The Rise of the Far Right: Explaining Popularity and Potential Influence

The 2016 election cycle has shown a dramatic radicalization of the right, featuring elements such as out-group demonization, law and order rhetoric, and populist strategies that have not been so prevalent in the US since the rise of Nixon’s Silent Majority in the 1970s. The UK has experienced a similar ideological shift, though its emergence has perhaps not been so notoriously outspoken. All the same, the fervent anti-statist and anti-elitist narrative employed by the Leave Campaign is starkly similar to language historically associated with the populist rhetoric of the Far Right. Drawing on analyses of economic, socio-cultural, and geopolitical trends that have changed the status quo of each of these countries in the post-crisis era, I attempt to elucidate potential factors that have made Far Right narratives of fear, paranoia, and insecurity particularly salient