What do Keir Starmer, Olaf Scholz, Mette Frederiksen and Justin Trudeau, the British, German, Danish and Canadian heads of government, have in common? They're all social democrats or on the center-left. And they have all been the target of attacks by Donald Trump or Elon Musk in the last two weeks.
Another shared trait is that none of them are invited to Trump's inauguration ceremony on Monday, January 20, in Washington. Experts on protocol may not find this surprising – traditionally, foreign heads of state or government are not invited. Yet, some will be present this year – but they belong to a different ideological world than these sidelined centrists. The list of foreign figures invited by Trump’s team, revealed bit by bit, increasingly resembles an informal summit of the "reactionary international" invented in Latin America and denounced on January 6 by Emmanuel Macron.
The term, which the French president used in reference to Elon Musk, was analyzed in November 2023 by two Argentine researchers in Le Grand Continent to describe the movement embodied by the iconoclastic President Javier Milei, also nicknamed el loco ("the madman") in his country. The two academics, Bernabé Malacalza and Juan Gabriel Tokatlian, decipher Milei's "conspiracy diplomacy" and see the emergence, with him, of a "multi-faceted, geographically dispersed and ideologically heterogeneous reactionary international."
Over a year later, here we are. In 2025, without being a formal institution like the Socialist International, a "reactionary international" is nevertheless taking shape – a chaotic shape, in reflection of the world. Milei, a libertarian who boasts "infinite contempt for the state" and whom Trump has called his "favorite president," was the first to announce his presence at the inauguration ceremony. He'll be in good company: no official list of foreign guests has yet been published but each new name contributes to a growing list of the world's populist leaders.
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