2024 is the Breakthrough Year for National Populism Worldwide

There's No Going Back

As the year draws to a close and the memories of 2024 begin to fade, I think people can lose sight of just how monumental this year was to the national populist movement. Looking back on the year that was, I want to look at the groundbreaking elections, the continued momentum, and the policymakers who advanced the national populist movement this year.

There’s no guarantee that 2025 will bring the same level of success; politics is not a science and is barely an art. Yet, it looks like, as of right now, there’s no going back after this year.

Election Earthquakes

United States

I obviously have to start with the most consequential election of them all. Donald Trump is just weeks away from being the 47th President, and JD Vance the 50th Vice President. It is one of the most storied comebacks in political history.

The Donald Trump of 2024 is not the same man who ran for office in 2016; his message was far less populist. He supported increasing legal immigration, said he no longer wanted to ban TikTok despite allegations that it’s being used to spy on Americans, and had eased his positions on several other formerly populist positions. Readers shouldn’t assume that the man who lives in their heads is the same one who will walk into the Oval Office. Nonetheless, he still won the presidency on mass deportations, abolishing birthright citizenship for illegal aliens, tariffs, and making our allies pay their fair share.

If you’re a day-one Trump supporter like me, you were probably disappointed by what happened during the first term. We didn’t get many things we wanted; granted, he had obstacles that made it more difficult than it should have been for him. That being said, most of the people working to stop him in the first term are gone now, and hopefully, he’s more capable of hiring a better team. It sure looked that way on the campaign.

Trump has a political mandate to serve his voters and deliver them the policy goals he described throughout the campaign; most he can do without Congress. Luckily, he has a Vice President who will work with him to achieve his campaign promises instead of fighting against him. There’s a lot to do, and without the prospect of running for re-election, this era-defying term may be the last chance the United States has to have genuine transformational reforms on several of these issues, especially on immigration. Joe Biden let millions of people into this country; the longer they stay, the harder it will be to remove them.

Most importantly, this happened in America, the most consequential country on Earth. What happens here will matter everywhere, among friends and adversaries alike.

Hopefully, a successful term in office can inspire more people to move to national populist parties and candidates or force the rest of the world to change because the U.S. will stop becoming the world’s policeman and welfare state. Unlike any other politician in my lifetime, Trump may be able to do more than any other person to help promote nations protecting their statehood, border, language, and culture.

The future of the United States and Western Civilization is on the line.