Recent commentary on international affairs has focused heavily on the return of realpolitik and great power rivalry. Yet, the rise and influence of transnational ideologies remains one of the defining, if overlooked, features of our time. While often dismissed as mere social movements, these forces are reshaping the geopolitical landscape. The most prominent of these, the social justice movement—colloquially known as “Woke”—is typically analysed through the lens of its intellectual origins or institutional capture rather than its impact on statecraft.
However, a counter-force is emerging. The Trump administration, with its explicit commitment to preserving “European civilization” as enunciated in the 2025 National Security Review, offers a foreign policy doctrine far removed from isolationism. Instead, the administration’s commitment to countering mass immigration and promoting freedom of speech against left-wing authoritarianism globally suggests a return to a form of ideological interventionism—a move by a superpower to support ideological change in Europe.
We have not seen such an approach since the neo-conservative projects of the early 2000s or the superpower contests of the Cold War. This shift coincides with the rise of national populist movements across the continent, driven by economic stagnation and mass immigration. While these movements have commonalities, they are currently diverse and fragmented.
One of the defining questions of the coming years is whether the Trump administration—and any ideologically aligned successors—can guide this disparate energy towards coherence, endurance, and genuine power.
The Owl of Minerva
Hegel evocatively noted that the Owl of Minerva flies only at dusk; implying that an historical era can only be truly understood as it concludes. From the vantage point of 2026, the conceptual frameworks of the post-Cold War 1990s can finally be assessed for their predictive power and accuracy. Three seminal works defined that era: Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilisations,” Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History and the Last Man,” and Thomas Friedman’s “Lexus and the Olive Tree.” It is not my intention here to analyze the pros and cons of each theory in full, but rather to examine them as they pertain to the rise of transnational ideological movements in the Anglosphere and Europe.
Common to all three was the assumption that Western liberal democratic capitalism was a settled entity which existed in relation to ideologies from the non-Western world. Fukuyama made his bold claim that liberal capitalism was essentially post-ideological, while Huntington saw it as a product of Western culture rubbing up against the edges of non-Western civilizations in the flashpoints of the world from Bosnia to the Philippines. Friedman identified a sharp clash between the forces of globalism and the rootedness of traditional culture, viewing the latter’s resistance as a futile struggle against the inexorable march of history.
While these thinkers and others acknowledged the West’s economic losers, they framed the issue in strictly material terms—limiting the ideological conflict to a debate over redistribution.
Over the last decade, a transnational movement has emerged within the West—the social justice movement—which has challenged a consensus that many thought settled. Social justice, with its emphasis on identity equality, marked a fundamental departure from the 1990s consensus. Its rapid ascent, culminating in the 2022 Black Lives Matter protests and the institutionalization of DEI, met with little resistance from the European liberal establishment.
This capitulation was partly due to the initial incrementalism of the movement, its badging of itself in the language of more traditional liberalism (fairness, equity, kindness), and a desire to incorporate and win the votes of ethnic minorities within once ethnically homogenous or majoritarian states. More cynically, the focus on identity first and economics second posed less of an explicit threat to powerful economic interest groups that had once spent considerable capital and effort resisting the rise of traditional communism. As Fukuyama feared, the “last men” proved to have hollow chests.
The most dramatic response to both the rise of social justice ideology and the huge increase in mass immigration in the last decade has come not from within the establishment (despite the protests of some in the more traditional conservative movement) but from outside, in the guise of national populism.
One of the key questions of the next few decades is: will this remain a transitory and fragmented movement, or will it strengthen to become a significant ideological rival to social justice ideology? Will the struggle not be between the West and other civilisations, but rather within it, in the manner that communism and capitalism confronted each other during the Cold War?
While the content of the two ideologies is very different, the spectre of a return to an intra- European ideological clash seems very real. In the Cold War, the superpower backers of each ideology were very clear: the Soviet Union defending communism, and the U.S. and her allies defending capitalist democracy. In the 2020s, the U.S., perhaps fittingly for the post-cold war hyper power, finds itself in the position of being both the handmaiden of global social justice ideology and the advocate for national populism. The Western world therefore faces the prospect of its most influential state oscillating between the support of two rival ideologies.
The EU would no doubt like to claim that it represented a third way—in its advocacy of a monitored and constrained democracy, which in practice seems indistinguishable from technocracy. Increasingly, its positioning seems to favour the progressive position, with its founding myth and the education of its bureaucrats inclining it to fear the rise of nationalism above any other ideology.
Europe’s Populist Surge: Permanent or Transitory?
