Why are right-wing populists winning everywhere?

It's not just economics. It's not just immigration. Far-right candidates are coming to power amid a mind-boggling array of political, economic, and cultural conditions.

World leaders.
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The global march of right-wing populism has claimed yet another country. This time, it's Brazil, where a once obscure former army captain Jair Bolsonaro won the presidency by a decisive margin.

Bolsonaro's candidacy bears obvious similarity to other notable right-wing populist candidates. Brazil has struggled with persistently high crime, and its established parties have been rocked by a wide-ranging corruption scandal that sent its popular former president, Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, to prison; Bolsonaro's central campaign themes were restoring order and ending corruption. The thrice-married Bolsonaro also professed an in-your-face masculinism that should also feel familiar to observers of President Trump and Vladimir Putin and alt-right circles on the internet. And Bolsonaro's campaign took advantage of social media in a way that establishment candidates around the world continue to struggle to replicate.

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Noah Millman

Noah Millman is a screenwriter and filmmaker, a political columnist and a critic. From 2012 through 2017 he was a senior editor and featured blogger at The American Conservative. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Politico, USA Today, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Modern Age, First Things, and the Jewish Review of Books, among other publications. Noah lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.