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Originally Posted by Itse
We've had sort of a similar phenomenon in Finland, with a new right wing anti-immigrant conservative party Perussuomalaiset exploding into one of the largest parties in the country, and they clearly moved the Overton window in Finnish politics quite a bit to a more conservative-right position. (Fiscally they're kind of right wing, but mostly just uninterested, so in that sense the change hasn't been significant.)
That said, the GOP as is really can't move much more right without outright digging out the swastikas. I think a party split right now would leave the rest of the GOP in a much more moderate position. History doesn't always repeat itself.
It also seems to me that the attack on Capitol has sent some shockwaves through the right, with a lot of people suddenly realizing they have to differentiate themselves from the actual extremists and sideline the fascists from positions of power, if not for any other reason than to prevent their own ideas to be completely drowned out among the waves of extremism.
The attack on Capitol could even mark somewhat of a turning tide globally. For example it seems to me that the Finnish media has suddenly realized they need to be a lot more critical of our local right wing populists, and our other major right wing party has suddenly been a lot less eager to side with Perussuomalaiset. (Both are currently in the opposition.)
(I think this is a temporary situation though, my personal expectation is that things have to get a lot worse before they start getting better.)
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I've no doubt that the Capitol riot and the Trump presidency as a whole have sent shockwaves through the West, and the rest of the world as well. I don't believe the tide is turning on sentiment though. The tide has been turning for some time based on demographic, economic and technological trends. Populism and nationalism are responses to the structural changes those trends are driving. Those trends also march at their own pace and are difficult to change without major policy actions sustained over long periods of time. The pendulum will continue to swing back and forth within a range, but I think the range in which it will swing has shifted in ways that are going to be persistently tumultuous for Western political contexts relative to what it was in the preceding several decades.