The rise of national populism in Europe as an electoral force is now an established phenomenon. Reform UK under Nigel Farage has led the last 200 opinion polls, while the AfD in Germany surged to 26 percent in December 2025. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally consistently polls between 30 and 34 percent in France, and Austria’s Freedom Party secured 31 percent of the vote in recent national elections. Similarly, Portugal’s Chega party achieved a second-place finish with 22.8 percent in the May 2025 legislative election.
This has been accompanied to a degree by a cultural shift which has allowed a wider voicing of concerns around immigration. The Overton window, the metric used to judge acceptable political opinion, seems to have dramatically shifted in favor of the populist right. The purchase of Twitter, now X, by Elon Musk has undoubtedly helped create a sense of transnational coherence across the movement, articulating viewpoints largely suppressed in conventional media. A variety of conferences, from the Association for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) in the UK to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Hungary, have also created cross-border links.
Ironically, the EU’s own criticism of the movement and attempts to restrict the reach of many of its more popular advocates has created a sense of shared solidarity. The most notable piece of legislation is the Digital Services Act of 2022, which, while framed in terms of online safety, was widely perceived as being an attempt to limit freedom of speech.
A Fragile Foundation
However, the movement is fragmented and shows real signs of vulnerability. While parties may have commonality in their opposition to immigration, the social justice movement, and DEI, they lack a common platform and are variably placed relative to more mainstream parties. For example, Reform UK’s positioning is far more centrist than some of its continental cousins. There remains the permanent dilemma with the traditional center-right of compromising for power vis-à-vis diluting the aims of the movement.
Electoral breakthrough has also been mixed (Hungary and Italy being the most prominent examples) and transnational cooperation limited by the lack of variable electoral cycles. Outside the electoral sphere, the movement still lacks control of national bureaucracies at both a nation-state and transnational level. European governments may change, but the permanent institutions of the EU persist.
In the civil society space, most organizations from cultural institutions to NGOs, are staffed by personnel whose attitudes heavily skew left. This negative trend is amplified by the deep penetration of DEI representatives into human resources departments across both civil society and private large corporations. Without proper institutionalization, the foundations of the European populist movement remain built on unsteady ground.
The revolutions of 1848 hold a real warning for the movement—despite the revolutionary spring, the “ancien régime” was able to reassert itself across the continent within the year. Real change did not come until 70 years later, when the shock of World War I delivered the coup de grâce to the old aristocratic world. While the populist revolutions will come through the ballot box, not through the barricades, traditional regimes at both the national and transnational level are increasingly acting like nineteenth-century regimes. They may not use Prince Metternich’s forest of bayonets, but rather a forest of law and regulation, combined with tactical alliances, to restrict the breakthrough of the populist movement.
Unlike 1848, time is not on the side of the revolutionaries; demographic change combined with relentless left leaning indoctrination in the school system means that the movement does not have the luxury of biding its time for 70 years—a breakthrough needs to happen within the next decade or within two decades at most. This is why the prospect of a superpower sponsor is such an appealing prospect to the populist movement.
Realism in the World, Ideological Advocacy in the West
The U.S. National Security Strategy, published in late 2025, caused much consternation among European commentators. Most of the focus was on the ambiguity of the continued U.S. military support for Ukraine and the commitment to a settlement in that conflict.
However, the strategy was also very clear on civilizational concerns around the direction of travel of Europe. Citing “migration policies that are transforming the continent” and the “suppression of political opposition” as existential threats, the document was explicit: “We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation…America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.”
The intent seemed very clear: for the first time since the end of the Cold War, the domestic and ideological policies of Europe were of concern to the United States. Europe would no longer simply be a supporting ally in other global struggles, but an ideological battleground. While the ideological focus on Europe was novel, the National Security Strategy had a realist emphasis on both the economic and military strategic spheres. There was a clear focus on building up strength and alliances in preparation for future conflicts—most likely with China.
Interestingly, with regard to the Middle East, the strategy explicitly disavowed the democracy and human rights promotion which both U.S. political parties had advocated to a greater or lesser extent for decades. Arguing that the U.S. must drop its “misguided experiment with hectoring” Gulf monarchies into abandoning their traditions, the document concluded: “The key to successful relations with the Middle East is accepting the region, its leaders, and its nations as they are while working together on areas of common interest.” The recent military action to remove President Maduro of Venezuela reinforced this realist turn in global U.S. policy.
Hence, in its own terms, the National Security Strategy advocates a hard-nosed realism in the world, while focusing on ideological concerns in Europe. This creates a stark contrast. Just as the U.S. turns to ideology, Britain and the EU have belatedly focused on building up their military power in response to the threat from Russia, pivoting from decades of emphasizing the EU’s “soft power” role in promoting democracy globally.
