"The new right-wing populist government of Andrej Babis has made a firm pledge to ensure Czechia never adopts the euro. Instead, the government will seek to enshrine the Czech crown as legal tender and guarantee the right to use cash. "We commit that our government will not adopt the euro nor take any steps towards its introduction," reads the policy program approved by the new government a coalition of Babis's ANO party, the euroskeptic Motorists for Themselves and the far-right SPD at its inaugural cabinet meeting on Monday."
On December 14th, the ultraconservative politician José Antonio Kast won a runoff election to become Chile's next President. With his victory, the growing club of right-wing leaders in Latin America acquired a new member. Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian autocrat, sent Kast effusive congratulations. So did Elon Musk, who has fought a running battle with left-wing politicians in the region. President Donald Trump took credit for his win, adding, "I hear he's a very good person."
The era of harmony in transatlantic relations is over. For Donald Trump's United States, Europe with its project of values and defense of the rules-based multilateral order is an adversary. One that must be steered back onto the illiberal and reactionary path dictated by Trumpism and followed by its European allies: the ultra-right-wing, national-populist, and Eurosceptic Trojan Horses who seek to undermine the European Union from within.
Still only 34 and in parliament for little over a year, Lam is named almost ubiquitously by fellow Conservatives as a likely future leader even, some venture, a direct replacement for Kemi Badenoch. Lam does have the sort of CV almost designed to impress Tory constituency associations, with its route from state school to Cambridge, Goldman Sachs, then stints as an aide in Downing Street and the Home Office.
Conservatives have long struggled to find an ideological enemy to replace communism. It's easier to define yourself when you know what you're up against. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and others want transhumanism to be that defining foe. But transhumanism is a fringe notion that looms larger in the minds of conservatives than it does in reality. It is not the great threat that faces the country. It simply makes for a good enemy to advance a "respectable" form of right-wing populism.
Orban celebrated the chaos wrought by the 'Trump tornado' and called on 'conservatives' to seize the opportunity it offers: "We have to go home, and everyone has to win their own election."