Europe's far-right was ascendant. Until it was not

"A FAR-RIGHT takeover of Europe is underway," went the headline of an analysis on the political future of Europe in Foreign Policy (FP) magazine, which for a long time has been the unofficial bible of foreign policy on both sides of the Atlantic. That headline was as recent as March, just two months before the June-July parliamentary elections in Great Britain and France. With six right-wing leaders already leading governments in six European countries — Italy, Hungary, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Croatia — the far-right was, indeed, in a celebratory mood and ascendant.

The FP magazine analysis was not an isolated forecast of the political ascendancy of right-wing forces in Europe. The commentariat, mostly in apocalyptic tones, was constantly sounding the alarm on the rise of right-wing leaders in the mold of Hungary's Viktor Orban, the illiberal leader adored by the Trumpist and MAGA forces in the US for his intolerance, nativism and bigotry. In Germany, Europe's biggest economy, the surging popularity of the political forces allied with the Alternative for Germany and the waning fortunes of the Social Democrats is giving the broader world a nightmare.