From Strategy to Action: Assisting the National Populist Movement
The Trump administration has a clear strategic objective, and there is also an appetite among European populists for American support. In his New Year’s message for 2026, George Simion—previously Presidential candidate for the populist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR)—asked the Romanian authorities to declare 2026 (the 250th anniversary of the declaration of American independence) as “the year of America in Romania.” He clearly outlined the case from the European perspective, having cited the U.S National Security Strategy: “Romania’s relationship with the United States is not only strategic, but also essential for maintaining political pluralism, freedom of opinion, and national sovereignty.”
As of writing, the Trump administration’s actions with regard to Europe can largely be described as one of suasion and denial. Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in early 2025 caused consternation when he highlighted the dangers of restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
This rhetoric was escalated to action in December 2025 when the administration launched a series of visa bans against Europeans who they identified as being responsible for undermining free speech. Those banned included former European Commissioner Thierry Breton and two British citizens, heads of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate and the Global Disinformation Index. This pushed many into a category generally reserved for citizens of rogue states like Iran or Russia. Breton’s ban was specifically linked to his masterminding of the Digital Services Act—the legislation which allowed the EU to level multimillion-euro fines on American tech giants like Apple and Meta for breaking digital antitrust rules, and to go after X for failing to curb disinformation.
The sanctioning of individuals has been accompanied by the defunding of multinational organizations perceived to be acting with a social justice agenda. On January 7th, 2026, President Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from a series of organizations, treaties, and conventions deemed ‘contrary to the interests of the United States.’ The 31 entities are all what would be called “progressive” (ranging from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to the Pan American Institute of Geography and History). The statement makes clear that this is just the beginning.
What the administration has yet to do is flip the left-wing NGO model to direct support for the national populist movement in Europe. Any direct support for political parties would prove challenging—it would correctly be perceived as foreign interference in domestic politics and a massive overreach by a key ally. In most cases, it would break domestic electoral law in Europe.
However, an opportunity exists to fund a wider ecosystem of NGOs and civil society organizations which are aligned with the values and objectives of the national conservative movement. A model already exists for this in the Hungarian Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), which has funded a series of organizations—through fellowships, research, or direct grants.
Host institutions for fellows include: the Waclaw Felczak Institute (Poland), Konrad Adenauer Foundation (Germany), European Centre for Law and Justice (France), Henry Jackson Society (United Kingdom), and the Centro Studi Machiavelli (Italy). These are accompanied by a series of organizations which are based in Hungary but have avowedly international aims and influence—ranging from the German-Hungarian Institute for European Cooperation to the MCC-MKI Centre for Geopolitics. With its vast public and private resources, the U.S. is uniquely positioned to midwife the institutionalization of the national populist movement at scale.
A New Helsinki Accords
Furthermore, there exists an option between high-level suasion and funding for assisting national populism and its associated civil society organizations: a model stemming from the détente of the 1970s.
In 1975, 35 states—including the United States, Canada, and all European countries except Albania—signed the Helsinki Accords. The Final Act, under the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (now institutionalized as the OSCE), was divided into four “baskets.” The third basket focused on humanitarian cooperation, human rights and fundamental freedoms, family reunification, travel, information flow, and cultural and scientific exchanges.
While non-binding, the Act did provide a cover for the establishment of civil society organizations. These included Helsinki monitoring groups ranging from the Moscow Helsinki Group to Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and the Workers’ Defense Committee in Poland. The monitoring and documenting sections legitimized dissident activity and provided international cover for dissident organizations. Helsinki Watch—the U.S. private NGO founded to monitor the Accords—evolved into the influential NGO Human Rights Watch.
The Act, although not a formal treaty, remains in force today and indeed has been used by Western nations like the UK to criticize Russian actions. There exists an option for the Trump administration to use the Act as a diplomatic pressure point to highlight crackdowns on freedom of speech in Europe once again, but this time in reference to EU Member States. As in the 1970s, a new set of monitoring organizations could be established—the existing ones have largely been captured by the left—to ensure that European governments do not restrict freedom of speech or use lawfare to cripple the national populist movement.
Whether the United States can effectively foster this patriotic movement in Europe remains an open question; realist bargains to secure European support against Russia or China may well supersede ideological contestation. Furthermore, unless U.S. support is institutionalized, it remains vulnerable to reversal by a future Democratic administration. Yet, a clear window has opened for the U.S. to transform a fragmentary and vulnerable national populist movement into a genuinely transnational force across Europe and the wider West: civilizational conservatism.
