This is an intellectual and cultural war. Not a conflict between nations, nor a clash of civilizations, but a battle fought within them. It's an ideological battle where the most powerful center of gravity now lies across the Atlantic. It is being waged by what Emmanuel Macron has called a "reactionary international." It is reshaping alliances and redrawing borders from Washington to Moscow, Buenos Aires to Ankara.

This movement is not structured like the socialist and communist internationals of the 20^th century. Those were the successors to the 19^th-century worker's organizations, united by the hope of making a "clean break" with the past in order to change the world "from the ground up," as proclaimed in the famous song, "The Internationale" (1871). However, efforts to unify have been underway for the past decade. In 2018, Steve Bannon, former strategic advisor to Donald Trump, launched The Movement, a Brussels-based organization aimed at uniting far-right populists and nationalists across Europe.

Despite this clear failure, Trump's victory has emboldened far-right leaders in Europe. They met once again in Washington in February 2025 at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of American conservatives, to try to replicate the MAGA ecosystem in Europe.

Olivier Roy, a professor at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, said that "several ideological factions are celebrating Donald Trump's victory: a reactionary movement backed by the Christian right, identity-based populism and a futuristic high-tech current." Though often at odds, these three currents are united by a shared disdain for wokeness and progressivism, forming the core alloy of this international movement.

The Christian right, illiberal and climate-skeptic

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