In the first 48 hours of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, he has taken action on virtually every single culture war topic that has excited his base for the last 12 months, including the signing of dozens of executive orders targeting immigrants, gender expression, the environment, and DEI policies.
Trump has also pardoned or commuted the sentence of every single person that took part in the violent insurrection on the Capitol in 2021. Meanwhile, his close ally Elon Musk has invigorated an even more extreme wing of Trump’s supporters, by making a Nazi-like salute on stage—twice—in front of thousands of people in DC and millions watching on TV.
Trump’s actions have generated a lot of excitement among the far-right in the US. They’ve also been hailed as a blueprint by an adoring fanbase of far-right lawmakers, extremist influencers, and white supremacist groups across the globe. And those people and organizations now believe that Trump’s actions should not only be copied, but taken to the next level.
“It is more than just a political success,” Martin Sellner, the far-right activist and leader of the Identitarian Movement of Austria, wrote on his Telegram channel. “It is a metapolitical victory: the end of wokeness and trans ideology, stopping illegal immigration and many other ideas have been normalized in society.”
“These extremists think that this is the way to go, that their countries need to take a lesson from what Trump is proposing, and they need to not get weak about it, and not let woke activists get in their way, because everybody knows that the right thing to do is get rid of the immigrants,” Wendy Via, the CEO of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, tells WIRED.
Sellner, who once communicated with the Christchurch massacre shooter, is best known for popularizing the white nationalist concept of “remigration,” the idea to ethnically cleanse western nations of all non-white citizens. That extremist ideology has gained traction among other far-right groups in Europe, including Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Freedom Party of Austria. Trump even promoted “remigration” in September.
Now, Sellner believes that Trump’s return to the Oval Office signals a moment to take his agenda mainstream.
“By pushing further into the realm of the ‘unspeakable’ we move out of the defensive and truly shift the Overton Window to the right for the first time,” Sellner wrote. “Even if you think Trumpism goes far enough, you should support the radical flank.”
Sellner is not alone in Europe. Across the continent, far-right figures praised Trump’s actions on migration and gender, and called for leaders in their own countries to follow suit.
In France, the Generation Identity group, the youth wing of the far-right Identitarian movement, wrote on Telegram: “Remigration in full swing. Identitarianism has won ideologically, it will only take time for this victory to be reflected in the material world.”
In Ireland, Keith Woods, the far-right influencer and ally of US white supremacist Nick Fuentes, shared a clip of Musk’s Nazi-like salute with the caption: “Ok maybe woke really is dead.” Irish UFC fighter Conor McGregor, who has aligned himself with Ireland’s far-right community in recent years, was in the Capitol for the inauguration and met with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. McGregor praised Trump’s immigration policies, and wrote on Instagram, “Ireland and its human trafficking racket needs absolute dismantling! It is a breach of our security and our sovereignty. For me it is A NATIONAL EMERGENCY.” (McGregor has recently said that he is considering running for president in Ireland, which is a symbolic role without any real power.)
