Back in 2016, Trump’s election was only part of a globally wave of right wing populism and ethno-nationalism that seemed inexorably on the rise—the UK, France, Germany, Hungary, India, the Philippines, Brazil, etc. So, 4 years later, how has this populist wave been doing?

1. Well, it’s a mixed bag. Trump is gone now, of course, and right wing populism didn’t make nearly as much headway in Western Europe as people initially feared. That said, it has won major political victories in Eastern Europe, South and Southeast Asia, and Latin America...

2. What has been universally true is that nearly all right wing populists who have risen to power have proven highly inept at governance: Trump, BoJo, Modi, Bolsonaro, etc. Some of this is due to hostility from elites, but a larger cause is simply their own anti-intellectualism.

3. But what explains the divergence in political fortunes between, say, Modi and Trump, or between right wing populism’s political fortunes in Western versus Eastern Europe? As crass as this may sound, it really seems to come down to wealth and living standards.

4. Problems with globalization led to the global rise of populism, but it’s had far more success in developing countries than in developed ones. One reason might be that the latter have stronger institutions, but that doesn’t explain the difference in public support.

5. When it comes to popular support, wealthy populations are far more risk averse than less wealthy ones: they are less inclined to blow things up, and tend to pull their support far more quickly when bad governance rears its ugly head (especially in a pandemic+recession).

6. Hence, Trump (who never had a majority of the US population behind him) saw his re-election chances go down very quickly, but Modi still seems to be doing fine. Furthermore, right wing populism never managed to become as powerful in France as it did in Hungary.

7. This is all very crude, of course, and there are lots of regional factors like sociopolitical culture or specific economic conditions that made a significant difference, but it’s hard to shake the thought that, as ugly as American politics might seem at the moment...

8. ... comparisons to historical examples like Nazi Germany or, more outlandishly, the Roman Republic aren’t very useful, simply because even the unhappy sectors of the American population are well-off enough to have much to lose from serious sociopolitical upheaval...

9. ... and are nearly as materially desperate as those comparisons would suggest. Revolutions require extremely high levels of conviction, which rely in turn (usually) on desperation. To some extent, American (and Western European) populations are simply too comfortable for it.

10. Now, none of this means that long-term decline isn’t a very real danger, but I do think there are some macro-level reasons to be somewhat optimistic that a plunge into fascism, autocracy, or anarchy isn’t that likely in the developed world’s political future.

11. And lest you think that I’m saying this just because Biden won, I also did make this point 4 years ago. Many of us who have lived in or study harsher political regimes have always been a bit more optimistic than our less comparatively minded colleagues.

12. That said, if anxiety helps motivate the American political elite to reform their institutions and work together to ensure that someone like Trump can’t win again in the foreseeable future, then by all means, please be as paranoid as you guys need.