Donald Trump has won the White House for a second term. Some people are ecstatic, some don’t care, and some believe that it’s evidence of an impending apocalypse. No matter how you feel about the former president’s landslide victory, it’s impossible to ignore the obvious: conservatives are making a comeback. After decades of progressive domination, the right has found a winning strategy: nationalism.
The conservatives’ nationalist message focuses around a central tactic: capitalizing on immigration concerns. Rising immigrant numbers often provide economic uncertainty and lifestyle changes for citizens. Conservatives have been able to accumulate significant backing by tapping into this uncertainty and transforming the fear into a call for action that includes casting away anything or anyone foreign, uncertain, or uninvited.
The success of this strategy has been seen multiple times: Trump’s nationalistic rhetoric, displayed in his economic plans and strict border policy, helped him gain substantial popularity among voters. Exit polls by NBC show the pivotal role Trump’s immigration and economic policies played in his November victory. When asked which candidate they favored, Trump held a 7% lead with voters on the economy and a 9% lead on immigration. These same polls also found nearly half of voters (44%) ranked either the economy or immigration as the single most important issue for them in choosing a candidate to support.
Trump’s promises of mass deportations, a closed border, and high tariffs rallied voters around his nationalist message. But this trend is not isolated to the United States. Immigration concerns are leading to an increase in nationalist sentiments across the world. In the wake of high immigration levels, progressive leadership in Canada failed to hold on to power. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently announced his resignation in response to significant backlash on his lax border policies and the economic ruin those policies have contributed to. Over the course of his nine-year term, Trudeau’s disapproval rating skyrocketed from 39% to 74%, according to the Angus Reid Institute.
Another example of immigration-induced nationalism shaping the political landscape is Austria, where growing xenophobic rhetoric has provoked a surge of support for extreme conservatism. The far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) has an opportunity to lead the Austrian government for the first time since World War II. Garnering 29.2% of the national vote in the September 2024 Parliamentary Election, the Freedom Party rose to power by feeding on frustration with inflation and exploiting anti-immigration sentiment. The party, founded by Nazis, has repeatedly called for a more “homogenous” society, claiming foreigners are “uninvited” and should leave Austria. Such hateful rhetoric would never have been effective a decade ago, but with immigration rising across Europe, it is now perfectly timed.
A growing rhetoric centered around nationalist unity and concerns of rising immigration has paved the way for a global surge in conservatism. And while I think this rhetoric is often taken to hateful extremes—such as in Austria—conservatives are tapping into a genuine common concern among voters. At a time when many voters feel progressives have failed to keep their best interests at heart, nationalism is helping the conservatives make a recovery.
