“We are witnessing the takeover of the far right in the United States”, notes a historian

“We are witnessing the takeover of the far right in the United States”, observes Wednesday, November 9 on France Inter Sylvie Laurent, historian, Americanist and teacher at Sciences Po, after the American mid-term elections. According to initial estimates, the Republican Party is on track to take over the House of Representatives, while the Senate could remain in the hands of the Democrats.

Sylvie Laurent recommends reading these estimates “with the subtext of the 2010 elections”after the election of Barack Obama in 2008. “At the time of the midterms [de 2010]appear here and there in the country of small groups, the Leagues of Patriots”, describes the historian and teacher at Sciences Po. It is more particularly about small groups “far right, Christians, traditionalists, whites, libertarians, authoritarians, conspiracy theorists (…) who both hate Barack obama [démocrate] and the Republican Party”.

But “twelve years later, this little minority faction that we laughed at is today the Republican Party”, notes Sylvie Laurent. This historian asserts that “the Republican Party has become what the Tea Party was in 2010”. “Today, even if there are some defeats and the most extravagant figures of this far-right thought may have lost, the Republican Party which will win in the ChamberD, it is this Republican Party that must now be called a party of the far right”, she adds. For Sylvie Laurent, the appearance of new personalities in this movement shows that “the far right is in the process of structuring itself beyond the personality of Donald Trump”.

Sylvie Laurent: “The far right is in the process of structuring itself beyond the personality of Trump” #le7930inter pic.twitter.com/0UVmi52iFd

– France Inter (@franceinter) November 9, 2022