Identitarianism

The Democrats’ consolidation of left-wing liberalism is one piece of a broader backlash to Trumpism that shows up in the polling data right now. Another notable finding this week is from a new CNN/SSRS survey that found that about one-quarter of the public holds an unfavorable view of both parties. These are the so-called “double haters.” This group prefers Democrats on the 2025 generic ballot by 31 points.

This is a big deal for two reasons. First, that’s a massive shift; Double haters broke for Trump in 2016 and again in 2024. Now they’re swinging hard the other way.

Like Franklin’s polling, the CNN report also finds that Democrats’ gains are driven largely by opposition to the GOP, not enthusiasm for Democrats themselves. When asked what they dislike about Democrats, 22% of double haters called the party “do-nothing” and 11% said they aren’t standing up enough to Trump and the GOP, while 10% said they’re too liberal.

A series of federal prosecutions against immigration-enforcement protesters in Los Angeles has encountered setbacks in court, with some cases ending in acquittals or dismissals and others drawing scrutiny over the government’s evidence and the circumstances of the arrests. […]

Reporting from the Los Angeles Times described one of the most serious courtroom setbacks: a federal judge’s criticism of prosecutors after late disclosure of evidence in the Escobar-Gutierrez case, followed by a reported dismissal with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be brought again. During the proceedings, U.S. District Judge André Birotte Jr. told prosecutors, “You’ve got to be ready for prime time and you’re not,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

In arguing for dismissal, a federal public defender echoed that criticism, describing the episode as “amateur hour at the U.S. attorney’s office,” also according to the Los Angeles Times.

But Hungary is hardly a democracy at all. It’s an autocratic, kleptocratic mafia state, where all the levers of power are controlled behind the scenes by a single man. Since returning to power in 2010, Orbán has rewritten the constitution and amended it fifteen times, changed the electoral laws to give his party structural advantages, captured the top layer of the judiciary, occupied the chief prosecutor’s office to protect his cronies and prosecute his enemies, weaponized the tax authority, commandeered the media, installed spy software on the phones of journalists and opposition figures, harassed and restricted the rights of NGOs, revoked the rights of religious communities unwilling to collaborate with his regime, forced the country’s most prestigious university to move to Austria, harassed opposition political parties, denied them resources and spied on them illegally, nationalized and reprivatized banks and businesses to reshape and dominate the economy, steered his country into an alliance with Russia, Hungary’s historic enemy, and enriched his family and friends beyond their wildest dreams.

Given these overwhelming structural advantages, many observers of Hungary—myself included—had concluded that Orbán could never be removed from office through democratic means; that the end of his regime would come through crisis and collapse. The fact that Orbán is not only likely to lose a national election but could easily get creamed is nothing short of utterly amazing.

His kryptonite has proven to be Péter Magyar. A former Fidesz insider, Magyar understands the regime he is fighting against and has proven remarkably adept at anticipating and countering its tactics. Bestowed with seemingly superhuman levels of energy, he has barnstormed the country since he burst on the scene suddenly two years ago, demonstrating that with enough conviction, determination, and will, persuasion is possible even in a soft autocratic regime. And unlike the liberal opposition he replaced, Magyar understands the importance of national symbols and patriotism. This has allowed him to steal Fidesz’s nationalist brand and highlight the regime’s enormous hypocrisy and betrayal of the country.

We know the radical right when we see it. Across countries, idioms, and organizational forms, it returns to a familiar cluster of commitments: an organic and essentialized view of the nation, a deep suspicion of pluralism, a taste for hierarchy dressed up as common sense or natural order, and a determination to redraw the boundaries of belonging so that some citizens are always less secure, less legitimate, and less equal than others.

What links a polished electoral machine, a digital grievance ecosystem, and a violent extremist fringe? The fact that they do not share a handbook, but definitely share a political direction. The radical right does not simply propose a tougher immigration policy, a more punitive criminal code, or a more culturally conservative school curriculum. It is not merely offering a policy correction within democratic life. It is advancing a different moral order. Roger Griffin’s definition of palingenetic ultranationalism, first proposed in his 1991 book The Nature of Fascism, captures something essential: The dream of national rebirth is never only rhetorical. It is a project of reconstruction in which the political community is purified, enemies are named, and equal citizenship becomes conditional. Viktor Orbán’s embrace of the so-called illiberal state was not just a constitutional preference; it was an assertion that equality and pluralism should give way to a morally and ethnically homogeneous political community. And when Donald Trump speaks of immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the nation, he isn’t simply escalating campaign rhetoric; he is recasting membership itself in quasi-organic terms, as though the polity were a body to be cleansed rather than a civic compact to be shared.

To be racist is to see peoples of color as eternal immigrants. In 2019, President Trump told four congresswomen of color—three of whom were born in the United States—to “go back” to the “corrupt” and “crime-infested” countries they “originally came from.” Trump’s own paternal grandfather, Friedrich, originally came from Germany in 1885. He traveled back home in 1901 and met his wife, Elisabeth. They moved to the United States together in 1902 and returned to Germany in 1904. They came back to the U.S. for good in 1905—Elisabeth pregnant with Trump’s father, Fred. Trump’s mother, Mary Anne, immigrated from Scotland in 1930. Trump, a son of immigrants. To be racist is to see White people as eternal natives.

What other population could Camus have seen as new to Hérault in 1996, speaking another language, belonging to another culture, another history? White European immigrants. However, Camus melted the differences of these White European immigrants into the pot of White identity. He did not lament their presence in very old houses, walking down very old streets, speaking Spanish or Portuguese or Dutch or English.

Apparently, White immigrants do not signify that the country is changing. Apparently, Camus saw, in White people, those who belong in France—who France is for. Apparently, Camus saw, in Black and Brown peoples, those who do not belong in France—who France is not for.

Concerns about Iran’s activities in Latin America stretch back to the early 1990s, when U.S., Israeli and Argentine authorities blamed the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah for a pair of bombings in Buenos Aires.

The first bombing, in 1992, targeted the Israeli embassy in Argentina’s capital, killing 29 people and injuring 250 others. The second bombing, in 1994, targeted the headquarters of a Jewish community organization known as AMIA, killing 85 people and injuring more than 200 others.

In both cases, the evidence of Iranian and Hezbollah involvement was largely circumstantial. The 1992 bombing allegedly came as retaliation for Israel’s assassination of a Hezbollah leader named Abbas Musawi, and the 1994 bombing purportedly responded to Israel’s bombing of a Hezbollah training camp.

Compelling alternative theories suggested that agents of the Syrian government or Argentine neo-Nazis may have carried out the attacks. But American and Israeli authorities helped their Argentine counterparts build up the Iran theory, even though some officials acknowledged in diplomatic cables that the evidence was thin and the Argentine investigation shoddy.

Painting Iran as a rogue nation sponsoring terrorist attacks in the U.S. backyard bolstered arguments in favor of aggressively constraining the country’s military ambitions and nuclear program to ensure the United States and Israel could maintain the advantage against one of their primary global adversaries.