2.1 The Ideological Construction of a Fascism of Resistance: Conservative Revolution, Traditionalism and Right-Wing Postcolonialism

To comprehend the emergence of what we term as a fascism of resistance, it is imperative to analyze the convergence between the principles of the new conservative revolution and the neo-Traditionalist current. The Weimar conservative revolution of the interwar period has been of special attraction for the members of the New Right. Gathered around universities, political clubs and journals such as Die Tat (The Deed), Die Standarte (The Standard) and Das Gewissen (Conscience), a heterogeneous group of nationalist intellectuals such as Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Hans Freyer, Ernst Junger, Carl Schmitt, Werner Sombart, Martin Heidegger, Ernst Niekisch and Oswald Spengler decided to transform defeated German nationalism into something dynamic and victorious. Despite their differences, these intellectuals promoted this type of modern nationalist mobilization, based on the Schmittian primacy of the political over morality and responsibility. The act of politics itself thus represents the primacy of identity over reason. Echoing Heidegger, they understood that they had to take a risky leap into a new beginning, challenging the familiar understanding of conservatism. A conservative revolution is thus first and foremost a revolution of values. The question, however, is what is conservative about such a conservative revolution? For in principle, nothing seems as far from Edmund Burke’s conservatism than a revolutionary mood. Conservatives stick to ancient ways of doing things, combining sentiment and pragmatism. Michael Oakeshott used to remark that conservatives prefer the familiar to the unknown and the tried to the untried, and in general they reject the utopian bliss of liberals (Oakeshott, Reference Oakeshott1962, Reference Oakeshott1991, 407–437). However, as Albert Mohler (the Swiss historian of the European new right) explained, we have to consider breakthrough moments in history in order to redefine concepts (Mohler, Reference Mohler1972). Every generation has its own conservatism, which is not readily adaptable by the next one. Even a conservative ideology is therefore dynamic and requires continuous reflection. Germany’s defeat in the First World War and the imposition of a liberal democratic system by the winning coalition opened the way to a redefinition of the national question and its relationship with conservative thought. As Jeffrey Herf (Reference Herf1986, 3) has observed, where German conservatives had spoken of technology or culture, the new conservative revolutionaries have conceived of a synthesis between a reactionary tribal identity and an anti-Enlightenment modernism. Indeed, German National Socialism showed the “Janus face” of fascism claims. It is “hostile to western rationalist tradition, deeply nostalgic, and steeped in volkisch and agrarian mythology, while also projecting a futuristic utopia” (Gat, Reference Gat1997, 31). Yet the striking thing, and the reason the post-fascist New Right has reevaluated the role of the Weimar conservative revolution, is that while the latter erected the ideological pillars of National Socialism, several of its members opposed totalitarianism, albeit from a National Socialist perspective. Some of these fascists were persecuted by the Nazis, and others such as Edgar Jung were murdered by them. Ernst Niekisch (1889–1967), a leading proponent of National Bolshevism (a synthesis of planned Soviet socialism and nationalism) and an anti-Semite, rejected Hitler for being insufficiently revolutionary. Heidegger, himself an admirer of National Socialism, still made no compromise with vulgar Nazi populism. Why were these criteria relevant for the precursors of a regenerated fascism? As the neofascist Maurice Bardeche remarked, fascism was “ghettoized” and even imprisoned by a post-Nuremberg liberal political establishment (Bardeche, 1961). That was the time however, when a wide variety of European nationalists understood that the revolutionary ideology of National Socialism was one thing, and its totalitarian conclusions another. For the later fascism was a revolutionary idea that had to be regenerated (Bar-On, Reference Bar-On2007; Mammone, Reference Mammone2009). In short, that meant severing fascist revolutionary ideology from totalitarian practices.

The French and European New Right have engaged in this endeavor of revitalizing the revolutionary ideas of the conservative revolution for more than four decades. This intellectual search has served as a crucial pillar in the enhancement of a new revolutionary ethnonational identitarianism. However, the question arises as to whether the ideas originating from the conservative revolution, which laid the groundwork for a third path to modernization, can be reconciled with Traditionalism, an ideological trend that initially appeared to be inherently resistant to revolution and novelty. The first key idea of Traditionalism is that an idealized past that was lost because of moral degeneration and the progressive abandonment of religion should be recovered. Traditionalists thus depict tradition as a concept that indicates the spiritual wisdom that is conceived as having formed the ancient core of all the great religions and spiritual paths: the perennial philosophy (Sedgwick, Reference Sedgwick and Magee2016, 308). This “primordial Tradition” that precedes all local traditions is transmitted from the origin of humanity and then restored (perhaps imperfectly and partially) by authentic founders of new faiths (François, Reference François2014, 97). As such it sets a form of collective consciousness related to the “primordial identity of human communities” (François, Reference François2014, 88). One notable aspect of Traditionalism is its recognition of the interconnectedness of various spiritual paths. By acknowledging the shared wisdom and spiritual heritage across different traditions, Traditionalism promotes a broader perspective that transcends sectarian divides (Faivre, Reference Faivre1996, 68). Leaders within the Traditionalist movement have often explored and appreciated the teachings and insights present in Christianity and Islam, for example.

The French thinker René Guénon (ʿAbd al-Wahid Yahya, 1886–1951), the Swiss philosopher Frithjof Schuon (ʿIsa Nur al-Din Ahmad, 1907–1998) and Martin Lings, among others, adopted or converted to Islam. Figures like Schuon even established a Traditionalist ṭarīqa (Sufi order), the Maryamiyya. These thinkers generally regarded Islamic traditions, particularly within Sufi orders, as providing more direct access to the spiritual essence that all religions ultimately seek. Although primarily a religious movement, Traditionalism also had significant political and philosophical impact. For instance, Guénon founded the Integralist Traditional school, and Julius Evola (1898–1974) developed what is recognized as the political version of Traditionalism.

Despite their differences, Guénon and Evola both regarded the values arising from the liberal revolutions as responsible for the disintegration of traditional sociopolitical structures, thereby marking the beginning of the end of the West. Both of them believed that it would not be enough to revive forms of societal order from the prerevolutionary past. However, the variances between the two were salient. Julius Evola was initially an admirer of Guénon and shared Guénon’s ultratraditionalist and spiritual perspective. However, Evola later radicalized Traditionalism to substantiate his own “super-fascist ideas” (Wolff, Reference Wolff2016, 491). Indeed, through Guénon, Evola alimented his own aspiration to restore a sacred and mythological relation with the national past. He understood that Italy never had a traditionalist government and never defended “foundational principles.” Italy, according to Evola, “lacks an authentic ‘traditional’ past” to restore. Mussolini himself respected Evola and even commissioned him to formulate a “Fascist” spiritual (as opposed to “National Socialist”) racial doctrine. Evola himself was an ardent supporter of Mussolini and enjoyed the dubious privilege of having the Duce endorse his book, Synthesis of the Doctrine of Race (1941), as the official statement of Fascism’s “spiritualist” racism as against Nazism’s merely biological racism (Sheehan, Reference Sheehan1981, 50). However, Evola’s “spiritual racism not only discriminated against the Jews, but all representatives of the modern western world.” Up to this juncture, it becomes evident why Evola remained on the periphery of fascist modernism, despite Mussolini’s admiration for him. His theories are not aligned with key ideological currents within Fascism such as revolutionary syndicalism, corporatism or national socialism (Wolff, 481). Moreover, as James Gregor (Reference Gregor2006, 83–110) remarks, Evola has personally denied he was a fascist, and his elitist theory is deeply aristocratic, nonmodern and un-fascist. Still, despite that, Evola was considered, especially after 1945, the most important Italian theoretician of the so-called conservative revolution.

In this postmodern era, Evola’s traditionalism is revered as a fount of inspiration. Against all odds, Evola’s concept of spiritual racism or Guénon’s integralism and reconciliation with Islam, though unconventional, serve as sources of inspiration for a new theory of right-wing anti-imperialism. This theory could be directed against Islamic imperialism, or conversely, it could use Islam as an example against Western imperialism. Indeed, this perspective challenges conventional assumptions about the New Right as staunch adversaries of Islam. While partially true, as we shall explore, there exist more ambivalences than common assumptions concerning Islam. Guénon himself, although he considered that a full restoration of the Catholic Church was necessary in order to save the West, still believed that if the Catholic Church failed in that mission, a sort of Islamic cultural revolution could be considered as an option. The influential role of Sufi sheiks over Western intellectuality would be essential in that mission.

The West, according to Guénon, has not preserved the mystic esoteric quest as Islam has, especially in its Sufi expression, and has plunged into secularism and barbarism. His paradoxical ensuing conclusion was that Islam could come precisely to save the West from its own destruction. The interesting thing, however, is that he himself did not convert to Islam. For Traditionalists like Guénon, “entering” into Islam was distinct from “conversion,” which they viewed as a superficial, exoteric process. Instead, they advocated for learning from the esoteric wisdom of initiated teachings, which allowed individuals to “adopt a traditional form other than that to which they might be linked by their origin” (Guénon, Reference Guénon and Boulognon1975, 104). Indeed what mattered for Guénon was the esoteric part of religion, which is where perennial truth was to be found (Bar-On, 2014, 89). Evola also considered Islam to be connected to the primordialist tradition, and in particular he considered it superior to Christianity and Judaism. For example, he despised the Judaic mercenary character and Christian pietism, which he claimed were the reasons for Western decadence. In his Revolt against the Modern World (Reference Evola1995, 245), he theorized Islam’s superiority specially in the organizational principle of the social life, regulated by Islamic law. Sharia was revealed directly by God to guide believers in the practical expression of their faith and conduct, whose basis is the Qur’an. In his The Metaphysics of War (Reference Evola2007), Evola even portrayed jihad as a “late rebirth of a primordial Aryan heritage” such that the Islamic tradition serves as the transmitter of the Aryo-Iranian tradition (Evola, Reference Evola2007, 96; Mutti, Reference Mutti2007). Of no doubt Evola was a forerunner in establishing common grounds between fascism and Islamism.

It is of no surprise thus, for example, that fascism and National Socialism displayed an ambivalent approach toward Islam. The question arises as to whether insights gleaned from the particular brand of racist radical nationalism “national socialists” espoused can shed light on why and to what extent they might align themselves with national liberation movements in general and anti-Western religious identities as Islam. This prompts further inquiry into the extent to which they could engage in a shared struggle against liberal colonialism despite being supremacist and imperialist. From an historical perspective, as stressed by David Motadel (Reference Motadel2019, 843), “during the Second World War, Berlin became a hub of global anti-imperial revolutionary activism. Between 1941 and 1945, scores of anti-colonial leaders flocked to Germany, among them Indians, most famously Subhas Chandra Bose; prominent Arabs, including the Iraqi nationalist Rashid ʿAli al-Kaylani, the Syrian rebel leader Fawzi al Qawuqji, and Amin al-Husayni, the notorious Mufti of Jerusalem; Irish radicals, such as Seán Russell; and nationalist revolutionaries from Central Asia and the Caucasus – Turkestanis, Azerbaijanis, Chechens, and others.” Indeed, many of them saw Germany as an ally in their struggle for a new world order. While it is true that Hitler was hardly interested in the colonies of the countries he conquered (Burbank and Cooper, Reference Burbank and Cooper2010, 405), he still for pragmatic reasons aided nationalist rebels in their actions against old colonialist states. Furthermore, there was an attempt to organize a radical international against empire, characterized by transnational militancy and anti-colonial solidarity (Motadel, Reference Motadel2019, 844).

From a different perspective, also in Fascist Italy we can see the development of what could be defined as “anti-colonialist imperialism,” or what the Italian nationalist Enrico Corradini defined in 1910 as the “imperialism of proletarian nations.” According to Corradini (Reference Corradini1923, 89), there were proletarian nations just as there are proletarian classes. He claimed that “as Socialism teaches the proletariat the value of class struggle so must we teach Italy the value of international struggle.” To be precise, colonial practices during the time of fascism did not differ from the practices of the liberal period. They had never been moved by economical factors but by prestige and state search for power. As the socialist Filipo Turati noted already in 1895, the African enterprise is essentially not a capitalist phenomenon but a militaristic one (Segre, Reference Segré1979, 175). However, there was more than that, and that was specifically related to the particular status of the Italian state in world competition. During the 1880s and 1890s, the colonialist enterprise had became largely a southern phenomenon because it suggested an obvious solution to the problems of poverty and the massive emigration that had begun around 1885. Indeed, population outlets became the most powerful rationale for overseas expansion. This did not change with fascism, however; ideologically it was presented as a different type of proletarian colonialism.

Furthermore, at the conceptual level of international relations, fascist colonialism in Africa, as well as the Nazi Lebensraum aimed at colonizing Central and Eastern Europe, or, currently, Dugin’s theory of Eurasia, all align with the theory of multipolarity expanded by Carl Schmitt. This theory promotes an “anti-imperialist imperialism” or regional zones of influence, and stands in opposition to liberal global colonialism. In Schmitt’s telling, the Monroe Doctrine was functionally operating to keep “spatially alien powers” out of the United States’ wider sphere of influence in the Americas. This formed the nucleus of Schmitt’s thinking about the Großraum (great space).

Schmitt’s Großraum stood in sharp contrast to British imperialism, as the latter rested, at least in theory, on the “universalistic humanitarian concerns” stemming from “individualistic-liberal” premises (von Bogdandy and Hussain, Reference Bogdandy, Hussain, Brett, Donaldson and Koskenniemi2021, 152). According to Schmitt, however, it was precisely the might of an Anglo-American commercial and maritime empire that has destroyed the “jus publicum Europaeum” that had successfully stabilized relationships between European states for roughly two hundred years. Following this argument, it is easy to understand why post-fascists nowadays portray Russia’s Eurasian imperialism and China’s expansionism in the South Pacific as legitimate types of imperialism. Indeed, these examples inspired the ideologues of what we define as the postcolonial fascism of resistance, a concept that extends beyond international affairs to influence domestic politics as well. This new concept challenges conventional wisdom, particularly in the context of the typical divide between left-wing and right-wing ideologies, and the associated views on colonialism and imperialism.

2.2 Right-Wing Postcolonialism?

This brings us to a complex and paradoxical intersection: How can right-wing conservative ideologies, which often promote white supremacy, nationalist agendas, and anti-multiculturalism with a disdain for Global South cultures, find any common ground with postcolonialism? One could also ask what potential parallels could be drawn between the fascist concept of “proletarian imperialism,” Nazi aspirations to overturn the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles, and modern revivalist movements such as Islamic resurgence or Iranian Shiite expansionism. In each case, there is a drive to restore perceived lost dignity and counter an imposed sense of weakness or subjugation. Both fascist and postcolonial nationalist ideologies have sought, in different ways, to reclaim pride and sovereignty.

Postcolonial authors, however, would firmly reject any moral or ideological alignment between fascism, Nazism and anti-colonial struggles. Since the 1950s, both Frantz Fanon (Reference Fanon1961) and Hannah Arendt (Reference Arendt1945) have strongly argued that Western colonialism was a significant, though not exclusive, historical factor in the rise of Hitler’s dictatorship in the twentieth century (Bernhard, Reference Bernhard2018, 121). They emphasized that fascism was fundamentally entangled with the structures of colonial rule, the racialized organization of dispossession and death, and insatiable imperial ambition. In the aftermath of the Second World War, Aimé Césaire (Reference Césaire1950/2000), in Discourse on Colonialism, described the “decivilizing” effects of colonialism on the colonizers themselves as a root cause of Nazism and other Euro-American fascisms. Indeed the racial terror and genocide wrought by slavery and colonialism preceded, were constitutive of and continued after Mussolini’s Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, and Japan’s Shōwa nationalism (Goldstein and Trujillo, Reference Alyosha and Ventura Trujillo2021, 3). Recent scholarship, such as the work of Marianna Griffini, has illuminated the colonialist legacy of fascism within contemporary populist right-wing movements. Griffini contends that the Italian populist radical right-wing anti-immigrant rhetoric, for example, draws from Italy’s colonial and fascist past. The lack of a comprehensive postwar reckoning with fascism has, she argues, inhibited the development of critical frameworks for analyzing fascist imperialism and colonialism (Griffini, Reference Griffini2023, 133). The racism evident in parties like La Lega and Fratelli d’Italia can be seen in their discourse on the Mediterranean Sea, which they describe as a zone of “uncontrolled and undesired immigration.” This contrasts with the fascist-era term Mare Nostrum (Our Sea), which signified ownership and pride in Italy’s colonial ambitions. Today, their rhetoric has shifted to a notion of Mare Vostrum (Your Sea), embodying an exclusionary mindset that rejects the presence of immigrants in the region (Griffini, Reference Griffini2023).

However, postcolonialist theory not only links fascism to a previous Western colonialism, but also confronts the cultural repercussions of colonialism and imperialism in non-Western societies. According to Gurminder Bhambra, the studies of Edward W. Said (Reference Said1995), Homi K. Bhabha (Reference Bhabha1994) and Gayatri Spivak (1988) (projected in the research of the modernity/coloniality school of sociologists such as Anibal Quijano [Reference Quijano2007], María Lugones [Reference Lugones2007] and the semiotician Walter D. Mignolo [Reference Mignolo2000]), emphasized the need to consider the emergence of the modern world in the broader histories of colonialism, empire and enslavement promoted by Western societies (Bhambra, Reference Bhambra2014, 115).

As scholars like Vivienne Jabri argue, while colonial subjects were once overtly subjected to conquest, in the postcolonial era, power manifests in more covert, regulatory forms. The international arena is reshaped into a cosmopolitan space (Jabri, Reference Jabri2013, 3–4). However, this cosmopolitan ideal often functions as a framework of subjugation for the new postcolonial subjects, the immigrants. As Enzo Traverso (Reference Traverso2016) contends, Western democracies’ inability to effectively integrate immigrants inevitably fosters exclusion and marginalization (Traverso, Reference Traverso2016, 89). Compounding this issue, Western societies also maintain hierarchical structures that continue to suppress non-Western identities and limit autonomy in non-Western regions, thereby perpetuating a global division that conceals its colonial foundations. At first glance, there thus seems to be little compatibility between what could be defined as the Left’s progressive postcolonialism and the post-fascist Right’s anti-immigration take on postcolonialism.

Paradoxically, however, the concept of postcolonialism on the Right, as developed by the French New Right, still aligns with certain critiques of Western colonialism typically associated with the Left. Not only does it accept the basic argument that the cosmopolitan break of the international world constitutes the weapon of the resilience of liberal colonialism, but it also adds that in order to resist global liberal values, cultural diversity arguments should be endorsed. The new message is that black people in Africa and white identitarians in Europe are presented as victims of Western universal liberalism and are in need of protection. In this distorted narrative, the “black lives matter” movement in Africa and the “white lives matter” movement in Europe and America are portrayed as brothers in arms. Nobody would express this better than Marcus Garvey, the black neofascist nationalism founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, when conducting his propaganda campaigns in the 1920s in the black ghettos with the slogan, “Africa for the Africans, like Asia for the Asians and Palestine for the Jews” (Neuberger, Reference Neuberger1996, 20).

In this context, right-wing postcolonialists may even appropriate Jean-Paul Sartre’s (Reference Sartre2001) argument about black resistance to white racism, which he defined as “un racisme anti-raciste.” This concept – now being extended to the broader resistance of the Global South to Western modernization and reframed as a form of legitimate defiance against liberal hegemony – has been adopted by the new post-fascists. The post-fascists embracing this interpretation argue that Western colonialism – through the imposition of universal human rights and liberal or socialist models of modernization – has not only colonized the non-European world but also eroded the authentic, rooted identities of European ethnic identities.

Furthermore, by reclaiming the intellectual legacy of various racist anti-colonialists from the past and emphasizing their shared perspectives with Global South nationalists, the new fascists of resistance seek to redefine postcolonial discourse and identity politics by advocating a shared struggle of the Global South and an ethnic Europe against liberal globalization. This framing casts both economic elites and progressive activists as agents undermining national identities and cultural heritage, with immigration policies seen as a tool to dilute or replace traditional European populations. By framing these groups as allied forces in a perceived cultural and demographic invasion, the populist Right appeals to a defense of national sovereignty and traditional values, painting itself as the last bastion against this so-called colonization of Europe.

This perspective was articulated by Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni in her response to Emmanuel Macron’s strong critique of the Fratelli d’ Italia and its anti-immigration stance. Addressing a rally, Meloni said, “What is disgusting is France, which continues to exploit African countries, charging them minting fees, using child labor in the mines, and extracting raw materials, as is happening in Niger. Don’t lecture us, Macron. Africans are abandoning their continent because of you.” Her conclusion was clear: “The solution is not to bring Africans to Europe, but to liberate Africa from certain Europeans” (Macnulty, Reference Macnulty2022).

More importantly from an ideological perspective, an interesting theoretical and political phenomenon emerges here. As George Hull (Reference Hull2022, 131) argues, despite their distinct intellectual lineages, postcolonialists of the Right and the Left converge on their “epistemic ethnonationalism” – a doctrine claiming that the beliefs one should adopt and the concepts one should employ are determined by the ethnos or ethnic group to which one belongs. Indeed, the tragedy of left-wing postcolonialism is that it echoes ancestral fantasies of the far Right in which who is allowed to live in which places is a question of the connection of one’s blood to a particular patch of soil (Polgreen, Reference Polgreen2024). For this reason, it is not surprising that fascists in the past and post-fascists today may adopt anti-colonialist stances from a position of ethnic resistance against global liberalism. As Olivia C. Harrison (Reference Harrison2022) explains, “Sixty years after French colonial rule ended in Algeria, the idea of decolonization has also become a buzzword in the arsenal of nativist right-wing groups who have recast it as the right to ethnonational self-determination. In this perverse upending of the very meaning of decolonization, to decolonize France is to rid the nation of the immigrants who are ‘colonizing’ it.” Left-wing postcolonialists fall into this trap. In his “perversity thesis,” Albert Hirschman (Reference Hirschman1991, 7) argues that and radical multiculturalism, which originated as a way to encourage minority communities to resist racism, might lead precisely to their oppression. We could extend this claim also in regards to postcolonialists and their decoloniality theory.

In summary, both right-wing Traditionalists and left-wing postcolonialists reject Western beliefs and the application of Western concepts outside the West. However, it is Traditionalists, rather than members of the progressive left, who take the conceptual revolution to its extreme consequences. The right proposes a completely new vision for what it argues should be a “free world” emancipated from the Western concept of freedom. Furthermore, as Miri Davidson (Reference Davidson2024) suggests, “despite similarities, left-wing decolonialists propose an open pluriverse of entanglement between different social, cultural or ethnic groups or peoples. The New Rightists instead propose a closed pluriverse defined by the separation between such groups.”

In short, conservative and right-wing movements often adopt selective, exclusionary forms of anti-globalism and appropriate the language of anti-imperialism, even while it remains somehow incompatible with the ethical foundations of postcolonial and decolonial theory. Yet the New Right has pursued this objective for more than three decades, aiming to apply the narrative of human dignity and emancipation not only to formerly colonized societies, but also to Europe itself, which they portray as needing liberation from what they frame as a liberal, postcolonial hegemony. There is no doubt that the ethical and historical implications of such a claim remain deeply contentious.

3.1 Rebuking Liberal Colonialism: The Rise of “Indigenous” European Identities

Most liberals observing the current uprising of populist movements in Europe tend to understand the phenomenon as a nationalist attack on the European Union. As we shall try to demonstrate, however, the ideas advanced against the liberal cosmopolitan union are based on a nationalism that is Europe-centered. More specifically, the New Right strives to synthesize ethnodemocratic entities at the regional level with the idea of a strong European empire, namely a confederation of ethnic regions able to compete on the global level.

First and foremost, it must be stressed that de Benoist considers ethnoregional nations, defined primarily in cultural, social and anthropological terms, as the basis for real democracy. De Benoist is clear that without cohesion at the local level there is no democracy. “The proper functioning of both Greek and Icelandic democracy was the result of cultural cohesion and a sense of shared heritage” (de Benoist, Reference De Benoist1995, 75). According to de Benoist, in Europe, the original peoples are Basques, Catalans, Flemings and Scots, and they constitute the basis for the emergence of an authentic nativist ideology combining homogeneous ethnic communities (ethnos) and rule by the people (demos) (de Benoist Reference De Benoist1991, 95; Bar-On, Reference Bar-On2008, 340). Indeed de Benoist as well as a wide variety of right-wing intellectuals such as Gianfranco Miglio, one of the ideological mentors of the Lega Nord, consider the ethnoregional nations harbingers of a whole European cultural renaissance in the face of the ruined modern world (Mammone, Reference Mammone2009, 230).

This particular form of the imagined community, however, cannot be reduced to current understandings of the nation. It strongly rejects the French republican type of assimilationist nationalism, which turns “others” into citizens. Nationality thus cannot be defined by modern statecraft but by nativism. As Guillaume Faye (Reference Faye2010, 12), one of the most radical members of the ND, interpreted it, the basic idea of all rightists old or new is the fact that European nationalism must defend “the native members of a people.”

Yet, how those natives should be politically organized is a matter of debate. It is clear that in current world politics, the very idea of narrow sovereignty does not make sense. However, is the European Union the solution? For de Benoist, “the new European political unity cannot be built on the national Jacobin model … and it cannot … result from the economic supra-nationality dreamt of by Brussels technocrats” (de Benoist Reference De Benoist1994b). The only way Europe can survive politically is to shift down from the obsolete nation-state to ethnoregional identities at the local level, and to shift up to an antiliberal confederation of ethnic regions at the higher level. That means that from a geopolitical and ideological perspective, de Benoist considers pan-European unity “an absolute necessity.”

This trend was conceptually elaborated by Armin Mohler, whose main thesis was that the German tradition of the Reich (realm) in Central Europe (Mitteleuropa) includes two contradictory streams, which at the end of the day complement each other. The first is the idea that the Reich symbolizes diversity and decentralization of power with open or at least vaguely defined borders, and the second is an almost mythical view affirming the organic spiritual unity of the Reich and Mitteleuropa (Mohler, Reference Mohler1972, 139). This völkisch (folk or nationalist) pluralism, stressing the unique origins and yet common roots of a putative European culture, was promoted in the 1920s by the Thule Society and partially adopted by the Nazis. In different ways, intellectuals such as Heidegger, Evola and Jean Thiriart have endorsed this view that cannot be identified to narrow nationalism. According to Ronald Beiner, Heidegger’s Dasein, namely the metaphysical destiny of the German people, for example cannot be reduced just to the predilection for one’s own nation (Beiner, Reference Beiner2018, 69).

What worried Heidegger was that liberal society lacked rootedness in an ethnos. The question for him was: How could that ethnos be represented by current states or by the vulgar homogenizing republican nation? Heidegger was precise in this point. There cannot be a society emerging out of a rational association of individuals but only a community of a Volk based on a historically handed-down determination (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger2009, 139). That interpretation was shared by Evola, who would reject republican homogenizing nationalism, advocating instead the idea of an organic pagan and hierarchical imperium, which could take various forms according to local condition. Indeed, according to Evola (Reference Evola1986, 18, 20), the “European nations have been the very ones that have maintained European disunity from the Hundred Years War to the present day.” Evola thus became a supporter of a Europe in which a new version of state and empire could result from the symbiosis of the Roman and Germanic heritage (Griffin, Reference Griffin1995, 343).

Following this line, the New Right historian Pierre Vial wrote in a 1970 article in Le Monde that “Fighting for a cultural renaissance, GRECE intended to help establish a founding myth: that of a sovereign, liberated Europe, facing an imperial destiny” (Duranton Crabol, Reference Duranton Crabol1988, 99). These ideas were adopted and re-elaborated by a wide variety of right-wing exclusionists related to the New Right.

Jean Thirirat, an ex-Nazi collaborator who after the war founded the group Jeune Nation, wrote a leading document for the New Right, Un empire de 400 millions d’hommes: L’Europe, fostering the idea of a new Europe led by an elitist and de-bureaucratized socialism. This would be a hyper nation-state able to compete with the new American Carthage and the billion-strong population of China, and make common cause with the Global South. Even nationalists like Carl Schmitt had, before the end of the war, already devised the idea of the Großraum, through which he attempted to reconcile universe and “pluriverse” by suggesting that the state form should be overcome by grand territorial units. In short, argues de Benoist (Reference De Benoist1994d, 14), a federalism from below, built on the principle of subsidiarity in Europe, is the counterforce to “universalism and national homogenization.” This federalism should also contrast with the European Union rooted in the Maastricht Treaty.

According to de Benoist’s critique of the Maastricht Treaty framework, the market is viewed as the principal architect of economic identity. Conversely, he advocates for an ethnic federation of peoples, a concept that prioritizes ethnocultural values over economic considerations (de Benoist, Reference De Benoist1996, 135). Furthermore, he argues that such an ethnic federation fosters a new form of internationalism, one that stands in stark contrast to liberal internationalism.

Pablo de Orellana and Nicholas Michelsen (2019, 749) claim that the New Right is “defined by an internationalism of its own, which advocates linking nationalist movements to restructure international relations norms.” That is indeed true; however, we stress that the New Right’s internationalism is built upon a postnational European ethnoregionalism rather than upon an old conservative nationalism.

This move attracted the interest of Paul Piccone, a former editor of the American left-wing journal Telos, who perceived the power of ethnoregional populism as presented by de Benoist and the New Right as the only alternative to the technocratic new class leading the liberal world. Indeed, Piccone stresses that a distinction must be made between a liberal Europe embodied in the Maastricht federalism, and right-wing federalism defined as integral federalism (Piccone, Reference Piccone1991). Different from Hamiltonian federalism, which emphasized institutional and constitutional integration, right-wing federalism relies upon a loose confederation of ethnic peoples. By this criterion, while liberal Europe could develop from a Europe of nation-states into a political and economic union resting on the same philosophical basis that is theoretically posited on the primacy of the individual, the integral version of federalism remains a Schmittean version of Großraum or an Evolan concept of integral empire, a confederation of ethnic peoples and regions within which aliens and minorities would not have the right to be democratic agents.

Already in the winter of 1991–1992, Telos published several articles on regional populism written by the intellectual leader of the Lega Nord, Gianfranco Miglio (Reference Miglio1991–1992), as well as by Bernard Poche and Roberto Borcio. It is evident to all that these views do not align with those of the former French National Front. Marine Le Pen and her father both advocate for a sovereign France, a position that differs from de Benoist’s perspective. In a similar vein, de Benoist (Reference De Benoist2021) rejects Eric Zemmour’s Jacobinism, particularly his advocacy for assimilation, which is perceived as hostile to regional identities.

The question arises as to why de Benoist contends that ethnoregional identities are antiliberal. It should be apparent that not all groups with strong ethnoregional identities, such as Catalans, Basques and Scots, are antiliberal. However, in de Benoist’s view, any synthesis between liberal and organic nationalism is destined to result in the predominance of nationalism over liberalism. This perspective suggests that de Benoist believes the core values and priorities of ethnoregional identities will ultimately conflict with and override liberal principles.

As noted, for both American leftists such as Paul Piccone and rightists such as de Benoist, the exclusionist organic ethnic regions represent a response to liberal globalization and homogenization. Moreover, the struggle of ethnic identities such as Catalans or Flemish against the assimilationist democratic state should be presented on the same footing as any Global South colonized people fighting against imperialism.

Finally, we should be concerned about the feasibility of conflating racist differentialism, ethnoregionalism and anti-colonialism into a singular framework. Indeed, it seems counterintuitive that peoples from colonized Global South nations would draw inspiration from the organic racist nationalists of the colonial powers. However, historical precedents provide glimpses into some unexpected methods of addressing the issues of colonialism and anti-colonialism, suggesting that the interaction between these ideologies can produce complex and sometimes surprising alignments and narratives (Taguieff, Reference Taguieff1988).

And yet some examples from the past allow us to catch a glance of some unexpected ways to deal with the question of colonialism and anti-colonialism. It is clear to all that despite the Third Republic’s colonialist zeal, advocated by Alexis de Tocqueville himself, among others, France’s democratic republicans such as Georges Clemenceau and Jean Jaurès leaned on their democratic commitments to reject colonialism.

In general terms, left-wing theories opposing colonialism and advocating for respect for minorities are well established. The question, however, is why racist and exclusionist ideologues of the past also expressed anti-colonialist critiques, and what motivated their opposition. It is an apparent anomaly and mostly ignored. But national exclusionists such as Maurice Barrés, while not being anti-colonialist, still rejected the mercantilist colonialism of the Third Republic. He was skeptical of “enlightened” domination of other countries.

De Benoist (Reference De Benoist1999, 17) expands on this point and claims that while racism has often accompanied and encouraged colonialism, racist beliefs have sometimes also played the opposite role: “Gobineau vigorously denounced all forms of colonialism. … Le Bon, who believed in racial inequality, was one of the staunchest opponents of colonial expansion.” Furthermore, de Benoist also understood that Gustave Le Bon was an Arabophile. He defended the identity and independence of the Arabs and even considered an alliance between Europe and the Arabs in order to fight Judaism, which at that time was perceived as a harbinger of universal values and the Enlightenment (Spektorowski, Reference Spektorowski2023, 110–111).

What, then, of the colonized? Madagascar’s Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, thought of as Africa’s first modern poet, not only resisted French colonial rule with ferocity, but paradoxically also found political affinities with organic nationalists such as Charles Maurras. Similarly, Leopold Senghor, the outstanding African apostle of Negritude, was deeply influenced by the philosophy of Barrés. The glorification of ethnic customs and rural life by contrast with the impersonality of urban life was central to Barrés and Senghor. Senghor can be portrayed as a Global South nationalist of the capitalist periphery, and Barrés is considered a French racist organic nationalist. The innovation advanced by the New Right, however, is that both are presented on the same footing as cultural emancipators (Spektorowski, Reference Spektorowski2023). For de Benoist and the New Right, “Europe of its peoples,” which embodies an exclusionary ethnonationalist spirit, thus shares common ground with the aspirations of the old Global South in their joint struggle against liberal globalization. The next question is whether and how the New Right’s idea of a regional confederation fits Russian imperial interests, and why this is important.

3.2 From Europe des Peoples to the Euro-Asian Empire: From de Benoist to Aleksander Dugin

The links between de Benoist, Faye and other members of the New Right and the Russian Aleksandr Dugin are part of a long-standing pattern in which French right-wing nationalists find inspiration in Russia. French antiliberal nationalists used to portray Russia as the last beacon and stronghold of traditional values. For French nationalists, Russia has a mission – to oppose the decaying religions and societies of the West and regenerate Europe through its influence and example (Camus, Reference Camus and Laruelle2015, 80–81). From here, the French interest in Dugin is not strange. Dugin, a former member of the National Patriotic Front (Pamyat), the anti-Semitic organization of the Perestroika era, has dedicated his intellectual career precisely to stress nationalist cultural regeneration. The question, however, is how important his political role was and what the meaning of nationalist regeneration was.

Scholars such as Timothy Snyder are reluctant to emphasize Dugin’s influence in Russian nationalism. Vladislav Surkov, a follower of Ivan Iylin (1882–1954), the prophet of Russian fascism, is probably more influential than Dugin. He was one of the most famous figures helping to shape Russia’s master narrative as a sovereign, illiberal democracy (Snyder, Reference Snyder2018, 46–47). However, Dugin still could be considered an enclave character, a puzzling bridge between the European conservative revolution’s ideas on empire and Russian’s narrow nationalism. In more sense than one, at their core, many of Dugin’s works are an amalgamation of Traditionalist concepts, Evola’s theories, geopolitical ideas and the ideology of the German interwar “Conservative Revolution” (Shekhovtsov and Umland, Reference Shekhovtsov and Umland2009, 665).

Dugin’s intellectual career started when he joined the underground Yuzhinsky literary circle led by the mystical writer, poet and translator Evgenii Golovin. At the Yuzhinsky circle he encountered Western antiliberal thought, as well as a wide variety of trends in Russian society such as esotericism, integral traditionalism and fascist mysticism (Shekhovtsov, Reference Shekhovtsov2015, 35). As early as 1993, he founded, with Eduard Limonov, the National Bolshevik Party (NBP), in line with the ideas of the conservative revolution, especially of Ernst Niekisch who was one of its prominent members. As Andrei Rogatchevski (Reference Rogatchevski2007, 90) aptly notes, the NBP can be described as “the most left-wing among the right-wing parties and the most right-wing among the left-wing parties.” Dugin aligns closely with this perspective, which he further develops in his The Fourth Political Theory. In this work, Dugin argues that the revival of values from the old conservative revolution is a reaction to the total or partial failures of the three dominant political ideologies of recent history – liberal capitalism, communism and fascism. Dugin (Reference Dugin2009, 19) stresses that “the form which all three political theories took in the twentieth century is no longer useful, effective, or relevant. They lack the ability to explain contemporary reality or to help us understand current events, and are incapable of responding to the new global challenges.”

While it is true that Dugin seeks to transcend all dominant ideologies, he aligns more closely with fascism than with communism or capitalism (Beiner, Reference Beiner2015, 1). However, being aligned with fascism does not equate to fully endorsing fascist ideology. One could argue that, like de Benoist, Dugin espouses a critical theory of fascism. Andrea Umland, for instance, notes that Dugin draws upon the ideas of Evola, who criticized interwar fascism – especially Italian Fascism – for being too moderate and for compromising with traditional elites. Reflecting this critique, Dugin has expressed the most admiration for the Nazi-supported North Italian Social Republic of Salò (1943–1945), which he viewed as fulfilling all the criteria of a true “Third Way” (Umland, Reference Umland2007, 155; Shekhovtsov and Umland, Reference Shekhovtsov and Umland2009, 665)

According to Dugin, a revolutionary new way is becoming viable because, despite liberalism’s victories over fascism in 1945 and communism in 1991, it has now reached a dead end, mired in what he terms a “nihilistic postmodern stage.” He proposes an alternative model that seeks to redefine progress, moving away from both liberal and socialist interpretations. Dugin’s vision centers on a return to deeper existential and cultural roots, advocating a new form of geopolitical and civilizational alignment that breaks with the Western tradition of individualistic, materialist progress.

Dugin positions his philosophy as transcending the confines of liberal individualism, racism and nationalism by promoting a return to the essential nature of human self-awareness, drawing on Heidegger’s concept of Dasein. He argues that this existential reawakening offers a way out of the nihilism and materialism that he associates with modern liberalism. Through this reorientation, Dugin envisions a foundation for future political orders grounded in a profound spiritual and existential framework, one that rejects Western liberalism’s prioritization of the individual in favor of a more collective, rooted sense of being.

Dugin might initially appear as a postmodern critic of liberalism, but in The Fourth Political Theory, he argues that it is, in fact, Western liberalism that has become postmodern. His critique targets postmodern liberalism, with a particular emphasis on its alignment with globalism and the technological revolution that supports it (Dugin, Reference Dugin2009, 18). It is easy to track that Dugin echoes Heidegger, who “bitterly hated liberalism, viewing it as an expression of ‘calculative thinking,’ which underlies ‘Western nihilism’” (29).

For both Dugin and Heidegger, liberalism represents a mechanistic, rootless ethos that undermines authentic cultural identities and traditional values. In Dugin’s view, this “rootless” liberalism epitomizes the postmodern condition, manifesting in globalization, which he links to social and technological phenomena such as “transgender operations, unisexual marriage, and clone production.” He sees these developments as part of a distorted reality shaped by mass media and financial speculation, which he argues lack solid economic foundations (Dugin, Reference Dugin2015).

Dugin dismisses the centrality of the individual and embraces Friedrich Nietzsche’s critique of progress, yet diverges from Nietzsche by affirming that God remains an active force in guiding Creation. Drawing on Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Dugin argues that man should be overcome, and, inspired by Heidegger, he centers his philosophy on the concept of the “other beginning” – a focal point he considers the most significant aspect of Heidegger’s intellectual legacy. As Jeff Love and Michael Meng note, through his voluminous writings on Heidegger, The Last God, Dugin attempts to turn Heidegger’s “dismantling of the Western metaphysical tradition” into a call for renewal (Dugin Reference Dugin and Morgan.2014a). Indeed Dugin seeks to lead this fight just as Heidegger sought to lead it in the 1930s (Love and Meng, Reference Love and Meng2017, 307). The “other beginning,” as Dugin envisions it, entails breaking free from the dominance of Western thought, which he regards as depleted – especially in its manifestations as liberal democracy and the purported neoliberal technocratic consensus.

Central to Dugin’s critique of liberal materialism is Heidegger’s notion of Machenschaft – a “regime of forgetfulness” characterized by unreflective, materialist, technocratic production. Dugin repurposes this idea to underscore his view of the West as trapped in a cycle of relentless technological advance, which he believes lacks philosophical depth or spiritual grounding. For Dugin, this mechanistic process reflects the Western world’s profound detachment from existential meaning.

America stands at the epicenter of this process, though, according to Heidegger, Soviet Russia embodied similar characteristics. In Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger infamously names two nihilistic epicenters of technocratic modernity: “Russia and America, seen metaphysically, are both the same: the same hopeless frenzy of unchained technology and of the rootless organization of the average man” (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger and Poll2014, 41). However, while Russia is culturally profound and rooted to the soil (bodenstiindig), America is soulless. It is the managerial country by definition and as such it leads the world to its destruction.

Dugin fully embraces these concepts, emphasizing that the Americanization of the world reveals the West as both supremely powerful and on the verge of collapse (Dugin Reference Dugin2014b). From this, Dugin concludes that America and the West are driven solely by blind power, possessing no enduring authority beyond sheer force. However the triumph of force, and of technology as the handmaiden of force, are signs of ultimate decadence and aridity (Love and Meng, Reference Love and Meng2017). According to Dugin, Russian civilization today represents a form of salvation.

In The Fourth Political Theory, Dugin redefines freedom, contrasting it with the liberal conception rooted in individual rights and the protection of “the small man.” Instead, he champions the rights of the “great man” – a figure grounded in Heideggerian notions of Being and Time. This “great man” is envisioned as one who asserts authority and imposes order by fulfilling meaningful tasks as well as the taming of the restless and exciting horizons of the will (Dugin, Reference Dugin2012, 51–52).

Thomas Main (Reference Main2018, 222) insightfully argues that Dugin’s political vision represents an explicit application of Heidegger’s tyrannophilic inclinations, adapted to an ethnocentric framework for post-Soviet Russia. On a broader level, Dugin positions Traditionalism as a counter to liberal postmodern deconstructionism. In The Fourth Political Theory, he claims a legacy rooted in covenantal bonds and sacred space, grounded in Traditionalism. For Dugin (Reference Dugin2009, 194), “Muslims and Christians, Russians and Chinese, Hindus and Jews who challenge the present state of affairs, globalization, and American imperialism … are all virtually friends and allies.”

At this point we enter into the connecting points between Dugin’s existential stance and his geopolitics. More precisely, we deal with the connecting points between his antiliberalism and his defense of Russian Traditionalist imperialism rooted in the geopolitical concept of Eurasia. Based in Carl Schmitt, Dugin contrasts a theory of a multipolar world, which he praises, with what he (and conspiracy theorists worldwide) sees as the movement toward world government, led by disingenuous globalist elites. Finally, Dugin repeats and adapts Schmitt’s claim that maritime powers should be resisted by continental ones. This is the connecting point between The Fourth Political Theory and the geopolitical strategy advanced by the idea of Eurasia.

As Leah Feldman (Reference Feldman2023, 75) observes, Dugin frames neo-Eurasianism as a novel political epistemology designed for a post-Soviet, antiglobalist era. Andreas Umland (Reference Umland2007, 145) adds that the term “neo-Eurasianism” bears resemblance to the post-1968 European New Right, which introduced the notion of “ethnopluralism” – a euphemism that conceals a neoracist ideology. This comparison reveals a key similarity between the two movements: Both use the language of cultural diversity to mask exclusionary and hierarchical views of identity, positioning themselves as defenders of multiple identities while advancing discriminatory and segregationist political goals.

However, it should be emphasized that while Dugin developed his idea of Eurasia through a wide range of intellectual and cultural influences, including aesthetic explorations of the occult (such as psychedelic mysticism), Western critical theory and neo-avant-garde performance art (Fenghi, Reference Fenghi2020), his primary concern was Russia’s cultural decline following the collapse of communism. He was deeply immersed in the 1920s intellectual debate between Westernizers and Slavophiles. The former believed that Russia was backward and that a revolution was needed to push Russia into a singular future. The latter believed that progress was pure illusion and Russia was endowed with a particular genius since the conversion of Kyiv to Christianity (Snyder, Reference Snyder2018, 84). The idea of Eurasia synthesized both trends. Eurasia was not just as a geopolitical framework but an essential cultural asset for Russia’s revival. It provided a civilizational alternative to Western liberalism and globalism, positioning Russia as a counterbalance to the perceived moral and spiritual decay of the West.

The most significant influences shaping Dugin’s conclusions on Eurasia came from linguist Nikolai Trubetzkoy, likely the first to develop the concept, as well as from geographer Lev Gumilev. Trubetzkoy’s ideas on cultural diversity and his critiques of Western-centric universalism provided a foundation for Dugin’s Eurasian vision, while Gumilev’s theories on ethnogenesis and the unique characteristics of Eurasian civilizations added depth to Dugin’s geopolitical and cultural framework.

Trubetzkoy envisioned a Eurasian polity formed through the cultural synergy of Turkic, Slavic, Mongol and other Asian-origin peoples, united against Western colonialism and Eurocentrism. Scholars like Vera Tolz and Susan Layton highlight significant parallels between Russian authors’ and ethnographers’ portrayals of Russian identity and Edward Said’s postcolonial perspective. They suggest that certain Russian narratives, akin to Said’s critiques, strive to reclaim cultural autonomy from Western-dominated frameworks of identity and historical interpretation (Tolz, Reference Tolz2008). Indeed Russia’s marginality from Europe implied that “a Russian could not believe in the alterity of the Orient as readily and invariably as a European might” (Layton, Reference Layton1994, 75).

Russia’s engagement in the Caucasus exemplifies how Russian identity has historically been interwoven with the diverse perspectives of its Muslim communities. As Feldman (Reference Feldman2012, 162) points out, the contributions of Muslim intellectuals from regions like Crimea, the Volga, the North Caucasus, Azerbaijan and Central Asia have been vital in shaping discussions around Russian history and national identity. Dugin in particular sees these Muslim regions as integral to a cohesive Russian imperial identity. Rather than perceiving them as mere peripheries, he considers these areas essential to the cultural and geopolitical strength of the empire, reinforcing his vision of Russia as a multiethnic, civilizational force.

The second prominent intellectual influencing Dugin was Lev Gumilev, who spent thirteen years in Soviet prisons and forced labor camps and sparked the Eurasian revival in the 1980s with his theory of ethnogenesis, which puts all the blame for the failures of Russia on the West and the Jews. According to this concept, an ethnic group could, under the influence of a charismatic leader, develop into a “super-ethnos” (Burbank, Reference Burbank2022). Drawing on both Trubezkoy and Gumilev, Dugin develops his primary theoretical concern, which is the idea that each country “has its own structure that defines the elements of which it consists, and which gives them meaning and coherence” (Dugin, Reference Dugin2014, 6).

Dugin’s Eurasianism is in the first place a program for government of the Eurasian Great Space centered on Moscow. At the international politics level, thus, Eurasianism holds that the world divides organically into four or five ethnocultural spheres, or “Great Spaces,” each of which ought to be run according to its own values, or “particular and incommensurable horizon of being,” by a powerful central administration (Hull, Reference Hull2022, 132). Although as noted, Dugin is not the first and not even the most important scholar on geopolitics, his book Basic Principles of Geopolitics has helped transform the science of geopolitics in Russia from a discipline of fascist concern during communist times to its acceptance as a formal and recognized science (Mathyl, Reference Mathyl, Griffin and Feldman2004, 188). Geopolitics is thus a science of ruling, a secularized product of sacral geography (Dugin, Reference Dugin1999, 2017, 14; Parland, Reference Parland2005, 120).

Dugin envisions a world dominated by regional superpowers, with Russia positioned to exert influence over the territory of the former Soviet Union. Although he dismisses “communist ideology,” he does not reject the “Soviet experience.” In Dugin’s view, the Soviet era positively expanded Russian power in the twentieth century and, crucially, its collectivist structure shielded Russia from what he perceives as the Western ailment of individualism. This collectivism preserved the rural, semifeudal character of the Eurasian people, a cultural essence he values deeply. Thus, behind Stalin, Dugin sees the shadow of Ivan the Terrible, symbolizing a return to traditional authoritarian roots (Laurelle, Reference Laurelle2008, 142).

Dugin holds that the Soviet Union never conquered independent states such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan or Azerbaijan, since the latter were only administrative units. Moreover, Russia’s takeover of the Crimea was a logical outcome of this thought.

However, even more than a geopolitical instrument, Eurasianism is a doctrine that proposes that every ethnos has its own tradition. It views the ethnos in the plural, without trying to establish any kind of a hierarchical system. In that sense, it is clear that Dugin’s regional imperialism differs from liberal world imperialism.

As Tamir Bar-On correctly remarks, “If we think of imperialist anti-imperialism as a category, imperialist positions become a mechanism used to consolidate a supposedly anti-imperialist international project” (Bar-On and Paradela Lopez, Reference Bar-On and Paradela-López2023, 111). That is exacty what Dugin had in mind. Eurosianism is the key concept for an international “anti imperialist imperialist” enterprise. “Eurasianism, in itself, is gnoseological plurality. The unitary episteme of modernity – including science, politics, culture and anthropology – is opposed by the multiplicity of epistemes, built on the foundations of each existing civilisation – the Eurasianist episteme for Russian civilisation, the Chinese for the Chinese, the Islamic for Islam, the Indian for the Indian, and so on” (Dugin Reference Dugin2012, 99).

Dugin’s ethnorelativism, however, is not restricted to moral and political values, but applies to concepts, theories and methods in general. He indeed is totally critical of the Western universal truth (Hull, Reference Hull2022, 138). The liberal mind talks of truth and fake truth. For Dugin, instead there is a Russian truth and an American truth and both enjoy the same value. For Dugin (Reference Dugin and Morgan.2014a, 6), this spirit of civilizationary differentiation thus should be applied to the fields of history, geopolitics, sociology, international relations, cultural studies, political science and so on. In any of these fields, the uniqueness of Russian civilization in comparison with all others, Western as well as Eastern, should be affirmed and defended.

In sum, more than a matter of geography, the concept of Eurasia for Dugin represents a philosophical approach. Eurasia represents geopolitics against globalization. While the latter represents the axis of cooperation of Europe, the United States and Canada, all of them positing the value of individuality and the market economy, Eurasia stands for the conservative philosophy of land-locked continentalism, namely the values of hierarchical structure, law, order and tradition.

It is of no doubt that there is a radical difference between Dugin’s Traditionalism and de Benoist’s. However, de Benoist and the New Right praise Dugin, because “unlike mainstream nationalists and the Slavophiles, [he] looks at the Soviet legacy as the continuation of the imperial idea in another form” (Camus, Reference Camus and Laruelle2015, 86).

As de Benoist remarks, Dugin’s idea of empire as opposed to the Western idea of nation-states has prompted him to stress that empire is always a multicultural space (Versluis, Reference Versluis2014, 85.) De Benoist thus applauds Dugin’s culturalism and the principle of identity, which applies to all peoples alike. For Dugin, traditional Islam is threatened not only by liberalism, but also by the spread of “Wahhabism,” which is paired with American global liberalism in preaching universal principles. It is the Sunni Muslim world that has sold out to “Atlanticist” powers. Muslim fundamentalism was indeed financed by the West in its fight against the Soviet Union (Laurelle Reference Laurelle2007)/ As against Wahhabism on the one hand and liberal colonialism on the other, Dugin proposes an association of traditional Islam and Eurasia, namely a possible “strategic Russo-Muslim partnership,” especially with Shiite Iran.

Dugin strongly asserts that religion is fundamentally “social, public, and even political” (Feldman, Reference Feldman2023, 83). Building on this view, he calls for a “popular front of traditional people [front commun des gens traditionnels],” uniting members of “religious societies,” especially Muslims and Christians. This perspective informs his engagement with political Islam, as seen in his commentary on the Gaza conflict and his broader reflections on the emerging global order. In an article published at the Russian state-owned domestic news agency RIA Novosti, where Dugin discusses the ongoing war in Gaza, he claims that the Palestinian–Israeli conflict has “directly affected” all Muslims of the world, and this is the moment to build a new Islamic “pole” that could counter, along with other such “poles” – Russia and China – the unipolar world order led by the United States. After all, this is a struggle between the multipolar world and the unipolar world (Dugin, Reference Dugin2023).

He continues by being more specific on Israel and the Palestinians, and on a new world order that he expects will come even at the cost of a world war.

Furthermore, in the past few years, the degree of adoption of left-wing postcolonial perspectives is clearer than ever. Dugin also uses the language of “colonization” and “decolonization”; he also makes more frequent appeals to justice in the epistemic domain, arguing now for a “redistribution of the system of values” to “recognize the full-scale dignity of non-Western political thought” (Dugin, Reference Dugin2021, 73–74).

However, it remains to be seen whether representatives of classical national conservatism such as Putin or the French radical Right will endorse the philosophical strategy of Dugin. Indeed, several members of the French radical Right, including some associates of de Benoist, are critical of both Dugin’s and de Benoist’s approaches.

Gillaume Faye and Pierre Vial, for example, who make up the Bloc identitaire, think that Eurasia is not what Western Europe needs. This is precisely because Eurasia includes Muslims, who, according to Faye, have no right whatsoever to a say in the future of Europe. In the same vein, Faye (Reference Faye2010, 36) has criticized de Benoist’s “ethnocultural relativism” because it implies a masochistic type of cultural equality. As Faye (Reference Faye2016, 104) deridingly remarked, “it seems that for de Benoist the right of alien nations … in Europe … is as important as that of the peoples of Europe.” It is certainly Faye, and not de Benoist, who came to see Muslim immigration and Islam as the threat (Sedgwick, 2019, xviii). As against Eurasia, Faye and the identitaires propose the idea of Euro-Siberia, a white Europe that would include only the portion of Russia inhabited primarily by white people. For the Bloc identitaire, the main political goal is first and foremost to fight the Islamization of Europe.

It is not strange thus that, differently from Dugin, right-wing populist parties in Europe have shown support for Israel. Marine Le Pen even participated in the “hundred thousand march” against anti-Semitism that took place in Paris. For Marine Le Pen, the march constituted an opportunity to transfer the anti-Semitic label from her party to leftists and Muslim immigrants composing the pro-Palestinian camp. Geert Wilders in the Netherlands not only wants to ban Islamic schools, the Qur’an and mosques so as to halt the Islamization of the country, but his support for Israel is almost unconditional (Spektorowski, Reference Spektorowski2024, 16). Furthermore, from a different perspective, the question is whether Putin’s Russian nationalism fits Dugin’s imperial ideas, whether as posited by Foreign Affairs, Dugin represents Putin’s brain or, on the contrary, he is far from Putin’s old-style nationalism (Barbashin and Thoburn, Reference Barbashin and Thoburn2014).

As early as 2013, Putin – very much in line with Dugin – declared that Eurasia was a major geopolitical zone expressing Russia’s genetic code and needed to be defended from Western liberalism (Valdai, 2013). Putin has also brought most of the former Soviet republics into the Eurasian Economic Union. Under the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Russia keeps military bases in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. Russian military bases can be seen in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, secessionist regions of Georgia. Like Dugin, Putin has drawn on a sense of ancient tradition, which leads him to invoke the role of Kyiv (“the mother of Russian cities”) in the founding of the Russian nation in the ninth century (Berman, Reference Berman2022). For Dugin, Russian cultural renaissance is integrally related to military intervention in eastern Ukraine, which he regularly calls Novorossiya (New Russia), a concept fully adopted by Putin. At the end of the 1990s Dugin was already saying that Ukrainian sovereignty presented a “huge danger to all of Eurasia.” Total military and political control of the whole north coast of the Black Sea was an “absolute imperative” of Russian geopolitics (Burbank, Reference Burbank2022). Finally the connecting points between geopolitics and philosophy become clear. “In essence the explicit purpose of Russia’s war in Ukraine is the destruction of the West as a universalist project. According to Dugin, ‘the West have abandoned traditional European culture … and only Russia represents civilization” (Millerman, Reference Millerman2015).

It is not surprising that on a global scale, Dugin also expressed ambivalences toward Donald Trump. He even suggested that with Trump as the American president, the old Russian anti-Americanism was over. Despite being a billionaire, Trump embodies the “real” America, a heroic insurgency against the “globalist” beltway elites (Sharpe, Reference Sharpe2017). Dugin envisions a new global architecture shaped by figures like Trump and Putin, yet he maintains a degree of caution regarding Trump. He questions Trump’s commitment to a multipolar world order, expressing concern that, despite Trump’s apparent alignment with Putin on Ukraine, he may unconditionally support Israel’s actions against Palestinians. Dugin asks, “What role does Donald Trump’s position play in this growing confrontation between the West and Islam?” He observes that while Trump is a “classic nationalist” primarily focused on American state interests rather than global domination, he is also, in Dugin’s view, heavily influenced by the Zionist lobby within the United States. Consequently, Dugin suggests, “Trump will pursue a rather tough policy towards Muslims and especially Palestinians – perhaps even tougher than Biden” (Dugin, Reference Dugin2023).

Dugin’s stance on Putin reveals a nuanced understanding: While he acknowledges that Putin does not aim to export Russia’s authoritarian model to other nations, Dugin asserts that Russia faces an existential choice – to establish its own unique civilization or risk dissolution (Wright, Reference Wright2022). Dugin’s perspective finds alignment with de Benoist, who views the Ukraine crisis as evidence of a deeper ideological clash – one between advocates for a multipolar world and defenders of liberal capitalism as the global status quo (Tillet, Reference Tillet2017).

Together, Dugin’s intellectual framework and Putin’s political approach aim to reframe the conservative revolution, suggesting it is not simply a matter of authoritarianism versus democracy. Instead, they strive to validate alternative models of democracy, emphasizing a pluralism of values and governance structures distinct from Western liberalism. This approach positions the conservative revolution as a force that seeks to legitimize varied interpretations of democratic governance while opposing what they perceive as a universalizing, hegemonic liberal ideology.

The political implications of Dugin and de Benoist’s intellectual efforts soon materialized, notably through China and Russia’s response to President Biden’s call for a virtual Summit for Democracy, which did not include China and Russia. In a joint statement, China depicted itself as a “high-functioning form of democracy,” while Russia framed itself as a “democratic federative law-governed state,” positioning both as alternatives to the perceived dysfunctions of the US system (Xinhuanet, 2021). This narrative serves a distinct purpose: to challenge the Western monopoly on defining democracy. For both powers, it is an assertion that democracy is not a uniform model dictated by Western ideals but a flexible concept adaptable to cultural and historical specificities. The West missionary role exporting universal values is rejected. This trait, according to Mr. Xi, is particularly alien to Asia, a continent that respects diversity and a “true multilateralism” guided by the UN Charter. A “shared future” is another way of saying “development first” – that is, rejecting any order guided by shared, universal values (Rennie, Reference Rennie2022).

The question of Dugin’s alignment with the European New Right raises complex issues. While Dugin welcomes de Benoist’s support, he is quick to underscore fundamental differences that go beyond stylistic nuances. He argues that, unlike their European counterparts, Russians are prepared for war. As Dugin puts it, “If the European New Right chooses us [Russians], that means it chooses the barbarian element, and therefore it must choose our methods of (violent) action” (Clowes, Reference Clowes2011, 43).

This assertion highlights a critical divergence: Where the New Right in Europe might focus on cultural and intellectual opposition, Dugin emphasizes the necessity of direct, often violent action to revive and protect civilization. Dugin’s call to action is deeply linked to his radical interpretation of Heidegger, suggesting that it is Russia – not Germany – that is destined to revive and restore Western tradition (Love and Meng, Reference Love and Meng2017, 307). He envisions this mission as one that may require violent means, a stance underscored by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which, in his view, exemplifies the struggle to assert a Russian-led, tradition-based world order against Western liberal hegemony.

3.3 Bannon: Political Incorrectness and Traditionalism as Resistance to Liberal Hegemonic Discourse

Steve Bannon did not emerge in isolation. While he may not be placed within the same intellectual lineage as de Benoist and Dugin, his significance as a disseminator of ideas and his fusion of ideological synthesis with a combative person cannot be overlooked. Though no longer part of Trump’s inner circle, his early contributions to the Trump phenomenon remain undeniable.

Bannon is Irish Catholic, hailing from a blue-collar background, and studied at Virginia Tech. He has experience working at Goldman Sachs and attempted a career in Hollywood, albeit unsuccessfully. It could be argued that his disdain for the image of the globalized world stems from his own inability to penetrate it. However, he still did very well as a political entrepreneur and consultant. As both chairman for Trump’s campaign and onetime chief strategist for his White House, Bannon cultivated a reputation for a kind of vulgar brilliance – the erudition of an intellectual matched with the instincts of, in his words, a “street fighter.” For some journalists, he is simply a provocateur, skilled at manipulating and exploiting prejudice – hence his success with Breitbart (Bouie, Reference Bouie2017)

According to Jeffrey Alexander (Reference Alexander2017), the adult Bannon is indeed a person dominated by the sense of constant war. “Every day, we put up: America is at war, We’re at war.” This furious fighting-from-behind mentality certainly makes of Bannon an ideological leader of the contemporary American right. The reason for the war mentality is the conviction that, now more than ever, American liberalism is unstoppable. The social, cultural and sexual revolution is in full progress, and despite achieving political power, conservatives could not stop the march of progress expressed in the “the steady march of social incorporation, from industrial workers in the 1930s and Jews in the 1950s, to blacks, and the wide variety of ethnic communities, and non-conforming sexualities in the long 20th century” (Alexander, Reference Alexander2017).

Adding to this is a growing sense of frustration on the international stage, where conservatives see a steady decline in American global influence, especially in light of China’s rapid ascent. Coupled with the forces of globalization and the transformation of the United States into a postindustrial economy that increasingly prioritizes education over unskilled labor, conservatives find themselves confronted by what seems like the perfect storm.

This provided an ideal platform for a debate among conservative ideologues and intellectuals concerning the future role of conservative thought and politics in the United States. One of the most intriguing debates among conservatives occurred between followers of Leo Strauss on the West Coast and their East Coast counterparts. This debate transcended the traditional divide between liberals and Republicans and has indirectly influenced Bannon’s ideological evolution.

It is a noteworthy confrontation, particularly when we consider that Strauss, who became a significant ideological influencer in the conservative camp, was not a political man. He had dedicated much of his life to a careful analysis of classical works, ranging from Plato to Maimonides, Machiavelli and Hobbes. However, drawing precisely on the ideas of Strauss, these two competing intellectual factions – one led by Harry Jaffa and the other by Allan Bloom – debated the foundational philosophical influences of America. Jaffa, the leader of the West Coast Straussians, argued that America is rooted in ancient philosophy, while Bloom, the leader of the East Coast Straussians, contended that its foundations lie in the works of early modern philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.

In political terms, the question focused on whether America’s survival depends on the virtue of the people, as West Coast Straussians believe, or on the maintenance of constitutional norms, as East Coast Straussians believe (Heer, Reference Heer2016). The intellectual divide also significantly relates to the United States’ role in global politics. Neoconservative figures of the East Coast such as Nicholas Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz believe in the mission of America as a beacon of democracy for the world. They categorically reject Trump’s leadership style for America. Kristol’s publication, The Weekly Standard, for example, serves as a prominent platform for opposing Trump’s populist approach.

West Coast Straussians sharply diverge from that perspective. Intellectuals such as Charles Kesler and Angelo Codevilla view the current era as one filled with revolutionary potential. They see Trump as a pivotal figure capable of instigating significant regime change. Kesler, who is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and the editor of the Claremont Review of Books, was clear in stressing that America nowadays may be facing “the Weimar problem.” For him, the liberal elites have deteriorated American national culture. They have destroyed the virtues necessary to sustain republican government. If you live in the Weimar Republic, Kesler implicitly argues, a figure like Trump could come as a relief (Heer, Reference Heer2016).

Codevilla, a retired professor of international relations, follows this line of thought. America, for Codevilla, has already suffered a revolutionary regimental change. It is precisely the American elite who destroyed what was great about the country. The logical conclusion is that America is in need of a counterrevolution.

Serious publications like The American Mind of the Claremont Institute, First Things and The American have actively expressed and elaborated upon these ideas. The Claremont Institute, for example, promotes a continuation of the political liberalism that the US Constitution embodies. In contrast, national conservatives and Integralists aim to establish a pan-Christian confessional state, seeking to prohibit abortion, gay marriage and similar practices.

This perspective has found political expression in the Heritage Foundation, which since 2022 has emerged as a pivotal think tank for national conservatism. Drawing inspiration from Viktor Orbán’s brand of Christian nationalism in Hungary, the Heritage Foundation has focused its efforts on dismantling what it perceives as the American deep state. Significantly, since 2023, it has forged a cooperative relationship with Hungary’s state-funded Danube Institute Project, further solidifying its commitment to these ideological pursuits.

There is no doubt that the American alt-right and Bannon himself have gravitated toward the Heritage Foundation. Indeed, Bannon has championed Project 2025, organized by the Heritage Foundation, which aims to map out specific strategies for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents. Furthermore, the Christian nationalism promoted by the Heritage Foundation has fueled the alt-right’s belief that America should be a purely Anglo-Saxon country.

Indeed, the main foe of the alt-right appears to be the American Constitution. “American constitutionalism and exceptionalism won’t rescue European Americans from multiculturalism and finally from replacement” (Morgan, Reference Morgan2017). Here, the bankruptcy of American exceptionalism based on free markets is the point to stress. The terminus of this line of thinking was explicitly stated by Jared Taylor, the editor of American Renaissance, in his “Open Letter to Cuckservastives” (a contemptuous term for old-style American conservatives). Accusing these conservatives of defending “principles,” Taylor demands a shift. Things “that you love about America … are not rooted in principles, but … are rooted in certain people, namely white people” (Taylor, Reference Taylor2015).

The extent to which the American alt-right draws inspiration from the French New Right’s strategic use of intellectual discourse and media to influence cultural and political narratives is a significant question. There is no doubt that the alt-right’s famous phrase “You [Jews, Muslims, Latinos] will not replace us” has its origins in the writing of the popular Renaud Camus (Williams, Reference Williams2017). Moreover, de Benoist’s Manifesto for a European Renaissance was an important text shaping the political views for members of the alt-right such as Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor, as well as Steve Bannon, with whom de Benoist maintains contact. As John Morgan writes, one of the common features of the alt-right and the New Right is that both considered that the Nazi and fascist past experiences are not relevant for current times. Those “who want to refight the Second World War are soundly rejected by both [alt-right and New Right]” (Morgan, Reference Morgan2017). Yet, while both the alt-right and the New Right might reject the label of “fascism,” both actively fight against the theoretical hegemony of liberalism. As Milo Yiannopoulos puts it: “A specter is haunting the dinner parties, fundraisers and think-tanks of the Establishment: the specter of the ‘alternative right’ that is here to stay as political contenders in most Western democracies” (Yiannopoulos and Bokhari, Reference Yiannopoulos and Bokhari2016).

Despite commonalities, however, de Benoist’s perspective notably diverges from the American alt-right regarding the issue of race. De Benoist frames his struggle as a defense of “all identities in the world” against the forces of global homogenization, which he sees as eroding distinct cultural and national identities. In stark contrast, the American alt-right places a significant emphasis on white identity, viewing the preservation of the white race as central to its ideological battles.

Thomas Main concludes, “the alt-right is a form of radical Gnosticism as fundamental in its rejection of the American democratic tradition as the Communist Party line of the 1930s” (Main, Reference Main2018, 7). But while communists aspired to overcome that tradition-first set of values with economic and political revolution, Taylor envisions a racist response.

Still the open question is to what extent is Bannon entrenched in this political current, and to what extent is his endorsement tactical? It is clear to most members of the alt-right, such as Richard Spencer, that Bannon is not necessarily one of them, but a fellow traveler contributing to the cause. Both Bannon and the alt-right have the same enemy, the liberal pro-multicultural elites of Washington, and both are clearly critical of the global economic elites. However, for some scholars, they differ on the identity question. Bannon is a civic rather than an ethnic nationalist (Main, Reference Main2018, 213). Still, his civism is accompanied and filtered by a deep antiliberalism and by a great respect for ethnonational traditionalism. Moreover, Bannon most of all was affiliated with the Traditionalist movement and is considered an admirer of Evola’s political thought (Teitelbaum, Reference Teitelbaum2020).

He was introduced to Evola’s thought by William Strauss and Neil Howe’s The Fourth Turning, which depicts history in cycles of cataclysmic and order-obliterating change. Critics of Bannon point out that Evola was a pagan and Bannon a Catholic, defending the obscure idea of Judeo-Christian values against Islam. However, Evola’s followers were both pagan and religious, substantiating Evola’s claim that the forces of history are led by two factions: “history’s demolition squad,” enslaved by blind faith in the future, and those whose “watchword is Tradition” (Evola, Reference Evola2002, 129). It is difficult not to see Bannon’s apocalyptical view of politics in the Western world other than through Evola’s lens. That is why most of the American alt-right ideologues consider Bannon the gate through which Evola’s ideas of a hierarchical society, run by a spiritually superior caste, can be recovered during a period of crisis (Beiner, Reference Beiner2018, 11).

Bannon himself believes that Trump is the unconscious instrument of this necessary clash with what remains of the Enlightenment. Bannon indeed sees in Trump’s leadership the continuation of the populist spirit, which with or without Trump should lead to institutional transformation, namely to an end of liberal institutions.

Bannon emphasizes the differences between Trump of 2016 and Trump of the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2023, shortly before the first of his indictments. In 2016, Trump told his constituency, “I am your voice.” In 2023, he said, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been betrayed, I am your retribution” (Homans, Reference Homans2024).

Bannon is delighted about this revanchist state of mind, which aligns with his emphasis on the potency and allure of political incorrectness, while reveling in the utilization of Carl Schmitt’s formula of “us against them.” In 2013, when Bannon was turning Breitbart into the far Right’s dominant media outlet, he presented himself first and foremost as a Leninist of the Right, a supporter of economic nationalism. He attempted to challenge the most conservative members of the Republican Party and American society with a direct and shockingly non-politically correct approach. It did not stop there, however. As the keynote speaker before an audience of the French National Front, Bannon exposed a central cultural tenet of fascism: “Let them call you racists, let them call you xenophobes … Let them call you nativists. Wear it as a badge of honor” (Smith, Reference Smith2020, 65). By employing racist rhetoric and economic nationalist arguments, he aimed to evoke antiestablishment sentiments.

Bannon understands that politics is a fight between clearly bounded identity groups. As Shery Berman (Reference Berman2018) remarked, appeals and threats to group identity will benefit Republicans more than Democrats. That is the reason Bannon stresses that he couldn’t “get enough” of the Left’s “race–identity politics.” “The longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em … I want them to talk about race and identity … every day.”

In short, as a political strategist, Bannon recognizes the power of challenging political correctness and engaging in what he sees as culture wars to fuel populist movements. Furthermore, Bannon understands that the Left has inadvertently provided conservatives with new weapons to pursue their censoriousness.

To be precise, the use of identity politics in American politics is not a recent phenomenon. Its roots can be traced back to earlier periods, including its utilization by the Democratic Party during the Civil War era in 1864, as well as its manifestation in the insurgent campaigns of Strom Thurmond and George Wallace during the 1960s. However, the impact of identity politics in contemporary times is notably amplified by “the grotesque online culture wars [that] fuel populism” (Nagel, Reference Nagel2018, 15).

In 2016, the resurgence of identity politics took on a more crude and reactionary form, emerging as a countercultural response to the prevailing ideological landscape dominated by left-leaning social interpretations of diversity and assertions of cultural rights for minorities. This resurgence occurred amidst a growing backlash against globalization and immigration. The prevailing narrative posits that globalization and immigration are championed by an alliance of rational liberal economists and multiculturalist social liberals. Central to this narrative is the notion of a repressed white identity, which is portrayed as being invaded and marginalized by the forces of globalization, fueling sentiments of resentment and disillusionment among certain segments of the population.

Up to this point, Bannon aligns closely with the perspectives of figures like de Benoist. However, a point of departure arises about the role of violence and political incorrectness and regarding which identities should lead the charge of rebellion. While de Benoist tries to clean up fascism of its violent connotations, or to “[make] white supremacy respectable again,” Bannon goes the opposite way.

By any normative understanding, “racist,” “xenophobe” and “nativist” are negative words from both a moral and rational point of view. Bannon, however, understands the moment, urges followers to drop the façade and recommends the promotion of irrational moves as virtuous. In this point he is clearly closer to Dugin’s approach.

However, while both Dugin and Bannon advocate for a more assertive defense of traditional values and national sovereignty, their views on Islam diverge significantly. Dugin sees potential common ground with certain elements within Islam in the broader struggle against liberalism, whereas Bannon views Islam as a fundamental threat to Western civilization. Bannon claims that the Judeo-Christian West (meaning the antithesis of Islam) is at the early stages of a global war against Islamic fascism, and the West has to organize against it as against liberal globalization.

As can be discerned, for Bannon, both resistance efforts against Islamic and liberal globalization require an international perspective. Endowed with organizational acumen, Bannon has dedicated significant efforts to rallying the “International” of the populist right. He envisions the realization of a dream: the formation of a global antiglobalist alliance (The Economist, 2024, 17).

Always inspired by Traditionalism, Bannon and a small group of right-wing power brokers have been planning political mobilizations on a global scale. In secret meetings organized in hotel suites and private apartments in Washington, DC, Europe and South America, they conspire to revolutionize the world order and reorganize geopolitics on the basis of archaic values rather than modern ideals of democracy (Teitelbaum, Reference Teitelbaum2020).

He envisions that populist forces share a common view of how nonliberal international institutions should look. One of the institutions that should be dismantled and changed is the European Union, which he views as emblematic of globalization. He demands European populist leaders abandon it.

However, Bannon faces a partial disappointment from his right-wing allies. His efforts to dismantle the European Union have faced silent resistance from his right-wing allies such as Viktor Orbán or Giorgia Meloni. Despite their shared aspirations to reform the European Union into a more closed, nationalistic and less liberal entity, they hardly strive to abandon it. This setback does not deter Bannon from continuing his conspiratorial enterprise. Following that line of thought, he reflects the new-old tendencies of the American political right: the embrace of autocrats rather than the defense of democracy.

If in the past, American conservatives rejected Russia’s undemocratic regime, they nowadays see Russia as the bulwark of conservatism – a mirror for the right-wing worldview. Richard Spencer, for example, has referred to Russia as “the sole white power in the world.” Bannon adds something that is especially shocking to liberal ears: “We did not serve in the Marine Corps to go and fight Vladimir Putin because he didn’t believe in transgender rights.” He hailed Mr. Putin as “anti-woke” just hours before Russia’s assault on Ukraine, and he clearly let him know which side of the cultural war in America he is on (Tamkin, Reference Tamkin2022).

The American political Right now expects what Dugin and de Benoist had already forecasted. If postwar Europe created political systems that varied from country to country but were still “built everywhere on principles of law, human rights and personal freedom,” the new conservative revolution has established the internationalization of illiberalism, where the national rights of Western identities are portrayed as the new-old resistance to global “human rights” cultural colonialism.

This is not a return to a preferable form of liberalism as advocated by certain conservatives. Instead, it signifies a “postliberal order” that repudiates liberal values such as religious liberty and pluralism and notably relinquishes a defensive stance (Deneen, Reference Deneen2021).

Still the question is whether there are differences between the European and the American New Right. Scholars such as Mihai Varga and Aron Buzogány distinguish between the European New Right, which is anti-American, and the American and Eastern European New Right, which advocates conservative nationalism (Varga and Buzogány, Reference Varga and Buzogány2021, 5–6). In truth, however, the French New Right does not inherently espouse anti-American or anti-Eastern European sentiments. Instead, it portrays entities such as Trump’s America, Putin’s Russia and the broader national conservative movements in Eastern Europe as complementary figures in the fight against globalization.

However, as noted, Bannon’s emphasis on religion as salvation, contrasting with secularism as the root of societal decay, slightly defies the pagan criteria of the French New Right. When Bannon speaks of defending Western civilization, he predominantly refers to the defense of Christian civilization. In some instances, he incorporates the concept of Judeo-Christian civilization, despite the fact that Jews may not always be considered part of the national mainstream in certain contexts.

Finally, while this criteria would not be accepted by de Benoist and Dugin, what puts Bannon close to Dugin is his spirit of conflict and total war and the conviction that we are in a time of decisions. Indeed, both Bannon and Dugin harbor a conviction that we are currently in war times, signaling a belief in the urgency and gravity of the present moment. In a manner reminiscent of Dugin, Bannon presents in his 2010 documentary Generation Zero his interpretation of how history unfolds. According to Bannon, the first phase is the Unraveling, during which the traditional work ethic is replaced by a culture centered around money. This period marks the elevation of the self to a godlike status. Generation Zero presents a stark assessment of the current crisis, suggesting that it will ultimately determine the success or failure of the American experiment. Bannon concludes that it is imperative for the Right to emerge victorious in order to establish a new foundational moment for America.

Similar to the West Coast Straussians, he warns that if the Left prevails, the American dream will be lost. The documentary is revolutionary in its call to action, suggesting that the unfolding of the new world requires a violent and apocalyptic confrontation as a first step. Bannon is indeed a conservative revolutionary who synthesizes motives from both the Left and Right. It is noteworthy that he praised the American Weathermen, militant Maoists who sought to instigate the violent overthrow of capitalism in the 1960s (Alexander, Reference Alexander2017).

Finally, as noted, despite that both Bannon and Dugin understand that we are arriving at a time of definitions and that means violence, the differences between the two are indeed stark, particularly in their respective views on the composition of the coalition of resistance against liberalism and left-wing progressives.

Despite sharing with Dugin Traditionalist values, Bannon does not include Islam in his alliance of resistance to liberalism. These divergences underscore the complexities within the New Right. In short, while they all oppose progressive liberalism, they diverge significantly, particularly in defining who comprises the spiritual “anti-materialist bloc” and who should be excluded despite its antiliberalism. It is of no doubt that from his War Room podcast he will continue to promote a permanent right-wing conservative revolution, which has already left a lasting imprint on Trump’s discourse and resonates more than ever nowadays within populist right-wing movements globally.

Paradoxically, the next great struggle Bannon will face is likely to unfold within the MAGA movement itself. Trump’s alliance with a high-tech aristocracy – including figures like Elon Musk, podcaster David Sacks and crypto exchange founder Tyler Winklevoss – marks one of the most unexpected alliances in American political history. In this dynamic, the tech industry emerges as an alternative power center challenging the traditional Republican establishment.

Despite sharing nationalist and reactionary views with Bannon, these figures have become the target of his self-declared war on what he calls technological feudalism. As Bannon argues, “We haven’t created anything on the technology side like the airplane or the internal combustion engine or the steam engine or anything big. It’s all been algorithms” (Pogue, Reference Pogge2025). This internal MAGA conflict will likely shape future ideological battles between reactionary populists who embrace global technocratic innovations and those who remain committed to Traditionalist frameworks.

3.4 Latin America: The Brazilian New Right? Olavo de Carvalho

Probably the name of Olavo de Carvalho would not have been heard at a global level if not for what observers claimed to be his philosophical and clear political influences on the right-wing populist president Jair Bolsonaro. When on October 28, 2018, Bolsonaro held his first live stream after his electoral victory, among the four books he had in his desk was Carvalho’s bestseller of 2013, The Minimum You Need to Know Not to Be an Idiot.

Carvalho was already known by that time in Brazil as a conflictive self-made Brazilian intellectual, with no rich academic background, but who became popular because of the aforementioned bestseller and the previous O Imbecil Coletivo (The Collective Imbecile) (1996), which has already reached its eighth edition.

With a background of journalism in the 1970s, Carvalho started in the 1980s writing books on cultural criticism and political philosophy such as Aristóteles em Nova Perspectiva (Aristotle in New Perspective), Machiavelo, A Confusão Demoníaca (Machiavelli, or The Demonic Confusion) and others. At the same time, Carvalho embarked on teaching independent, nonacademic courses centered on topics that reflected his personal interests throughout his life, including comparative religions, political gnosticism, revolutionary mentality, astrological symbolism and traditional metaphysics. Undoubtedly, these subjects diverged significantly from the focus of the academic intellectual landscape in Brazilian universities. Moreover, Carvalho’s emergence as a prominent right-wing esoteric philosopher posed a challenge for the Brazilian academic community. His prominence evoked memories of the significant influence wielded by Catholic Integralists in Brazilian politics during the 1930s and 1940s, a legacy that some found difficult to reconcile with the contemporary intellectual milieu.

At the methodological level, what was also striking was Carvalho’s success in establishing a confrontational, semitotalitarian discourse in the public sphere. As George Wink claims, much more than an intellectual method, Carvalho has created a system that efficiently shields his ideology and makes his arguments irrefutable (Wink, Reference Wink2021, 197).

His more direct aim was the delegitimization of the left-wing establishment within intellectual circles, especially by denouncing what he saw as a communist cultural revolution dominating Brazil. For Carvalho, the egalitarian Marxist cultural project, for example, survived the death of political communism. It manifested itself in modern expressions such as the São Paulo Forum, which he characterizes as a criminal organization. Essentially, Carvalho sees the continuation of the egalitarian postcommunist dream through Gramsci’s organic intellectuals, whose task is to achieve cultural hegemony through a gradual and subtle series of psychological mutations over time.

The Gramsci-inspired Western globalist project, according to Carvalho, has this very task: to shift the people’s traditional mode of thought or their common sense into a revolutionary one. That is why there is a clear attempt to destroy religion through sexual freedom and transformation, freedom to choose whether one is woman or man, etcetera. This is a second reality that challenges the sense of proportions and the nature of things.

In a broader sense, it could be argued that Carvalho echoed a new Brazilian spirit characterized by an affinity for issues associated with Rightism, including moral conservatism, religiosity and the free market. In order to promote this worldview, there is a need to destroy what is left from Marxism. This context created fertile ground for a conservative discourse to gain intellectual and political traction, facilitating social receptivity to Carvahlo’s political messages and contributing to the success of Bolsonaro. Indeed, his rhetoric has played a significant role in bolstering the campaign of Bolsonaro. As a strategic populist polemic whose lifeblood is sarcasm, humor, and verbal violence his work was successful (Wink, Reference Wink2021, 211).

However, the question lingers about his right-wing conservative precedents in Brazilian political history. The history of the rise of the Right in Brazil had been related directly to moral questions. Indeed, due to their broad social appeal, moral issues have been politically mobilized at various key moments in Brazilian political history. The first instance was marked by the rise of Integralism in the 1930s, the second by the military coup of 1964 and the third by the social and economic crisis that preceded Bolsonaro’s ascent to power. Bolsonaro’s statement “Let us unite the people, cherish the family, respect religions and our Judeo-Christian tradition, combat gender ideology while preserving our values” (Iamamoto, Kubík, and Summa 2023, 785) encapsulates the essence of Brazil’s moral revolution throughout its history. There is no doubt that Carvalho was deeply influenced by the roots of Brazil conservative ideology. For scholars such as Arthur Hussne (Reference Hussne2020), Olavismo precisely continues the tradition of Brazilian Integralism. Scholars such as George Wink agree with Hussne and suggest that Carvalho and the Integralist leader, Plínio Salgado, have much in common.

Whether Brazilian Integralism, led by the Ação Integralista Brasileira (AIB), qualifies as a fascist movement has been a focal point of scholarly debate. António Costa Pinto argues that the AIB was the most successful fascism-inspired movement in Latin America, emphasizing its adoption of fascist organizational methods and its appeal to nationalist and authoritarian sentiments (Costa Pinto, Reference Costa Pinto1994, 143). This view aligns with Tucci Carneiro’s observation that the authoritarian ideology in Brazil during the 1930s and 1940s was influenced significantly by Italian Fascism and German National Socialism (Carneiro, Reference Carneiro and Castro Calderia1999, 12). However, Helgio Trindade offers a more nuanced perspective, acknowledging the AIB’s fascist characteristics, including its rigid structure, performative rituals and nationalist discourse, yet highlighting its unique ideological framework. Trindade (Reference Trindade1979, 4, 289) suggests that, despite these fascist attributes, the AIB’s foundations were deeply rooted in a religious morality more akin to Portuguese Salazarianism, with its emphasis on traditionalism, Catholicism and corporatism rather than the more revolutionary, secular nationalism found in Italian Fascism.

Indeed, for several scholars, the Integralism of Salgado was a conservative movement “guided by a traditional family model,” where men were seen as breadwinners and responsible for the moral direction of the family (Ferreira, Reference Ferreira2016). The state was envisioned as a union of all families, a concept encapsulated in the slogan “God, Fatherland, and Family.”

Thus, despite fascist influences, Salgado should not be labelled a full-fledged fascist (Wink, Reference Wink2021, 183). Moreover, despite the fact that observers in those years portrayed the AIB (1932–1938) as a “foreign phenomenon inherently opposed to the Brazilian spirit,” in reality, the movement’s values resonated widely and were largely accepted within Brazilian society, particularly in the 1930s (Victor, Reference Victor2005, 19–20; Pinheiro Ramos, Reference Pinheiro Ramos2014, 334).

The remaining question is in what sense Carvalho continues along this ideological line. Carvalho, best categorized as a conservative Catholic, felt a strong calling to guide Brazilians away from what he viewed as the enslavement of modernism. His outlook aligns closely with an ultramontane Catholic reaction against the various modern attempts to relativize Catholic doctrine – encompassing opposition to Protestantism, rationalism and communism.

Carvahlo thus advocated the restoration of the primordial order of tradition and promoted a societal regeneration through the restoration of the integrity of faith in human existence (Wink, Reference Wink2023). Central to Carvalho’s views is a fundamental rejection of the values and principles of the Enlightenment. Relying on Eric Voegelin’s (1901–1985) theological perspective in his The New Science of Politics, Carvalho considers that the Gnosticism and heretical messianism expressed in utopian ideas of progress have led the Western world to an humanitarian crisis. Heretical messianism, according to Carvahlo, takes the form of progressivism, positivism, Marxism, communism and even fascism and National Socialism, which were Satanic regimes accountable for destroying the real word of God (Carvalho, Reference Carvalho[1995] 2015, Reference Carvalho2001) The question, however, is to analyze how the world of modernity should be opposed.

As such, Olavismo aligns well with the Traditionalist rebellion and with the metapolitical intellectual enterprise of de Benoist, Dugin and Bannon. However, while Dugin and Bannon contend that we are approaching an hour of definitions, interpreted as nearing a phase of fascist violent activism, Carvalho subscribes to a different type of metacultural and social activity.

Carvalho’s brand of Traditionalism emphasizes the role of Christian communities, both Catholic and Protestant, in a global spiritual revival. He envisions these communities, particularly those in Africa and Asia, playing a pivotal role in re-Christianizing Europe and North America – regions that were once the source of Christianization for much of the world. According to Carvalho, these Christian groups, now rooted in the Global South, retain the true spiritual vitality that Europe and the West have lost. In his view, the moral and spiritual strength of these communities could serve as a counterbalance to the secularism and moral decline of the West, leading a heroic effort to restore Christian values in the very regions that had first spread them to the world.

Of especial importance in explaining Olavo’s entrance into the Traditionalist world is his first contact with Michel Veber (1926–2003), who founded the first real Traditionalist group in Brazil, the Academia Kan-Non, which combined Traditionalist doctrine with the Chinese martial arts practices of T’ai chi ch’üan (Tàijí quá). In 1980, Carvalho, then a freelance journalist and writer on astrology, invited Veber to lecture on Guénon and Traditionalisma at his Escola Júpiter (Jupiter School) in São Paulo. He was very impressed by Veber and described him as “my professor,” with whom he discussed Guénon’s personal connection to authentic Hindu and Islamic esoteric teachings.

It did not take much time and Carvalho published his first known Traditionalist article “Morality without God?” which advances the Traditionalist conception of the “perennial philosophy” as a road to resolve problems of cultural relativism that stem from the diversity of human social and ethical practice (Sedgwick, Reference Sedgwick2021, 164). Carvalho was convinced that esoterism should be at the center of Traditionalist studies, and in his philosophical search, he led his growing number of followers to become part of an esoteric Sufi organization called Tradição (Tradition). Later on, he supported another organization, the Maryamiyya, where he got in contact with Martin Lings (Abu Bakr Siraj al-Din, 1902–2005), the leading follower of Schuon in England and a Muslim and follower of Guénon himself. From Lings, he learned that in order to enter the Maryamiyya (unlike Sufi orders in the Muslim world, the Maryamiyya was a secret organization) there is a need to “enter Islam”. Following that direction, Carvalho and many of his followers “entered” Islam and even delivered lectures on Islamic Traditionalism, recommending Sufism and Sufi masters as capable of orienting religious people who came from other traditions. With the passing of years, however, Carvalho himself denied or softened the Traditionalist and Sufist influences in his political thought.

Indeed, while initially influenced by Traditionalist convictions advocating for the adoption of “Oriental doctrines” such as Islam as the only alternative to barbarism, Carvalho eventually abandoned this viewpoint, leading to tension with his admired Schuon. Carvalho’s engagement with Neo-Thomism, especially through the influence of Stanislavs Ladusãns, illustrates his approach to reconciling traditional Catholic metaphysics with the challenges of modernity. Ladusãns, as a Neo-Thomist, sought to create a dialogue between Thomistic philosophy and contemporary human sciences. Carvalho built upon this by asserting that modernity’s ills could be addressed through a return to transcendent truth grounded in Catholic doctrine. For Carvalho, philosophy was the path to a universal truth, which, in his view, stood in opposition to the relativism and ideological distortions of modernity. Truth for Carvalho is not relative, and in order to be able to see reality, the individual consciousness must be “kept clean,” without ideological filters (Bruno, Reference Bruno2019, 5). In his A Nova Era e a Revolução Cultural (The New Age and the Cultural Revolution) (Carvalho, Reference Carvalho2014, 93), Carvalho states the importance of the independence of individual thought, and he understood that human beings live in the in-between area. The role of philosophy, however, is to lead to truth, which is God’s truth. That is what Voegelin defined as Ordnungswissen (knowledge of the sublime order).

The battle between the Christ and the Antichrist is a real-world battle and should be won by Christ. Indeed, Carvalho’s perspective suggests that the philosophical pursuit of unity of knowledge and consciousness leads ultimately to Christ. He draws parallels between this pursuit and the efforts of Catholics to maintain a state of grace despite the presence of sin. In both cases, individuals strive to remain in an illuminated state of existence, seeking spiritual enlightenment and alignment with divine truths. This highlights philosophical inquiry as a means to attain illumination and spiritual fulfillment, akin to the pursuit of grace in Catholic doctrine. As noted, this way of thought leading to transcendent, meta-materialistic view of the world, history, and politics, was not uncommon to religiously influenced thinkers, such Eric Voegelin (Bruno, Reference Bruno2019, 6–7).

Carvalho’s stance in his later years illustrates an interesting pivot: While he acknowledged the perceived moral void left by secularism, he ultimately rejected the path of Islamization for the West. This departure is notable, especially given Carvalho’s previous alignment with certain Traditionalist thinkers, such as Guénon, who endorsed Islam as a return to spiritual values. Instead, Carvalho criticized the impulse among some Traditionalists to adopt Islam, positioning himself in opposition to what he viewed as a misguided solution to Western moral and cultural decay. This shift highlights his broader aim to address the spiritual crisis of the West without turning to non-Christian religious frameworks.

Carvahlo stressed that “any intelligent Christian, Catholic or not, can take advantage of René Guénon’s teachings without joining the Guénonian project,” so long as they know what that project is (Carvahlo, Reference Carvalho2016). It is at this point that Carvalho becomes a classic right-wing thinker. He had precedents in Latin American history. Some of the intellectuals and ideologues who preceded him were from the Argentinean national catholic brand, during the early and mid twentieth century.

Novelist Leopoldo Marechal (1900–1970) was well versed in Guénon’s work on esotericism and symbolism, drawing from it in his literary explorations. Reactionary figures like priest Julio Meinvielle (1905–1973) similarly endorsed Guénon’s critique of modernity, while Alberto Ezcurra Medrano (1937–1993), founder of the fascist Tacuara movement, emphasized Traditionalism’s “radical critique of the modern world” (Sedgwick, Reference Sedgwick2022)

Carvalho, like some of these figures, expressed sentiments that have been widely criticized as anti-Semitic. His foundational beliefs were shaped by the notion that a syndicate of Jewish bankers held control over global affairs – a view rooted in anti-Semitic tropes. This perspective, common among certain conspiracy theories, aligns with broader elements of Traditionalist and reactionary thought that emphasize hidden elites shaping the world order.

However, it’s noteworthy that his stance toward Jews and Israel shifted amidst the ongoing confrontation between the West and Islam, as well as the rising anti-Semitism evolving from left-wing postcolonialist sources. He recognized that Muslims and their leftist enablers, rather than Jews, were the perceived problem. This change in perspective represents a significant ideological shift akin to an “ideological somersault.”

Carvalho criticizes the idea propagated by anti-Semitists that Jews wield control over global media. He argues that if Jewish entities would have held substantial influence over the press, mainstream media would exhibit consistent and overt support for Israel, even to the detriment of other nations. However, Carvalho observes the opposite is happening. Israel is often criticized and attacked by the world press. Conversely, he perceives that the cultural war waged by Muslims in the West is portrayed with “innocent and moving images” (Carvalho, Reference Carvalho2010), while in reality it is a barbaric war.

It is not strange, therefore, that Carvalho would emphasize Israel’s pivotal role in the ideological struggle that would influence the course of the Western world. His analyses underscored the significance of Israel as a focal point for understanding broader geopolitical dynamics and ideological conflicts shaping global politics.

The debate between Carvalho and Dugin, titled “The USA and the New World Order: A Debate between Olavo de Carvalho and Aleksandr Dugin” (Carvalho and Dugin, Reference Carvalho and Dugin2011), highlights not only the divergent perspectives regarding Israel, but also their differences regarding the role of violence and the place of the United States in the wide right-wing ideological spectrum. Carvalho begins the debate by asserting that at the level of basic convictions there are no differences between him and Dugin, therefore apparently there is nothing to debate about.

However, immediately afterward, Carvalho stresses the wide gap separating a philosopher as he defines himself and a political activist as he defines Dugin. “To say that Professor Dugin is at the center and pinnacle of power is a simple matter of realism. To implement his plans, he has at his disposal Vladimir Putin’s strong arm, the armies of Russia and China and every terrorist organization of the Middle East, not to mention practically every leftist, fascist and neo-Nazi movement which today operate under the banner of his ‘Eurasian’ project” (Dugin and Carvalho, Reference Carvalho and Dugin2011, 6). Indeed, Carvahlo’s characterization of Dugin’s line of thought as that of a “right-wing Bolshevik” or “leftist traditionalism” reflects the complexity and perhaps ambiguity of Dugin’s ideology.

According to Carvalho, we have nowadays three projects of global dominance, which he tentatively calls the “Russian-Chinese,” the “Western” (sometimes mistakenly called “Anglo-American”) and the “Islamic” projects. The agents that personify these projects today are as follows: (1) the ruling elite of Russia and China, and particularly the secret services of these two countries; (2) the Western financial elite, as represented by the Bilderberg Club, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission; (3) The Muslim Brotherhood, the religious leaders of several Islamic countries and the governments of some Muslim countries.

Of these three agents, Carvalho (2011, 7) claims that “only the first can be conceived of in strictly geopolitical terms, since its plans and actions correspond to well-defined national and regional interests. The second, which is more advanced in the implementation of its plans for world government, places itself explicitly above any national interests … and in the third project, the conflicts of interests between national governments and … a Universal Caliphate are always ultimately resolved in favor of the latter.”

Carvalho ultimately concludes that the conception of global power pursued by different ideological agents is inherently incompatible. While he resists multiple geopolitical projects, his strongest disdain is reserved for Dugin’s revolutionary geopolitical agenda. Though Carvalho may agree with Dugin on the diagnosis of the West’s spiritual decay and detachment from traditional values, he sharply diverges when it comes to the strategic paths proposed for addressing the materialist world. Carvalho rejects Dugin’s geopolitical ambitions, viewing them as fundamentally at odds with his own vision for restoring moral and cultural order, which is deeply rooted in Christian metaphysics rather than revolutionary or Eurasianist frameworks

Moreover, while Dugin believes that the strong Eastern tradition has a sacred right to take the world back from its Western exile, Carvahlo believes in the recovery of the West through Midwestern rural traditions and its priests. Carvalho stresses the fact that Dugin does not understand the “real America.” One face of America is the managerial, liberal, Manhattan politically correct world. The other face is Traditionalist America, where a traditional Catholic movement that wants the Tridentine Mass back and rejects the modernization of the Catholic Church is flourishing together with a fervent American Evangelical Protestant community.

In this sense, Carvalho rejects the New Right’s attempt to associate Western globalism with the United States. The West, according to Carvalho, should be defined beyond its liberal institutions. In his mind, America’s “metacapitalism” project could be overcome in a similar manner to how the socialist project of the Soviet Union was overcome.

In short, while Dugin considers that there is only one United States, which represents the peak of Western civilization based in human rights, the promotion of democracy and free market economics (Carvalho and Dugin, Reference Carvalho and Dugin2011, 18), for Carvalho, there is also a Traditional, real America that constitutes a pole of resistance. Moreover, notably, Carvalho places Traditional America, the Jewish nation and traditional Jews on equal footing. In his perspective, all of them are threatened by the Western globalist project. This point is remarkable; Carvalho also notes that Judaism is threatened by secular Jews, and that there is a duty of Christians to protect them, or at least to save them from extinction when they are threatened (Caravalho and Dugin, 2011).

Finally, Carvalho aims to dismantle Dugin’s ideological framework by asserting that the globalist elite is not an enemy of Russia, China or Islamic countries. Instead, Carvalho posits that the global elites are collaborators with these nations in an effort to undermine the political, military and economic power of the United States (Carvalho and Dugin, Reference Carvalho and Dugin2011, 14). The “destruction of American power will remove the last reasonable hurdle to the establishment of a world government. Then, all that will be left, is the sharing of the spoils among the three globalist schemes, the Western, the Russian-Chinese and the Islamic one” (Carvalho and Dugin, Reference Carvalho and Dugin2011, 14).

In short, while Dugin emphasizes the cultural and spiritual heritage of Eurasia as an alternative to the materialism and decadence of the West, Carvalho looks to rural traditions, particularly those found in the American Midwest (Teitelbaum, Reference Teitelbaum2021). While Dugin, similar to de Benoist, finds “a lot of very charming (Eurasian) features in the South and Central American societies” and includes Shiite Islam in the coalition of resistance, Carvalho defends the West as a whole, and America’s conservative establishment in particular (Carvalho and Dugin, Reference Carvalho and Dugin2011, 27–28). In more senses than one, Carvalho and Dugin represent the contrasting poles of the reaction against woke liberal culture and supranational organizations.

In current times, as a result of wars in Gaza and Ukraine, two different coalitions within the conservative revolution confront each other. One “coalition of resistance” as proposed by Dugin seeks to defeat both Ukraine and Israel. In contrast, we could guess that Carvalho, if still alive, would support Israel. He would probably prefer, however, that the liberal coalition that supports Ukraine and Israel would become an ideological home for white Christian identitarianism and a proud Jewish state. Carvalho would certainly embrace Carl Schmitt’s conclusions in his Glossarium of June 1950: “Poor those Jews that don’t want to be Zionists” (Rosler, Reference Rosler2023).

One could argue that Carvalho’s iteration of the postcolonial right is arguably characterized by anti-Semitic sentiments, albeit it maintains a pro-Zionist stance. Conversely, Dugin’s fascist variant exhibits both anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist tendencies. Absolutely, the ideological battle lines drawn by Carvalho and Dugin illustrate the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of the global struggle against liberalism. Similarly to the debate between de Benoist and Faye regarding the complementary roles of de Benoist’s cultural pluralism and Faye’s exclusionist nationalism, here we also have two versions of who composes the antiglobalization camp.

The final question is to what extent Bolsonaro’s presidency embodies Carvalho’s political philosophy in practice (Bruno, Reference Bruno2019, 4). At a strictly political level, Carvalho found himself as a political influencer in the new government that shook Brazil and the world. Carvalho was tempted to accept the post of minister of education but he refused. Instead he actively recommended individuals for key government positions who shared his conservative and Traditionalist views. By promoting figures like Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez and Ernesto Araújo, who were aligned with his ideological stance and expressed admiration for thinkers like Guénon and Evola, Carvalho aimed to shape Brazil’s political landscape according to his worldview. Araujo in particular shared with Carvalho the same interests in Traditionalism, expressed quite clearly in his article “Trump and the West,” in which he praised Bannon and also recommended to the public readings such as Guénon’s Crisis of the Modern World and Evola’s Metaphysics of War (Araújo, Reference Araújo2017, 356). What is certain is that Carvahlo’s growing influence garnered attention even from publications such as the Council of the Americas’ The Americas Quarterly, which published an interview with him (Winter, Reference Winter2018).

Of no doubt, Bolsonaro’s skepticism toward globalism, his stance against what he and his supporters term “cultural Marxism,” and his defense of family values and opposition to abortion, gay rights and secularism in public education echoes Carvalho. Moreover, Bolsonaro, was not only associated with Carvalho but also with Bannon, and the political scientist Filipe Martins (currently a counselor to the Brazilian president on international relations) – all of whom see Israel as a model of successful nationalism and all of whom indirectly hint that Trump and the American conservative camp together with Israel should be forerunners of a right-wing association against the progressive camp.

Both Dugin and de Benoist are critical of this stance. Despite the fact that Bolsonaro is a nativist, he is scorned by de Benoist. Indeed, de Benoist’s nativism contrasts with Bolsonaro’s white nativism in Brazil, as well as with Zionist nativism in the Middle East, because the latter are not considered nativism, but colonialism. De Benoist also criticizes Bolsonaro’s foreign policy decisions, particularly because he prioritize alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia while adopting a hostile stance toward China and Russia (De Benoist, Reference De Benoist2019). In short, we can conclude that the different coalitions of resistance against liberalism are far from assuming a common stance.

Nonetheless, we must stress that still both conflicting currents share the perception that the traditional model of liberal governance is no longer viable or desirable. Both currents propose an alternative to liberal democracy, which they often frame as being more authentic than national or cultural identities. Both are illiberal in nature, and both emphasize identity (whether ethnic, national or cultural) over universal values. Most of all, as Carl Schmitt did, they devise a multipolar world as against liberal governance.