Taking the Pulse: Has Meloni broken MAGA's civilizational axis?

As I wrote right after Trump’s 2024 election, there was always an inherent contradiction in nationalist leaders who want to put America first, or Italy first, or Germany first banding together. Especially when it has been clear from the outset that Trump’s second term policies would harm Europe. The growing sense of momentum among far right politicians across the Atlantic sustained this ideological alliance for some time, but it was going to take a turn at some point—particularly as European populations increasingly dislike Trump.

The bigger problem is that this momentum has helped to mainstream many far-right policy ideas, whether on so-called remigration, the role of religion and gender-normative roles, or the push back against an energy transition intended to help stave off the climate crisis. The latter has been felt acutely across Europe over the course of successive heat waves. Regardless of whether their political proponents get along from one week to the next, these ideas will continue to flourish in far-right hubs of thinking on both sides of the Atlantic—in right-wing think tanks, alternative media, and online, while gradually pushing the Overton window further and further to the right. In many ways, the illiberal genie is out of the bottle.

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