This share of the population is almost the same as that the British Labour Party received in the July elections, giving it a sweeping victory in terms of the number of MPs.

Focaldata concluded that the results in the UK showed a higher share than those who were asked the same question in France, Germany, Italy, or the Netherlands. The latter two countries are currently governed by coalitions containing members of far-right parties.

While the general sway might be moving rightwards, it has not yet gone as far as to support a militant far-right. However, the term “populist” might not be the best one to describe the slogans used by Europe’s ultra-nationalists and militant far-right political groups.

Could these facts explain why the far-right in opposition in Europe is more extreme than when it gains power? When it does so, it becomes less “populist” and conforms more with social trends that are found within the mainstream centre-right.

But let us consider another factor. Even with the far-right gaining more support amongst voters in Europe, it is still not their preferred political mantra. That is why when in positions of leadership, the main figures in these parties follow mixed policies that are not as extreme as those they put forward when they are not in office.

The ruling parties in Hungary and Poland are left-leaning on economics but right-leaning on social issues, for example. In France, the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) has moved in a similar direction, as has Geert Wilders’ PVV Party in Holland, which is now part of the Dutch government.

Another interesting feature of voting data in the US and Europe shows that minorities in these countries represent a good chunk of far-right supporters. This is despite the fact that these communities are often in themselves a target of the same hard-right groups, which are against immigration and immigrants.

Although the support of minorities for far-right parties might be a part of a “protest” against the mainstream parties and their failure on the social front, it is another moderating factor of the extremist rhetoric when the far-right is actually in power.

This does not mean that the rise of the far-right is not significant and that it does not impact local, national, and international politics, however. Isolationist, ultra-nationalist, and even close-to racist policies, all associated with the far-right, would likely alter the political system. Cultural fundamentalism from the Fascist and Nazi past in Europe are slowly re-surfacing. It is worth noting that these trends originally emanated from democratically elected parties in Italy, Spain, and Germany.

Anti-globalisation measures taken by centre-right and centre-left governments in recent years are bound to continue and to increase. The degradation of the welfare state in many Western countries is also likely to continue. A rise in political violence could be another possibility, especially in places where far-right rhetoric is alarmingly high.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the political establishment and the resilience of the democratic systems in the Western countries might stop them from slipping into chaos. But all these developments are in fact weakening the establishment and causing a deterioration of the system, and it is this that has led to the “far-right scare” in many Western countries.

Traditional mainstream politics must also shoulder some of the blame for what we are witnessing now. The euphoria of the capitalist West winning the Cold War in the 1980s is being followed by a long hangover.

It is to be hoped that the current scare may be a wake-up call for the world to shift direction quickly and to return to sound socio-political principles locally, nationally, and internationally.

The writer is a London-based seasoned journalist.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 25 July, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly