Two weeks, two elections, two far-right victories, two political earthquakes.
The landslide win in Argentina by the far-right libertarian economist Javier Milei on Nov. 19, followed by the astonishingly comfortable first-place finish in the Netherlands by the anti-Muslim firebrand Geert Wilders the following weekend shook their respective countries. But they also captured international attention, with some observers declaring the two elections thousands of miles apart are proof that the world’s democracies are in the midst of a radical rightward shift.
Indeed, it is tempting to view both election results as evidence of a global movement. To be sure, the right has been making gains. But it would be a mistake to view these two earthquakes as part of the same tectonic pattern.