Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Nayib Bukele and Javier Milei are exponents who reflect the crossroads of the right on a global scale.
Each one of them embodies the reaction to a real problem in our societies.
Trump, in the United States, expresses the opinion of those who consider that the minority agenda, defended by the
right-thinking
establishment , has ended up cornering other citizens who do not feel represented, nor do they agree with many of the policies in The matter.
Le Pen, in France, puts her finger on the problem of overflowing migration and the integration problems of ethnic communities that do not share Western values and, in several cases, are undemocratic.
The Salvadoran Bukele is the spokesperson for the unprotected citizen who observes how the discourse of human rights leads in practice to the protection of criminals and violent people, leaving citizens exposed to fear and insecurity.
The Argentine Milei is the revolt of the taxpayer citizen against the corrupt, clientelistic and inefficient bureaucrat.
All four are popular and populist.
His ideas are simple and simplistic.
They live off controversy.
They depend on social networks and their enemies who magnify their importance.
They appropriate the “silent majority,” which they claim to represent, made up of citizens who work and produce, but do not have a defined agenda nor do they actively participate in politics.
They are all enemies of multilateral organizations, which they accuse of being inefficient and incoherent in their actions.
They distrust NGOs whose actions are biased by their financing and that disguise their true ideological interests.
They denounce the supposed impartiality of the media, those whom they accuse of being spokespersons for the great economic and political powers.
They also have nuances that differentiate them.
Bukele is anti-American.
Le Pen is a nationalist and interventionist in the economy.
Milei is libertarian and moralist.
Trump is amoral and justifies any negotiation as long as he makes money.
The most striking leaders of the right have been cornering and stigmatizing the moderate right, whom they accuse of being shameful and ineffective.
The electoral polls show that these new leaders are gaining space in the traditional sectors, but they have also very successfully bitten the popular vote that was the bastion of the left.
Little by little they go from minorities to becoming political forces that cannot be ignored and without which it is impossible to govern.
The problem with their positioning is that many of their proposals, due to their strong ideological content, are not viable.
Building walls, banning Islam, ending the central bank or imprisoning thousands without having tried them does not solve the problems.
In the short term they can produce results, but they are not sustainable.
The right can obtain immediate electoral benefits, but the failures of these policies will be historically costly.
Miguel Gómez Martínez
is dean of Economics at the Universidad del Rosario, in Bogotá.
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