The real radicals are now on the right – and the left can’t stand it

The apparent success of the ‘alt-right’ and ‘populist right’ movements in Europe and the US has analysts scratching around for explanations. It’s economics at heart, say the serious academics. The annoyed liberals counter that it’s really hidden xenophobia unleashed. The sensible centrists, Economist-reading types, agree a little with both and sagely add cultural nervousness: a symptom of too much change, too quickly. There’s some truth in each, but there’s one ingredient missing. For many people this newish radical right (by which I mean the very loose coalition of anti-globalisation, anti-left wing, populist right-wing groups) has become a rebellious counter-culture.

Deny it if you want! But the depressing fact for liberals and left-wingers is this: there is at least a possibility that groups like the alt-right have achieved the mysterious alchemy that transforms a scrappy rabble into a momentum fuelled counter-culture. I’m not suggesting this makes it morally any more defensible, merely that it makes it far more potent.