By Kennedy Olivia Bagley-Fortner ’26

Staff Writer

If you’ve been following the news for the past few years, you’ll have noticed some conversations about how the world is shifting toward more right-wing politics across the board.

The shift between left wing and right wing politics is nothing new. We have seen a constant back and forth between political parties for decades. However, in recent years that shift has been more consistently towards the right.

In 2024, Vox News wrote an article attempting to explain the movement of far-right politics across the globe. Here, they cited political theorist Francis Fukuyama’s take on the future of global affairs, arguing that a “liberal democracy was the ultimate stage in the evolution of society,” but that this stage wouldn’t last forever.

Fukuyama states that it’s not possible to satisfy everyone, “this includes [in a] liberal democracy … dissatisfaction arises precisely where democracy has triumphed most completely: it is a dissatisfaction with liberty and equality.”

Vox goes on to explain how this “dissatisfaction” has begun to reveal itself.

In the 1990s, the far right started to assert its influence in European elections. Vox writes “the 2000s and early 2010s saw varying signs of antidemocratic activity in consolidated democracies.” Then around the 2010s, the “reactionary right had risen to power in the United States, Hungary, Israel, India, Brazil, and Poland.”

Each of these “movements” presented itself as “deeply and authentically democratic,” however their parties would attack democratic values such as “liberalism, multiculturalism, or secularism” Vox reports.

In a statement to the Mount Holyoke News, Andy Reiter, a professor in the politics and international relations department at Mount Holyoke College, shared his reasoning behind this move towards the right.

Reiter stated, “The global shift towards the right is driven by many factors including migration, cultural erosion, economic inequality, and rising crime levels. Many people feel like the world is changing quickly and they are worse off now than before.”

All of this discontent “makes it easier for right-wing politics to gain support by promising to provide more jobs, increased security, and a return to more traditional values,” he added.

People have been observing this shift across the globe, including in the United States, where President Donald Trump has campaigned on numerous far-right topics that have appealed to many Americans.

For instance, he has talked about launching the “largest deportation program in American history,” has tried to end birthright citizenship in order to put a ban on what he has called “birth tourism.” Further, he has imposed countless tariffs on various countries as an attempt to improve the American economy, bring back “American” manufacturing and create jobs, according to NBC News.

Similar actions can be seen in East Asia, with Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who is more conservative, “focus[ing] mainly on Japan’s economy and its defense,” the Council on Foreign Relations reported.

“She has advocated for tougher immigration restrictions and embraced [aggressive] policies on China,” NPR stated.

On Feb. 1, Costa Rica elected right-wing candidate Laura Fernández. Fernández ran her campaign on tackling crime. Costa Rica was “once the most peaceful nation in Central America,” however it’s been struggling with an “escalation of violence fueled by transnational drug trafficking … the situation has instilled fear that many Costa Ricans say they have rarely experienced,” the New York Times reported.

These examples circle back towards Professor Reiter’s explanation of what has been driving this global shift; fear and dissatisfaction with change.

Americans were worried about rising costs and national security, so Trump promised the American people he would fix those issues, an article by NBC reported.

Prime Minister Takaichi campaigned on similar issues and has been working towards immigration reform and promoting traditional values, NPR stated.

Costa Rica has been struggling with immense crime therefore the people elected a President that they believed would tackle that specific issue, the New York Times reported.

Today it seems, constantly and consistently, fueled by xenophobia and fear, people are turning towards right-wing candidates and politics because they believe that it supports their own interests.

Madeleine Diesl ’28 contributed fact-checking.