The Right is in retreat worldwide
A far-reaching development in the US presidential politics since the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump last month has been a defensive line of progressive support around the embattled Democratic nominee. Firebrand Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Cori Bush had all been among the harshest critics of Biden throughout his presidency. Omar, a Muslim woman elected from Minnesota, went so far as to accuse the President of facilitating the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. She now says that Biden is “the best President” in her lifetime. One after another, other Congresswomen, and several more, have lined up behind Biden, determined to keep Trump out of the White House.
The rise of the global Left will do India no harm. It is a case of having the cake and eating it too.
A consolidation on the left is not confined to US politics. Nor is it a one-off occurrence on the current global scene. Such unity among socialists and centrists in France just before the July 7 second round of parliamentary elections ensured that far-right candidates were prevented from getting a legislative majority and putting in office their representative as Prime Minister. In the same week, across the English Channel, right-wing Conservatives were comprehensively given an electoral drubbing because of careful preparation and planning by the UK’s now left-of-centre Labour Party. Exactly a month before Britons voted out their party of the Right, the BJP, viewed globally as a nationalist and right-leaning party, lost its standalone majority in the Lok Sabha.
Across Europe, far-right parties made big gains when results of the European Parliament elections were declared on June 9. But this masks successful efforts by progressives in smaller European states to claw back to command in their national legislatures after several years of steady gains by conservative, Islamophobic and anti-immigrant political blocs. It also put the European Left on notice. The European Parliament is a paper tiger. What is notable and consequential is that worldwide, the Right is in retreat. The Left has realised that unless it unites as in France — and subsequently in the US — it will lose political power to conservatives, perhaps forever, as the experience of the US Supreme Court has recently demonstrated. Supreme Court judges in the US are appointed for life. That means the relatively young, majority of the judges appointed by Trump during his presidency, have captured America’s highest court as a branch of government for at least a generation. The firebrand Congresswomen — collectively known as the ‘Squad’ — are rallying around Biden in the wake of his post-debate setbacks to prevent such an eventuality in other branches of the US government and in the Fourth Estate. Biden’s long-time nemesis, ‘democratic socialist’ Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, who is a year older than Biden, has made common cause with the youngsters who make up the ‘Squad’. Sanders was a presidential aspirant in 2020; he suspended his campaign only in April of that presidential election cycle.
Two years after Trump’s defeat to Biden — a defeat which Trump never conceded, alleging election fraud — a major country in the Western hemisphere set the ball rolling towards vanquishing political forces on the Right. Socialist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s victory in Brazil’s presidential election in October 2022 was welcomed worldwide. Lula was hailed as the saviour of Brazil after he defeated extreme right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who had been insensitive to the high death toll during the Covid-19 pandemic. Bolsonaro also presided over extensive destruction of the Amazon rainforest during his four-year rule, sparking global concerns of a climate disaster.
Like Trump, Bolsonaro never conceded defeat. That appears to be the tactic of the new Right in many countries. Unless they win, they do not accept the election results. Such history may repeat itself in the US if Trump loses the election in November. Along with Brazil, Chile and Colombia have seen what is collectively described in Latin America as a ‘pink wave’. Both countries elected leftist presidents around the same time as Lula in Brazil. In Chile and Colombia, where the next presidential polls are due in 2025 and 2026, respectively, the left is drawing up strategies using the recent French model to keep conservatives out of power once more. If they succeed, socialist Presidents in Latin America could cause discomfort in Washington, irrespective of who occupies the White House.
From India’s point of view, the big gains being made by progressive forces, especially in developing countries, will primarily impact global trade policies and climate actions. India has been proactive in both areas in recent years by positioning itself as part of the solutions. Contrary to popular belief, the global left will actually provide a shot in the arm for India’s efforts. For example, Brazil has inherited the G20 presidency from India. So, New Delhi remains a part of the G20 troika and will be an important part of the organisation’s decision-making process. The setbacks to right-wing forces in Latin America and Africa have meant that the process of reforming the United Nations is back on track, although it is still a steep hill to climb for the Group of Four (G4) countries — India, Brazil, Japan and Germany. Bolsonaro had no interest in UN reforms. India’s initiative to bring in the African Union as a full member of G20 has provided New Delhi with greater leverage in the UN General Assembly, which has to take the critical next steps towards Security Council restructuring.
Reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an objective being pursued by India, is one where it can make common cause with progressive governments. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has been comatose since the stalemated ‘Doha Round’, which began 23 years ago. If the WTO dies — a distinct possibility — India’s natural allies in moving forward with global trade policies will be leftist governments and not the US or rich European nations. An irony is that India is perceived abroad as having a right-wing government. But its internal and external economic policies are, in fact, populist, largely statist, protectionist and interventionist like those of socialist governments, even as the BJP preaches laissez-faire. The rise of the global Left will do India no harm. It is a case of having the cake and eating it too.
