Nationalist right parties aren’t winning because their ideas are new or good. They’re winning because after 40 years of bipartisan neoliberalism, people are desperate, angry, and looking for anyone who seems to actually name their pain and offer a way out.
Both “centrist/liberal” and right-wing governments have managed the same project: ship jobs overseas, weaken unions, gut public services, privatize everything, and tell people to be grateful because GDP is up.
Wages stagnate, housing and health care become luxuries, students drown in debt, and the political class responds with lectures about “skills” and “innovation.” That vacuum of credibility is what the far right walks into.
The nationalist right at least tells a convincing fable. It has villains (globalists, immigrants, liberal elites) and a promise: rebuild the nation, bring back good jobs, restore dignity. But it’s a shell game.
The very billionaires and corporate interests that created the crisis are recast as the “good” patriots who will fix it, while all the anger is redirected at scapegoats.
The result is more tax cuts for the rich, weaker labor protections, harsher borders and policing, and a culture war to keep everyone fighting each other instead of looking up the class ladder.
This isn’t new. Elites have used nationalism for over a century to break solidarities that threatened their power—turning workers against “foreigners,” minorities, and the left whenever demands for equality get too strong.
Today’s right‑wing “populists” recycle the same move, only with better media, more algorithms, and a burned‑out public that’s been told organizing is pointless and politics is just voting every few years.
The uncomfortable truth is that there *is* a real alternative: a democratic, class‑based politics that fights for decommodified essentials (health care, housing, education), strong unions, and real popular control over investment and production. But that kind of left barely exists in organized form.
Without sustained movements rooted in workplaces and communities, people are left choosing between neoliberal decay and nationalist illusion.
If we want something else, it won’t come from a “great leader” on a ballot—it will come from rebuilding the kind of collective power that once forced elites to share a slice of the wealth they still control.
- Films For Action
Nationalist right parties aren’t winning because their ideas are new or good. They’re winning because after 40 years of bipartisan neoliberalism, people are desperate, angry, and looking for anyone who seems to actually name their pain and offer a way out.
Both “centrist/liberal” and right-wing governments have managed the same project: ship jobs overseas, weaken unions, gut public services, privatize everything, and tell people to be grateful because GDP is up.
Wages stagnate, housing and health care become luxuries, students drown in debt, and the political class responds with lectures about “skills” and “innovation.” That vacuum of credibility is what the far right walks into.
The nationalist right at least tells a convincing fable. It has villains (globalists, immigrants, liberal elites) and a promise: rebuild the nation, bring back good jobs, restore dignity. But it’s a shell game.
The very billionaires and corporate interests that created the crisis are recast as the “good” patriots who will fix it, while all the anger is redirected at scapegoats.
The result is more tax cuts for the rich, weaker labor protections, harsher borders and policing, and a culture war to keep everyone fighting each other instead of looking up the class ladder.
This isn’t new. Elites have used nationalism for over a century to break solidarities that threatened their power—turning workers against “foreigners,” minorities, and the left whenever demands for equality get too strong.
Today’s right-wing “populists” are recycling the same formula, only now they can saturate social media platforms and feeds, targeting a public worn down by the belief that organizing doesn’t matter and politics is nothing more than a vote every few years.
The uncomfortable truth is that there *is* a real alternative: a democratic, class‑based politics that fights for decommodified essentials (health care, housing, education), strong unions, and real popular control over investment and production. But that kind of left barely exists in organized form.
Without sustained movements rooted in workplaces and communities, people are left choosing between neoliberal decay and nationalist illusion.
If we want something else, it won’t come from a “great leader” on a ballot—it will come from rebuilding the kind of collective power that once forced elites to share a slice of the wealth they still control.
- Films For Action
From the filmmaker:
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TRANSCRIPT: https://worldwidescrotes.wordpress.com/2025/05/01/riseoftherightxscript/
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CHAPTERS:
0:00 Angry hope and change: inequality and the rise of the populist right
1:23 Civilization, WWII and the decline of the far right
2:32 Mainstream parties and the decline of western civilization
7:37 “Globalism vs. Nationalism”: the far right’s explanation for civilizational decline
11:16 Why even minorities are shifting to the populist right
12:47 Follow the Great Leader: the nationalist solution to inequality
13:47 Bait and Switch: “globalist” vs “nationalist” CEOs
17:54 Democracy: arena of class combat
20:52 Nationalism and class conflict in the industrial revolution
22:57 Nationalism and class conflict in the pre-WWII era
24:15 21st vs 20th century populist nationalists
25:31 An Iraq War against your grandma: why the wealthy love deficits
28:22 Why the Pentagon budget never gets cut
29:03 Trump’s Tarrifs: bringing back the McKinley Era
32:38 Rich kids landlords and Donald Trump
34:27 What happens next?