How do you normalize the radical right? Vicente Valentim responds to Daniel Oliveira

Portugal is one of the last European countries to have a very strong far-right parliamentary group. Chega’s growth, like most similar parties, was remarkable. In five years it went from 1 deputy to 12 and then 48, risking putting an end to five decades of a two-party system.

The far right is in power in Italy, Finland and Hungary, supports a government in Sweden and is on its way to being in power again in Austria. In France, the most recent polls give an almost absolute majority to Le Pen’s party in the legislature. In the next European elections, the radical right is expected to win in nine countries and be the second or third force in another nine, including Germany, where not even the historical memory of Nazi barbarity seems to contain the growth of xenophobia and the persecution of minorities.

Traditional explanations, such as the economic one, which highlights the effects of those who feel on the losing side of globalization, or the cultural ones, which focus on the protest of those who aspire to a return to a “simpler and less progressive world”, seem not to be be able to explain the galloping speed of this populist growth.

What then explains the progress of these forces? And the speed of its growth, in almost perfect synchronization across Europe and the USA? Why is the radical right able to capture all the dynamics of protests and crystallize itself as an unavoidable force in the European political chessboard? Where does this anger that seems to have taken over public space come from?

It’s more than an interview, it’s less than a debate. It’s a contradictory conversation in which, in the end, it’s the guest’s opinion that matters. Mostly about politics, sometimes about really interesting things. A journalistic project by Daniel Oliveira and João Martins. Graphic image by Vera Tavares with Tiago Pereira Santos and music by Mário Laginha. Subscribe (on Spotify, Apple and Google) and listen to more episodes: