Opinion | The New Conservative era

By Tom Fowdy

Donald Trump has now been inaugurated again as President of the United States, an outcome that few could have contemplated was unimaginable only a few years ago. Swiftly after returning to the office, he signed over 100 various executive orders, many of which simply sought to reverse policies of the Biden administration, but also on a comprehensive range of issues including immigration, climate, transgender policy, TikTok as well as pardoning all those who were implicated in the January 6, 2021 Capitol Riot whereby the President attempted to overturn the election results.

It is fair to say that Trump has returned to office with a robust sense of urgency. After all, this will be his last term, and it comes in the political climate of extreme divisiveness in America where the stakes for each side have never been higher. Every administration increasingly has the mindset that they must "cement" their legacy in place as robustly as possible and capture their vision for America before the other side dismantles it and jeopardizes their value system. Because of this, it goes without question that the second Trump administration will be much more hardline than the first, across the board.

I am increasingly of the belief that "liberalism" is on the retreat across the Western world and we are entering a "new conservative era." Some commentators have compared this emerging paradigm to the end of the "swinging sixties" in America which came with the Richard Nixon Presidency. Of course, many things about this comparison are ahistorical and do not quite fit, not least because a huge contributing factor to it has been the impact of social media which has driven political polarisation and conflict. As this trend has materialized, we have seen a growing backlash on immigration, race, LGBT rights, feminism, and such.

Old stigmas that would often silence political discussion on these issues as recently as only a decade ago are slowly diminishing. When I was part of the populist right long ago in 2014, although I never crossed red lines on any of those issues, that wing of politics did feel much more marginalized and it had a "bunker" mentality against critics. Yet, roll on a decade and I feel it has become much more mainstream. The shambolic UKIP was merely a less competent and less socially accepted predecessor of the much more powerful, yet ideologically identical, Reform UK party. While the British establishment and press sought robustly to contain it then, they do not now. It has broken through, and the Conservative Party has lost considerable influence.

Hence, the growing trend across the West is a meta one that is not purely the orchestration of whatever party is in office, but it is a broader social backlash brought about by the toxic combination of economic stagnation and identity shifts, which in Britain both have been very prominent. Hence, it is clearly apparent even in instances where center-left-leaning political parties are in office. Although few of his critics would admit it, the current Labour government under Keir Starmer in Britain is highly right-wing on many of its policies, but enough of course to satisfy its detractors.

Likewise, the previous Biden Administration in America, which never truly challenged the legacy of Donald Trump or had the political space to shift the tide, could hardly be described as liberal, with most of the social Conservative shift coming during his tenure. Thus, we can only expect a new Trump administration, who will be more ruthless, ambitious, and with less to lose than the last, to exacerbate this trend the world over, backed by the X machine of Elon Musk. This is ultimately a reactionary backlash to the liberal world, and globalization in general, which seemingly peaked around the 2010s, and the wider fragmentation of society mass communications have caused by promulgating identity-based conflicts over issues such as transgender rights and acceptance. For now, it appears that one side has decisively gained the upper hand, and we will be watching how the effects of it come into play over the next few years as the Trump administration attempts to make its political gains and vision permanent at all costs in the brutal arena of American politics.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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